(Oops.  Computer glitch on my part.  This was meant to be posted last night)

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“We’re sorry, Mr. Hector, but all the seats on your flight are full.” 

Eh, whadda ya gonna do?  No big deal…it’s not like Japan’s the worst place to be stuck I thought as soon as the All Nippon lady said this. 

“So if it’s alright with you,” AN lady continued, “we’re going to have to put you up in Business Class.” 

Extra leg room, first class food, free booze?  I suppose I’ll manage. 

And so began my trip to Hong Kong.  

Call me ignorant, but in my mind Japan to Hong Kong would be nothing more than a quick puddle jump.  Turns out it’s a 5+ hour flight…more like LA to NYC than a puddle jump.  Who knew? Well, besides the Japanese and Hong Kongers. 

See that mound o’ rice?  That’s how I spent the last yen coins I had in my pocket.  It was good, but I wish I’d had enough for a ‘breakfast set’.  The “set” is one of my favorite Japanese terms.  In reality it seems to basically be the equivalent of a Happy meal combo, but “set” just sounds like it means business.  Like you better roll up the sleeves, perch your ‘bows on the table and get to work grinding out that meal.   

Unfortunately, the coins I had remaining were only mound-worthy, not set-worthy. 

Another thing I’m a big fan of?  That airport moment when you’re leaving a country and you have to Showcase Showdown it, trying to buy something without going over your remainint currency.  I also knocked out my SF Diana’s good deed for the day in the airport by helping a young American kid behind me score a water.  When his mom joined us, I hoped she saw it that way and not as some strange guy in the Narita Airport perving up on her 10 year old boy.

This good deed thing is trickier than it looks. 

Hong Kong.  Macau.  Kowloon. Now there are some banner names.  Names that conjure up the exotic and mysterious.  Places I’ll be checking out the next couple days.  Doesn’t this trunk look like it could have come from one of those places? 

It might have.  It’s the one with my father’s passports and other mementoes that was sitting in our garage all those years. I haven’t made it to the casinos on Macau yet, so have no gambling updates for you, but let me do this. 

I want to even things out for my mom.  In a post the other day I razzed my mom about having possibly, maybe, conceivably been considering marrying another man right before she met my father.  Well, it seems Hector Senior might have had an unfulfilled engagement or two on his resume as well.  When I was just in Mexico last week (last week?!?!  It seems like a year ago), I was told a story about this girl named Alicia.  He was about 20-something when they got engaged, and immediately she had some honeymoon  luggage embroidered with her new married name, Alicia del Prado.  Alas, Alicia del Prado never came to be.  The old man had a last minute change of heart (I unda’stand) and off he went to work for Time-Life International.  Good for me.  Bad for Alicia. Lest you think he was cad-like, apparently none of the multiple ex-girlfriends remained mad for long.  He was a bit of charmer.  There was even the one woman who for years afterwards would visit his mother on a regular basis.  Her only regret in life she told my grandmother was that  she never had a child with Hector.  How’s that for praise?  You really have to be bringing your A-game to get the, I wish your son had knocked me up, line. 

First order of business when I hit the ground in Hong Kong? 

Buy a belt.  The Steelers-imposed semi-fast has quickly taken a couple LBs off the waistline.  I look like a fool.  One hand on my map.  One holding up my pants. 

Second order? 

Not a clue. 

Just how I like it.