24-26 July: From Harlingen to Singapore

The return flight route was "extended" as we inserted the trip to Brownsville to visit the UTRGV after the flying plan between Singapore ans Austin was confirmed.

Hence, the journey looked like this:

Harlingen > Houston (transit) > Austin* > Los Angeles (transit) > Hong Kong (transit) > Singapore

Part 1: Harlingen > Houston

We left the hotel at 3.30 am, slightly more than 1.5 hour before departure time. Reason being, it's a small airport with very few flights, and therefore the processing time would be quite hassle free and fast. 

Quite interestingly, I was able to record the speed of the flight from Harlingen to Houston using Speedbox. These are the screenshots from the application:

• When the plane cruising 
• When the plane started descending
• When the plane landed and moving on the ground

Note: No luck for subsequent flights - the app was unable to record any data. 

This creates an opportunity for some mathematical question 😅

Houston (early hours, from the air)

 Part 2: Houston > Austin

In fact, in Houston, we took the sky train to another terminal - we reached the departure gate before the Austin plane arrived.

 Part 3: Austin > Los Angeles

In fact, we arrived Austin in the morning. Though we checked in and received the boarding pass, we were unable to check-in our luggage until 4 hours before departure time.

As such, we had to stay at the Departure Hall... and time passed slowly....

Well, luckily, I have a set of homework to help pass the time more productively...

At last... by 3 pm, we checked in our luggage and had a proper lunch at Salt Lick, a popular eating place known for its grilled beef...

The setting at "Salt Lick" is good - each seat came with charging station!

A rich serving of the 2-Meat Platter, with brisket and pull-pork... yummy nice... I like the brisket, in particular.

At last, after a 9 hour 52 minutes wait... we were leaving Austin....

 Part 4: Los Angeles > Hong Kong

Los Angeles is another 2 hours behind Austin's time.
In other words, we were then 15 hours behind Singapore time!

Arriving in LA airport, though it's already evening, the feeling was... we are back to civilisation! OK, it should be "modern civilisation"!

Though the transit time was slightly more than 5 hours, time passed quickly, when we could now shop for some souvenirs and goodies to bring home... of course, a significant amount of time was spent on addressing to some work matters that caught up with us when we landed.

At last... crossing the international time line when we are back to "Present" though the flight lasted for 14 hours 15 minutes.

 Part 5 (Finally): Hong Kong > Singapore

Arrived Hong Kong at around 6 am ... Business for most of the shops not started yet... probably after 7.30 am. So, no shopping, but eagerly waiting to fly home...

This is the last part of the journey... eventually back to present.
 

Home, at last.

In actual fact... the shortest distance is ...