Hong Kong Airport: Crystal Jade – La Mian for the early bird

On the plane to Hong Kong, I was sitting next to a lady from Hong Kong. She was traveling with her family, and she told me, that they were on their way to a skiing resort outside Seoul. They used to go skiing in Sapporo in Japan, but she explained that in recent years it has become very expensive, and you would have to book your stay a very long time in advance.

Therefore, they had decided to go skiing in Korea instead. She thought I was Korean, so she wanted to ask me, if I knew about the opening hours during Seollal at Lotte World, which is a big amusement park in Seoul. I couldn’t help her with that one, but instead we started talking about what it’s like to be adopted. It turned out that she had adopted a little boy, and she wanted my advice on when it’s the best time to explain to him, that he wasn’t her biological son.

My parents have always been open with the whole adoption thing. Since we don’t look like each other, keeping it a secret was never really an option. They’ve always done their best to tell my sister and I how much they wanted to have kids, and my grandma used to tell us this bedtime story about how we came to Denmark in a huge airplane, and how happy they were to see us. I think it was a very nice way to handle it.

In Hong Kong I had a couple of hours waiting time before my flight to Seoul, but the airport in Hong Kong is not a bad place for killing time. On the land side, there’s a branch of Crystal jade, which is a really nice Chinese Restaurant. Their xiao long bao (soup dumplings) are just as good as the ones you’ll find at Din Tai Fung, but they only serve them later during the day, not for breakfast. Instead I had la mian with spicy peanut sauce, which is also very delicious. It was actually my second time to have la mian with spicy peanut sauce at Crystal Jade, because when I was in Hong Kong back in 2015, I arrived with a really early flight, so I went to Crystal Jade to wait for AC. La mian is like Japanese ramen and at Crystal Jade, they are made in-house and cooked to bouncy perfection. If you have a couple of hours in Hong Kong Airport stopping by for a bowl of la mian at Crystal Jade is not a bad idea.

PS: I didn’t use to be someone who talks to strangers on a plane. In fact, I was the kind of person who would hurry to plug in my earphones, and then pretend she is asleep. Though it has changed the last couple of years, and I’ll even strike up a conversation myself, if the person next to me doesn’t look too hostile.

How social are you on a plane? Do you enjoy chatting with your fellow passengers?