Off to Asia I go again, but this time with a stop over in Korea to check out Seoul and then onto Hong Kong and Shantou in the Mainland for a friend's wedding in Shantou.
An early start to the morning where unfortunately had to stop by a United counter to get my Asiana boarding pass since OLCI for the LAX-ICN segment didn't work. I had to wait for a large family to check-in, in retrospect I should have walked over to the Polaris desks, but didn't think this party would take that long.
Soon enough I was checked in and quickly through Clear and up to the Centurion lounge to grab a quick breakfast before heading to my gate.
A nice and usual selection of options that the Centurion lounges tend to have.
I kept it simple with the frittata, potatoes and coffee.
Then downstairs and to my gate in the old Terminal E section.
Boarding had already commenced and I walked straight on.
The haze was thick from the incredibly sad Camp fires.
Boarding completed quickly and we were able to push back to be on our way.
Red sun rising.
We taxied to 1R, but had to wait for 10 minutes before we could takeoff.
Soon enough it was our turn and on the right side of the plane had a spectacular view of the sun through the haze.
As we turned over San Francisco, it was easier to see how thick the smoke was below.
Then as we were flying over the Ventura area, could see a few smaller fires that seemed to be under control.
Could see where the fire retardant was dropped.
We began our descent into LAX.
And shockingly the air quality looked really good over LA despite the fires in the Camarillo area.
Got it again, the In-n-Out on arrival!
Touchdown and the long, long taxi to our gate.
The lady sitting next to me had flown up the day or so before from LA to SF and showed and sent me these pictures she took, so sad for the people affected by the fires.
It was sad to talk about the impact the fires had, but we wish everyone the best who was impacted. It was soon time to disembark and make my way to TBIT to meet up with a friend and check out the Star Alliance lounges before our flight to Seoul. Check out the next section.
Trip links:
- Seoul
- Shantou
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