WE MADE IT TO BANGKOK

The day started at the United Club with Bloody Marys and breakfast. The Asiana plane arrived an hour late, causing a lot of worry because our connecting flight in Incheon was only a little more than an hour after our arrival.

Noticed that only a few wore a mask in the waiting area.

The flight itself was filled and fabulous, beginning with a goodbye to Honolulu.

Not having flown in almost three years, I kind of overdid it with too much to drink and three films, starting with champagne.

With the appetizer I had a sherry on rocks and Cass Beer.

There was a snack, then a second meal, with a lot to drink, although one of the dishes was a Korean shrimp something, which I had to return.

Not having gone to any movie theater during the pandemic, there was a plethora of good films to watch.

So I selected Top Gun: Maverick, Elvis and Jurassic Park Kingdom.

Top Gun Maverick, Rotten Tomatoes 96/99, with Tom Cruise and a bunch of returnees. 2 hr 11 minute of fun and action.

Elvis, RT 77/94, directed by Baz Luhrmann, with Austin Butler and Tom Hanks. 2 hr 39 min. I sided with the audience. The soundtrack was fabulous, and in some ways, Butler's impersonations were better that of The King himself. What to me was particularly memorable was the stand he had at The International Hotel in Las Vegas, for I was there in the front table when Sammy Davis Jr and his entourage was just behind me in a booth. This particular sequence became an earlier documentary, That's the Way It Is, RT 92/93. If you look closely, might see me.
Jurassic World Dominion, RT 29/77. Yes, it was a weak film, but a worthwhile 2 hr 27 min effort. Amazing special effects.

More than seven hours of intense viewing on our first leg was debilitating, especially when you add all those drinks. Afraid to name a number.

Most important of all (next to no crashes) was that we made the connecting flight Bangkok on an Airbus380. We were saved by a helpful tail wind.

We had to wait half an hour in our seats for the pilot to several times announce, they were waiting for late-arriving luggage, which was good news for us, as they included ours, and maybe only ours. However, I was wiped out, so only had a meager meal and slept.

We got to Bangkok in 6 hours, landing at 11PM. Caught the airport limousine service for $30 to the Sheraton Grand Sukhamvit, which was overbooked. But they let us in.

The APEC meeting is a big deal, and a good number of sessions must be in this hotel, so that the entrance beginning today is just like at an airport, except there must also be a dozen policemen at the entrance. We finally went to sleep at 2AM and amazingly enough, woke up at 9AM refreshed. Breakfast was the expected terrific.

Tonight we had made a reservation at Red Sky, a rooftop restaurant. However, the forecast is rain, so we cancelled, and instead will have our free executive club drinks and probably go to Rossini's, an excellent Italian restaurant. Otherwise we have nothing planned until we leave for Dubai on Wednesday.

I remember getting 37 Thai Baht per U.S. dollar the last time I was here, so our money weakened in the interim.

APEC 22, their 29th summit, starts the day after I leave here, November 18. President Jinping Xi is expected to participate. What is APEC? The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation with a membership pf 21 countries. Veep Kamala Harris will represent the USA, which will host next year. Interestingly, both China and Taiwan belong, plus Hong Kong.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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