Hong Kong
Fog/clouds were a tad lighter this morning before heading to the airport, so finally got a bit more of that view that the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong is famous for. Then it was through the mall (getting easier!) and to the airport via the MTR Airport Express, which is a wonderfully efficient way vs. many other cities.
With a bit of time to explore, ended up at King Bakery by gate 28 for breakfast. Their Hong Kong milk tea and dan tat are the epitome of ordinary, but the dan tat was a very useful contrast to yesterday's ridiculousness at Butterfly Patisserie. Today's dan tat was firm, a thin crumb traditional crust, and much less rich. As noted, the same thing as yesterday yet still totally different; an ordinary dan tat evokes memories of trays and trays of them hot from the oven, not at all like yesterday's decadence.
United apparently likes to use random gates, so ended up running all the way to gate 6(ish) from gate 28 to board. Maybe that's because the Singapore Air SilverKris Lounge is now near gate 5? Did not have time to figure it out, although did have juuuust enough time to take in the view of the SkyBridge that connects to the Terminal 1 Satellite Concourse 1 behind the airplane. Someday will have to check out the SkyBridge, but not today-- instead had to make it through the mess that was boarding.
Once onboard, things were pretty smooth as usual. The rain and clouds lead to some very aviation-appropriate backdrops before departure, both with and without the SkyBridge, which continued on the climb out of Hong Kong International Airport. Went with the shrimp and rice, which was not great, but still better than the chicken and rice on the outbound. The pre-arrival meal nearly 11 hours later was a shrimp congee, which would have been good had the shrimp not been overcooked.
Still, with an early(ish) morning arrival into Los Angeles, it did the job. Got to enjoy a few more views of clouds on final approach to LAX, then was time to call it an end to a successful trip and head into the office.