the final transport segment

At the Metropolitan, we had these cute twin beds that were pushed together so that they were separate, but not really. I turned the air on to high and was soon fast asleep. Gill said she slept well, but she was really clumsy in the bathroom and rocketed me out of bed when she dropped something on the floor. We had already pre-drooled over the breakfast menu, so once dressed we went down for Eggs Benedict and shared a zucchini rosti; vegetable are important, even for breakfast. 

We lingered through a couple mugs of tea and coffee and then we went for a brisk walk around then area. We stopped in a couple of shops, mainly for curiosity and not for real purpose.

Then we were off to the airport, first a taxi to Victoria Station, then a train to Gatwick. We somehow managed to get on the train without a ticket, and this made

Gill nervous so she went off to get us one. She had a difficult time explaining she needed someone to let her out so she could buy 2 tickets, but she finally managed. Check in was a piece of cake and then we went and found the lounge, which turned it to be lovely. Gill got a pedicure and I got a manicure.

Finally, we were off to Istanbul, this was about a 4 hour flight, and it went pretty quick. They had a lady dressed up as a chef working in business class and she and the other lady were very friendly. We had green beans and assorted Turkish appetizers, and Gill had meat patties with tomato bulgar wheat and I had artichokes with ravioli - both extremely tasty. For the rest of the flight, we read magazines, played games on our iPads or watched TV - that was me I watched 5 episodes of Raising Hope. One of the gals really wanted us to try Turkish wine 'because more people should drink it' and it turned out to be really nice.

Then we were in Istanbul, which required we go back through security. Now, it was

10 pm and the airport was packed - I mean packed. We wandered around looking at the shops and then headed to the lounge, which was nicer than the last one.  

There were several food stations. We had this long flat filled bread with meat, cheese or vegetable cut up into slices, salads, chicken and beef and a few dessert. Once it turned midnight, we watched them turn everything over for breakfast. I did wonder what happened to all of that great food.

Finally, it was time for us to board and we headed downstairs and onto a bus. Some poor guy was having a hard time and they were going to telling him he couldn't board and they also wouldn't let him talk to a supervisor. It's wonder how he'd come as far as he did.

We were on a nice 767 and we got everything all sorted into position and started to contemplate the next 9+ hours.  

Once we took off, I reclined my seat which took some doing because the motor kept stopping, but I eventually got it right, I put in my headphones and lowered my eye mask. Then I w...a....s asleeeeeeeeep. I woke about between 6 to 7 hours later and Gill was being busy, but she said she had some sleep and I believed her.

With my last hours, I talked to Gill, stared at the big plane moving painfully slow on the little earth and I ate scrambled eggs, cheese, fruits and olives with fresh bread for breakfast and then we were here; it was about 5pm the following day from when we had started.  

The airport was fairly efficient and our bags came right out. We hadn't made much of a plan, but in the end decided to take the fast train into town. The only difficulty here was the fact that USAA wouldn't let me get money out, but thankfully my British bank was not so fussy. They didn't even answer the phone when I called, which resulted in a heavy sigh.

The train took about 20 minutes and was extremely efficient - they even had free wifi that even worked when we were traveling under the bay. I used this great feature to tell USAA I was in Hong Kong, but I will have to see if that does the trick tomorrow. We did a bit of wandering around to decide which exit to take out, but then pretty much walked right to the hotel, who acted as if they had been waiting for us all day.

Unpacked and cleaned up, we headed to the 25th floor for a cocktail and a snack. While we were waiting for our food, they gave us snacks which were fried peanuts and marinated olives and peppers. The fried peanuts were delicious and were fried with chilies. There was this little round almost like a peppercorn things in there. The first one I ate was very astringent, but the second one made my whole mouth and throat go completely numb - like at the dentist. This was sort of alarming, so I stopped eating them; Gill had the same experience.  

We had grapefruit, pomegranate and mint drink concoctions with fish cakes, chicken satay and samosas with mint sauce. It was all good, but the samosas were incredible; I could have eaten like 10 more.

We made a rough plan for the next day and then we headed downstairs for a sleep. I tried to work on my blog, but noticed that I was just inserting question marks, so I decided to go to sleep.