London to Singapore

This year I went to Asia for the first time.

Having lived most of my life in Australia, it was a bit of a shame having never visited South-east Asia at all.But 2011 was the year this would be fixed! (Even though I now live in England.)

Over the next few blog posts I will write about my trip two-and-a-half-week trip which included Singapore, Langkawi, Bangkok and Phuket.

I left for Heathrow airport after work on a Monday night in mid-October. This was great, because that is what, inherently, one day work weeks are.

I boarded my first Airbus A380. I was impressed with the Singapore Airlines A380: I thought it was significantly more spacious than the Boeing 747's I'm used to doing long-haul flights on.

Apart from one of the flight attendants having a little bit of attitude, the service was also great, from the food to the in-flight-entertainment.

Singapore Airlines Economy Class on the Airbus A380

I landed in Singapore and met up with my friend who lives there.  We caught the MRT back to her condo where I freshened up, and then we headed out.

My highlight of my first night in Singapore was definitely going to the New Asia Bar, which is a bar high up on the 71st floor of the Swissotel tower in central Singapore.  Certainly the highest bar I've ever had a drinks at!

View from the New Asia Bar

The next instalment will cover the side-trip from Singapore to Langkawi in Malaysia.

New Years Eve in Australia and Return to England

My last posts were at the end of December from Melbourne, Australia.

I celebrated new years eve with three of my closest friends. The day was hot. Really hot. My parents went to the beach and it was going to be one of my last chances to spend the day with them, so I went to the beach too. After the beach I came home, had a quick shower and was picked up by one of my mates. We stopped by the bottle-o (Aussie for liquor store / off licence), picked up some beers, ice and a bottle of Jäger. We went to a friend's house and drank in the comfort of his air conditioning and then some more in his back yard as the heat eased off.  As it was time to head out, the cold front came through, the temperature dropped noticeably within seconds and it started pouring.

We were thinking of spending the evening in a lively inner beach-side part of the city but the rain kind of drowned that idea. We made it into the city where we were unable to get in anywhere and were getting wetter by the minute. The fireworks started exploding all around, and we sheltered under a bridge and watched them light up the rainy sky over the Yarra River.  We decided,  then, that we would seek shelter and booze in Crown Casino.

Reflecting on the evening, it was great to spend it with close friends. They are great guys and I missed them while I was away. But overall we ended up doing the same old thing in the same old places. During some of my visit I had doubts about why I am still in cold dark England when I could be living life on the beach in Australia. But I now realised that if I were to settle in back in Australia, live life there, not just a holiday, that the monotony would soon get to me and really, I'm not ready for that just yet. Adventures still await in the Northern Hemisphere.

So a few days later I was feeling fine about leaving the sun and the sea, and boarding a London-bound jet.

My flight departed in the middle of the night, and I had a good sleep on my way to Malaysia. We landed in KL while it was still dark, and I spent the morning in a lounge there. It was a five hour stopover and it was nice to be able to have a  shower and a free feed.  But then came the longer part of the flight, the 13 hours back to London. It did give me a chance to watch about 5 movies and some TV shows. Video on demand really does make flights go faster these days!

I landed in London and it was indeed cold. In fact I had just gotten there in time for the "big freeze". In the long passport control queue I picked up an Evening Standard and saw an article predicting snow and lots of it. Its prediction  was accurate. The next morning I woke up before dawn, looked outside my bedroom window and saw London covered with snow. It continued like this for about two weeks, until just a few days ago. What a contrast! A few days ago I had been on the beach covering up with sunscreen, and a couple of days later I was trekking to work through the snow.

They say variety is the spice of life. It is. And I like my life with a lot of flavour. Change - it makes life interesting. It makes life tasty.

Video of my flight from England to Australia

Further to my recent blog entry, I have made a video blog using some footage I took on my journey from London to Melbourne including getting up to take the tube to the airport, and flying with Malaysia Airlines.

Half way to Australia: Kuala Lumpur

I am writing this sitting at Starbucks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. On am en route from London to Melbourne.  My flight landed in KL at about 7am to a balmy 26 degrees outside. I am enjoying a Frappuccino for breakfast but I am stuck indoors.  The airport is modern and clean. I’m at the “Satellite Terminal” which is a large circular terminal some distance from the main one, connected by airport transit. In the middle of the round Satellite Terminal is a rain forest enclosure but it is closed for renovations. it’s a shame - I would have liked to have got some fresh air out there. It has been a while since I experienced over 25 temperatures….. Not since Malta.

 My flight with Malaysia Airlines has been OK. I had heard good things about the airline but I am a little disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the service per se, but I would expect more from a “5 star airline”. The fit out was ageing, the in-flight entertainment screens were small, they didn't give us any hot towels, the food is served with plastic cutlery (even South African Airways gives you steel) and I had to wait for over 5 minutes with my service light on before someone came and asked me what I wanted (a bottle of water).  Don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining - there are worse situations to be in! But I thought I’d point out that Qantas service is superior. I don’t understand why people bag out Qantas.

Back at Heathrow I tried buying some cheap duty free alcohol to take back to Australia with me. I was delighted to see they had a 2-for-£15 deal which would have got me a 1L bottle of Gin and a 1L bottle of Bacardi. Both drinks my parents like and a pretty sweet deal. But the duty free guys said they wouldn’t sell it to me because apparently Australian customs hasn’t been letting in drinks from the UK!  I was worried that the bottle of Pimms I have in my checked baggage might not survive the baggage handlers but it may not survive Australian customs either!

Anyway, another hour to kill, another attempt to buy duty free liquor and then time to board for Melbourne.

POSTSCRIPT:

1. Between KL and Melbourne there was steel cuttlery.
2. The Malaysian breakfast was interesting. Rice with chicken curry and prawns.
3. Customs didn't have a problem with my liquor from KL but because I also had a bottle of Pimms in my suitcase, I had 3 litres in total. Because the customs limit is 2.25 litres, they wanted to charge me tax on all of the bottles of alcohol, not just the 1 litre I was over! Either that or forfeit them all!! Luckily I managed to get away with it in the end as their computer for calculating tax was broken!