Today I flew from Honolulu to Los Angeles, the City of Angels. I’d rather say something like Sin City… I left Paradise and landed in a not so friendly city. I don’t like L.A. very much. It is just a two hours drive from San Diego, but the people here are terrible. Maybe it’s because the city is so gigantic. I could have taken a commuter plane between Los Angeles and San Diego, but it would have cost more than 200 Euros just to fly 140 miles… Way to expensive. Moreover, my plane was delayed in Hawaii, so I would have missed the connection anyway. So here I am, stuck for one night in an airport hotel (SAS Radisson). But let’s go back in time, a few hours ago: I’ll tell you what happened during this epic journey.
I woke up early and had breakfast with Bosley the plush gorilla.
At 9.45 AM, I was waiting for the airport shuttle in the lobby, and I was reading my emails in the meantime. Then I saw a message from Delta, announcing me that my flight was delayed (80 minutes…). So I immediately postponed my departure: I would take the next shuttle at 10.45 AM. I had one more hour to spend on the Waikiki beach. Here are some pictures of my sunny Tuesday morning.
On my way to the airport, I saw some car dealers advertising a 46% discount on Hummer SUV’s!! This car is very expensive and literally eats gallons of gas (conversion in European units: 25 liters per 100 km… Not eco-friendly). People here in the US have now difficulties obtaining a loan, so these big expensive cars mostly remain in the showrooms or go on sale… I wish we could buy cars with a 46% discount in Belgium…
The check-in in Honolulu was extremely quick. I am a Delta frequent flyer so I have the Elite silver status. This allows me to check-in with the first class, even though I fly economy (a.k.a. the “cattle” cabin), and I can also bypass the queue for the safety check, which is always very long! That’s really cool because I don’t waste my time waiting in those endless queues.
Honolulu airport is very nice: it’s open-air and there are Chinese gardens next to the duty-free shops.
I have seen many Japanese B 747 on the tarmac.
The flight between Honolulu and Los Angeles (LAX airport) took about 5.5 hours, in a B 767-300, a rather short flight.
They were selling food onboard. I thought I would receive a meal onboard, so I didn’t eat anything at the airport. I was dreaming of a culinary feast onboard the airplane, so I was rather disappointed this time… However, I received three little peanut bags for free!
The view during take-off was cool: we flew close to the Waikiki coast. Sorry guys, no pictures. I was filming during take-off, so you’ll see my little movie when I get back. And I took a picture of the sunset 37000 feet above the ocean.
Landing in Los Angeles is nice, the city is so large that you see lots of tiny lights everywhere. It’s like an ocean of lights.
I slept at the SAS Radisson airport hotel. I arrived there at 11.30 PM. Quite late. I was extremely hungry so I had to order room service (the restaurant was closed at that time). I normally don’t do that, but the tiny expensive sandwich I bought in the airplane wasn’t enough for me… Here a picture of my chickem quesadilla, a Mexican entree.
