New York New York

Paul's first flight to New York, yay no more Bahrain!!! I was lucky enough to get leave and go with him, it was a mad trip, 16 hours flying time there, 30hours in NY and then 16 hours flying back to HK again. So yes we spent more time on the plane than in NY but it was completely worth it. We stayed at the Brooklyn Marriot so our first stop was the famous Juniors restaurant known for the best cheesecake in the world and that it sure is, although my cheesecake comes a close second. It gave us the energy we needed to hit Manhattan

Central park was beautiful in all its glorious Autumn Colours, we hugged trees and chased squirrels, not sure if the tree liked Paul's hug much.

Times Square was bustling with activity as it was the day before Thanksgiving, unfortunately we are missing out on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade which was to take place the next day. Macy's was beautifully decorated for Christmas as usual and just crazy with shoppers, bit hectic for us given we were running on fumes as our bodies just wanted to sleep.

We packed in a lot of sights during the day, unfortunately the Visibility from the Empire States Building was zero so we skipped that but we walked the city flat and then had a delicious meal at Little Italy, after a botte of red wine we were finished and were asleep on our feet.

Our Trip To Seattle and Boeing

Our First stop in Seattle was the Museum of Flight, an awesome trip in time, of course Paul absolutely loved it, its a pilot's candy store. We saw replica's of the Wright brothers first flying machines right up to the first 747 and concorde.



This building was the original Boeing Factory, inside you can see the tools that were used way back when to build aeroplanes.

The first 767 Airforce 1 aircraft is on display and has not been changed at all, inside you can see exactly how the presidents used to fly.

Next stop was downtown Seattle, as you know that is a picture of the famous Gray's Anatomy Ferry that you see in the program. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and quite warm for late October. We headed for Pikes Market Place, where you can buy fresh fruit and veg, it is also famous for fresh fish throwing at the fish deli's. Paul was trying to bite into the hanging fresh chillis.

We shopped around and enjoyed fish and chips for lunch and headed for a Cafe Mocha at the first original Starbucks Store. The coffee was good.

We were treated by Boeing to Box seats at a Seattle Mariner's Basketball match, it was a friendly warm up game to start off the season against the California Warriors. We've never seen a live game so it was super fun, especially having all the great food and drinks to go with it.



The next day we went for our exciting VIP tour around the Boeing factory, it was pouring with rain and freezing cold, but that didn't worry us. Unfortunately there are no cameras aloud into the factory so there are just a few photos of the outside. The factory is unbelievable, over 1million light bulbs light up the place and its area extends over and above 40 football fields long and wide. Luckily we were wizzed around in golf carts otherwise it would of been a couple of kilometers to walk. The DreamLifter in the photo below is the modified 747 that carries parts for Boeing's latest creation the 787 Dreamliner which we saw is in the process of being built.

That same evening Boeing treated us to a fantastic dinner, celebrating the Delivery of Cathay Pacific's second Boeing 777ER aircraft. There was a wine tasting to start and fancy dinner followed, we were all given a gift from Boeing. It was truly a superb evening. The photo of the Boys are the four Pilots binging the 777 home to HK

The Delivery Day has come, we arrived at the Boeing Delivery centre which is amazing, there are only beautiful brand new aeroplanes on the flight line, the 777 looked amazing, she had a red ribbons and a red carpet at the bottom of the stairs, fit for a queen. The size of the engines are unreal as you can see in photos. You can actually stand in them and still have plenty of room to spare.



My boarding card read Everett (Boeing's town) to Hong Kong, won't ever do this again so I think I'll keep that as a souvinier. There were only 27 passengers on board this special flight, mostly jounalists and VIP's and then the Captain's wife and me.

This is the inside of the 777, the first picture is of the new buisness class and the second is economy



Lounging around in first class is not half bad either for a fair price I'm sure.

The Boeing Flight Line