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!

I am going to Australia

I left Australia on 2 April 2008 and haven't been back since. Haven't seen my mates or my dad since then and it is almost 2 years.

This Friday morning I fly out to Australia for a visit of three and a half weeks.  I am really looking forward to it, especially as it is starting to get really cold here in London.

I have composed a shopping list of all the things I need to bring back from Australia for my friends. Requests range from Tim Tams to Band Aids.

I am getting really excited! It will be interesting going "home" for a "holiday".

How to cope with long-haul flights

I am getting ready to fly to Australia next week.

To get ready for the 24-hour-each-way-average-journey I have been thinking about the things I like to to do to cope with long-haul-flights.

I decided to vlog it in a video:



You might have to turn the sound right up, as unfortunately it comes through quite quiet.

Budapest and the Sziget Festival in August

If you know me well you know that I like to go to a music festival or two. I decided that in the northern hemisphere summer of 2009 I would go to one in Europe. The choice is vast, there is at least one on every weekend of the summer in one country or another. I decided I would venture to Hungary for the first time and go to the Sziget Festival in August.

It was a great decision. Hungary is still a relatively cheap country, and is not in the Eurozone, meaning that I didn’t get raped by the currently tragic Pound-to-Euro exchange rate.  Apart from that, it was also a huge festival in a beautiful city.

The festival was on an island on the River Danube in suburban Budapest.  You could come and go as you liked, so when there weren’t any bands you wanted to watch, you could go to one of the nicest cities in Europe to go sightseeing.

The line-up was vast, but I managed to catch these acts:

Wednesday: Snow Patrol, Lily Allen

Thursday: Ting Tings, Bloc Party, Fatboy Slim

Friday:  Jet, Primal Scream, Pendulum, Prodigy

Saturday: Placebo

Sunday: Maximo Park, The Offspring, Faith No More, Turbonegro

It was a tiring 5 days!

I had gone semi-alone.  None of my friends in London were able to come along, so I found a tour company offering to do it as a package tour. Wasn’t much of a tour, more like a handful of people, most of whom had never met before, all going for a week of fun.  It was a small group but a great crew to spend the week with, although my liver needed some rest by the end!

The festival itself was the most organised event I had ever been to. The island has everything you could possibly need, from hot showers to internet cafes to convenience stores, and of course many, many bars (serving cold pints of beer for about £1.50 a pop).

And as for Budapest, quite a beautiful city. Perched upon the Danube, with plenty of fine European architecture – it provided a great setting for some river cruising and riverside pubbing.

Flashback to the Rocky Mountains

I spent another evening in Windows Movie Maker last night. I complied some footage I took on my train from Vancouver to Edmonton, the first leg of my train journey across Canada last year.

This was the result:



For more detail on the overall journey, check out the older blog posts from April 2008.

Video killed the blog star

I have long been thinking about doing some vlogging instead of (or as well as) blogging my travels, and creating little videos of some of the places I visit. The problem is I can never be bothered filming any commentary whilst on location.

But I decided to have a bit of a go anyway, and created a short video based on some snippets of footage I took last winter while I was in Helsinki.

This is the product:



My first ever YouTube upload!

I hope to create some more video files either about my future or other past travels.

Bonfire Night in Birmingham

It is the 5th of November. And I am in England. That means it is Guy Fawkes Night.  To quote Wikipedia, it "marks the downfall of the Gunpowder Plot of 5 November 1605, in which a number of Catholic conspirators, including Guy Fawkes, attempted to destroy the Houses of Parliament."

Strange thing to celebrate for over 400 years, but it is an excuse to light massive fires and set off fireworks - everywhere - so why not?

My first year in England was in 2006 and as daylight savings ended and November 5th approached, fireworks were being let off all over the place in outer North London suburbia where I was living. Firwroks aren't illegal here, and you can buy them at the supermarket.  I didn't understand the fireworks craze at the time, but it all culminated on Guy Fawkes night, when my friends took me to "Ally Pally" (Alexandra Park, which has a palace in the middle of it) to see one of London's largest fireworks displays. I liked the tradition of rugging up and seeing the festivities.

My second Autumn in London, last year, I was living in Clapham. Friends and I headed down to Clapham Common to see the fireworks but missed it due to a timing issue. The crowds on the High Street were an experience in themselves though.

This year I am living in inner London Rotherhithe, right near a large park called Southwark Park. So I was looking forward to seeing the big fireworks display there. But I ended up having to go to Birmingham for a business meeting in the afternoon, and by the time I got back to London it was all over. Though I did get to see quite a few massive bonfires by the train tracks on the way back to London.

Walking home from Bermondsey station, I had never seen so many people in the area. Bonfire night really does bring out the people. I noticed how mild the weather is this year. The previous two years I had been very rugged up for the freezing conditions outside this time of the year - and that's how I know November in London is already bloody cold. But it's not too cold at all this year. Not that I'm complaining.

I look forward to catching one of  the fireworks displays on Saturday night instead, although as I write this, I can hear constant fireworks outside, from people exploding their supermarket fireworks....as they probably will well into the night.