Day One - the all day flight!

We flew Dublin to Hong Kong via London with Aer Lingus and Quantas, departing Dublin at 7:30h local time, connecting with Quantas flight QF30 at 13:20h. Actually as Aer Lingus partner with Quantas, our tickets and bags where checked and allocated straight through to Hong Kong, nice and handy. The flight to China is some 11 hours, stops in Hong Kong then continues onto Melbourne, Australia. We've actually been talking lately about making the trip to oz, if anything, flying Quantas really puts you in the mood!

Unlike lasts years flight with Virgin to Tokyo, this flight was mainly made up of Australian nationals. We had been hoping for the Chinese experience to start the moment we boarded the plane, but no, it was more an Australian feel to the flight and service.

The plane was a Boeing 747-400, yes that does have an upstairs! Back in economy we sat 10 to a row. This plane is massive. We had all the usual features you'd expect, on-demand movies (including lots which aren't out in the cinema back home), tv, radio, games and CDs from our seat. The food service was frequent and fine. We where stuffed with the constant food parcels!

As I'm typing his in flight and with another 4 hours until we land at 7:20h local time, here is some info about Hong Kong. It measures 1103 sq km and is divided into four major areas: Hong Kong Island to the south; Kowloon, a peninsula on the northern side of the harbour (where we are staying); the New Territories to the north connecting the region to mainland China and the Outlying Islands, some 234 of them scattered out into the South China Sea.

As you can tell we've been passing the time on the flight reading up on the city. We can't wait to arrive and will update later on our first impressions of the city.

It's going to be hard to stay awake. We flown throughout the night and will arrive at the start of their Thursday, we'll do our best!