At the end of August, I was thrilled to get to ride along on a delivery flight of a new Cathay Pacific 777 airplane from the Boeing plant in Everett, WA to Hong Kong.

Courtesy Boeing

Unfortunately, my camera busted on the way.

I took a few photos of the take-off festivities and the in-flight activities with my hand-me-down iPhone, but realized that if I was going to properly document my trip, I’d have to buy a good (and probably expensive) replacement camera once I hit the ground. And that was probably going to be my one souvenir.

But it turns out I didn’t need to do that.

In researching the Hong Kong International Airport for a StuckatTheAirport.com feature, I stumbled upon a new Smartphone rental service called HANDY that rents tablet phones that include local and long distance phone calls and 3G internet service for the equivalent of $11 a day.

Better yet, the first day was free if I reserved ahead of time instead of just presenting myself at the airport rental booth.

I’d signed up, thinking it would be ‘handy’ to be able to be able to call home anytime and tweet messages about my tour of the airport.

The phone was as advertised and included a bevy of pre-loaded apps for games, Hong Kong tourist activities and more. But it also had a feature I hadn’t even thought of: it had a great camera.

So I could take a photo of the entrance to the theater that shows IMAX movies at the airport:

IMAX Theater entrance at Hong Kong International Airport

And I could take a photo of the airport shops that sold candy.

Candy store at Hong Kong In’tl Airport

And I could take photos of the snacks at Muji to Go. Even though I had no idea what anything was.

Handy!