Short European Trip - Weds

Recently had a short trip to Europe for training and tried to make the most of it.

Worked the Thursday morning before heading home for an afternoon flight. Taxi arrived right on time. Quite a bit of work going on at the airport with the expansion of the international terminal. Still lots of earthworks to be done and the cabbie told me that the airlines were moving in on Saturday!

Ate my lunch and then visited the polling station for the state election as I'll be out of the country on election day. No real privacy and my name was marked off electronically. Was searching for the ballot box when one of the staff showed me and mentioned, "I would have rugby tackled you." "Well," I replied, "I know taekwondo so that would have been interesting."

 
 Don't forget to vote

Checked in at Qantas - great, my bags are going all the way through to Vienna. Three flights so we'll see. I'll freeze if they don't make it. Border Security posed no issue. Did see some woman using her mobile in that restricted area but nobody said anything to her. Had to do a full body scan and passed - no missing body parts which is an obvious relief. Then, the first bit of work to do - shopping for duty-free cosmetics for the wirfe. And she prepared a bit of a list too. Just glad I took a photo of the list as I left the actual list in my baggage. The shop downstairs only had 2/4 items so I had to go upstairs after taking a look at the public viewing deck. Not a lot of activity plane-wise. Found all the required items but three of them were really expensive.

 
Bit quiet at the airport

Ha - one Indonesian guy left his wallet at the security checkpoint and another guy left his iPad behind. I remember leaving my backpack at the x-ray check in Korea once and just rescued it before it was sent away for destruction.

One of my pet hates emerged at boarding - upon the call to board no attention was paid to the rows being called for. So many people boarded prior to being called which slows down the whole boarding process. Same everywhere you go. Sat next to a young lass, Victoria, from Bolton who'd been in Oz for four months for a working holiday. She's seen more of my country than I have. Interestingly, all four air stewards in our section of the plane are male. Not a female-dominated job anymore.

Surprise, surprise. The entertainment system wasn't working properly as the audio was all jumpy. Same with my travelling companion. Tried swapping headsets. No difference. One of the attendants rebooted the screens. Victoria shared some M&Ms. Yummo.

"This is the best bad idea we have sir. By far." - Argo. Thoroughly enjoyable movie. Glad I had the option of the subtitled version as the audio was stuffed once again for the last 20 mins or so. And you miss so much of the dialogue due to aircraft noise. Got nearly two hours of work done on the laptop - email feature works brilliantly. Some much needed work done. We made up lots of time due to a strong tailwind kicked up by the cyclone on the northeast coast. I was unable to obtain a righthand side window seat with a view of the cyclone when I checked in - dammit.

Couldn't get wifi access at Changi Airport on my mobile. Not sure what the problem was (I know now though). Maybe I had to login first and accept the terms of service as I did with my laptop. Few more emails answered. No mucking around or queue jumping in Singapore. People boarded by rows as they were called and boarding passes were checked before allowing them to pass - as it should be. Lots of Germans onboard. Hardly surprising as we are bound for Frankfurt. Just about the oldest bunch of flight attendants I've ever seen.

 
Plane for Frankfurt from Singapore

Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Feb 4th 2010

Up at 10 to 4. Miky and I both didn't feel well. Rang the taxi company at 4 o'clock and they said that no cabs were available. Unbelievable! It was snowing outside. Ju-min took The Boy and I and most of the luggage. She only had a small car and couldn't fit Miky in and the plan was to return. Unfortunately, even though it was only 11kms away and 70-80 km/h zones most of the lights were red. Ju-min ended up calling another taxi company. No time for me to say goodbye and thank you properly either as she went back for Miky. About 10 minutes later Miky turned up and Ju-min arrived shortly after. The second taxi company came through. Our bus was almost full which I was quite surprised about because I think the last time I caught that bus I was one of only two passengers. Although I may have taken the more expensive bus that was 10 minutes later. We departed Daejeon at 4:45.

Uneventful bus trip, and I wasn't able to get much sleep, but we arrived at Incheon International Airport 30 minutes early. Bonus. I had been worried that the weather was vastly different to my last visit to Korea and that it would certainly take longer. Checked in very quickly. Miky bought some medicine for my stomach. I should have thrown up in the toilet instead.

When it came time to go through immigration Miky was in a hurry and went ahead. Well, guess who had to take his shoes off after telling security that he was heading to Perth, before being allowed to go through the scanner? I also had to open The Boy's carry on luggage which had to be manually inspected. Gosh, must have been something to do with the beard. Ok, the immigration guy didn't hassle me.

Miky wanted to spend what was left over of our Korean money on magazines. Another little tradition that we seem to follow. Arrived at the gate with enough time to spare. Once on board the captain announced that the wings would have to be de-iced and this would delay us by 15 minutes. By this time I had a terrible headache and wasn't comfortable sitting. If I was in the air I would be able to recline my seat for a bit more comfort. It was a 45 minutes delay before we departed. As you can imagine I was not feeling well at all. And with a head wind to our stopover at Taipei en route to Hong Kong, where we would only have an hour and a half to catch the next plane we weren't going to make up much time. The Boeing 777 is not nearly as comfy as the Airbus. If it was my choice I wouldn't be flying on it.

Bit of ice on the wings.

De-icing the wings

At Taipei they did a head count of passengers before anyone who was staying on board could use the toilets. We weren't allowed off the plane either. All of the cabin staff could only come up with 11 people. A further count revealed someone was already in the toilet. The Boy wasn't feeling well and was sitting on the floor. It took nearly five minutes before they realised that he was on board and that all of the passengers were accounted for. Ground staff could then come on and clean the plane.

About 30 minutes later all of the passengers were on board and The Boy said, "Dad, I don't feel well." I left it at that. When he then said, "Dad, I feel like I'm going to throw up," I knew that he meant it. Just gave me enough time to grab a sick bag and open it. He managed to half fill it. We were just about to leave the terminal when Miky had to deposit it in the toilet bin. The stewardess didn't want to touch it. The Boy felt a bit better after that.

Son of Scarface

Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport - looks a bit drab

Get a load of the size of the Dreamlifter

Last view of Taiwan

Upon arrival at HKIA we had 1 hour and 10 minutes until departure of our next flight. As we had purchased different tickets for the flights from Seoul to HK and HK to Perth they weren't going to wait for us if we were late. Although, as a precaution I had booked our luggage all the way through.

Had to go through security again, painful experience, even though we were transferring passengers. Arrived at the gate some 15 minutes before the final boarding call. There was even another baggage check just prior to boarding the plane.

Gosh, I hate babies and children on planes. And I hate parents that don't control children who are old enough to be controlled. Noisy, screaming, yelling and annoying bloody kids. The whole seven and a half bloody hours. Now, I'm not a murderer, but I can go close on a plane with kids that are bothersome. Don't forget that I wasn't feeling crash hot and as a result I didn't eat much nor watch movies. Reached the terminal in Perth at 10:45pm.

No problems at immigration - unloaded the uneaten breakfast items in the quarantine bin in the arrival area, but we lost a powdered coffee cream to Customs as it was a dairy product which can't be brought into the country. The Boy's wooden sword was broken but the bow and arrow set survived. Oh well, can probably fix that. At least no other foodstuffs or wooden products were seized.

Grabbed some money from an ATM to pay for a taxi as we had changed all of our Aussie money in Korea and we were home less than 45 minutes after reaching the terminal gate. Unreal. Something finally went right with the travel. Truly a return journey not to forget in a hurry.

Trip to Hong Kong, Macau and South Korea - Jan 28th 2010

Big rush this morning. Up at 5:50am to finish packing. We left the room at 6:50 and checked out. Walked over to Hung Hom Station and caught the MTR to Tsing Yi Station. From Tsing Yi we took the Airport Express which cost HK$42/adult and HK$36/child. Arrived at the airport at 8am which was one hour and forty minutes prior to take off. We were asked to do a self check-in by Cathay Pacific staff. After entering passport details, some of them manually as the scanner was unable to pick up all details, there was a problem and we would have to go through the normal check-in. It turned out that the problem was caused because we had a child in our group. Why did the attendant ask us to self check-in then? Idiot.

Raced upstairs to a restaurant for a quick meal. Very quick. Left at 8:55 and we had to be at the gat for boarding at 9:15 or risk not being accepted for the flight. Immigration still to go through remember. They always check my face at least twice and it must have been because of my beard. Went as quickly as we could to our gate and then found out that we had to take a train to get there! Then we discovered that gate 46 was right down the end and so had to run down the travellator. It was the final boarding call already. Just made it in time. Just. Nearly everybody had boarded already. Phew. Bit tight for comfort.

Thirty minutes into the flight the captain announced that there was a technical problem and we would have to turn around and return to Hong Kong where, "Hopefully the company has a plane available for us to change to." I blame the missus for pointing out that the on-board entertainment system had crashed (ok, I noticed that) and after informing one of the stewardesses the captain made his announcement. I like the fact that once we landed our screen informed us "Thank you for flying Cathay Pacific". We didn't go anywhere! Landed at 11:10. So much for all of the rushing about. Captain announced that there may be a quick fix or we may still have to change planes.

Entertainment system crash.

Hong Kong round trip.

Thank you for flying Cathay Pacific. Surely you can't be serious?

What's the problem.

And so we had to change planes. Luckily the company had a spare Airbus just lying around. We waited in another lounge and they provided a bottle of drink and chocolate butter cake. So much for compensation. Headed off again at about 12:50. Only three hours later than planned. Watched District 9 on the flight. Interesting movie but not suitable for kids [It's R-rated]. Don't think much of the toilets on board as they are still tiny and a somewhat odd shape and positioned strangely.

Waiting lounge for turn-arounds. Obviously.

Bus out to plane on the tarmac.

Boarding the plane on the tarmac.

Busy boarding.

First view of Korea.

Densely populated Korea.

Bit cold as you can see.

Coming into land at Incheon International Airport.

Piggyback.

Flight was too long for this girl.

Arrived at Incheon just after 4:30pm local time. Miky had an easy time at immigration but we picked the slowest line. Of course. The immigration guy asked me if I'd been to North Korea when he saw my Doosan stamp in my passport. It was a bit embarrasing to inform him that it was the last station in South Korea. I'd been to the DMZ previously and he should have known that. By the time we'd finished Miky had collected our luggage.

Miky hired a mobile phone and I exchanged pretty much the last of our cash. Could be a problem later on. Grabbed a limosine bus to Anguk Station which was just down the road from our hotel, Somerset Palace.

Catching flies on the bus.

Checked in - marvellous room with two TV sets. Left as soon as we could and took an expensive (W4500) taxi to the Lotte Department Store. Arrived at 7:45pm which was only 15 minutes prior to closing time. Had to buy some gloves for The Boy but they didn't have what we were looking for. Went outside to the street market stalls and checked. It took a while to find gloves and then we wanted a price check. My question is why were there so many stalls selling socks in winter but almost nobody selling gloves. Surely they should be as plentiful as umbrellas in the rainy season. A further 20 minutes were used looking for another stall that sold gloves before we realised that we'd have to return to the first stall. Then the problem was finding it as we had been weaving around the streets without taking notice of where we were. It took some time, and frustration, before I saw a stall selling Dolce & Gabbana wares that I recognised and Miky thought that she had seen the glove stall before that. Sure enough, that's how we found it. Returned to the department store for the restaurant level, which was still open, and had W10000 bibimbap. The kimchi side dish was so good that we had to have another one. Caught a W2400 taxi back to the hotel. It was an international taxi, the driver spoke English also, so it was quite amusing when he sneezed and said, "Excuse me", and I responded with "Shillye haseyo".

Street decorations in Seoul.

More street decorations in Seoul.

Lovely decorations on trees.

Beautifully decorated streets.

I went shopping at Family Mart for saewoogang (shrimp-flavoured snack) and ice creams. Boy, the footpaths were slippery where they were covered in ice. The Boy watched Cartoon Connection whilst we viewed Korean TV.

I'm Back, Baby

Well, after a rather eventful holiday to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand I'm back. Now for the unusual task of cleaning up, doing the washing, packing things away and the like. Miky has gone to work today but I'm having a few more days off before returning to work. That means I get to play Mr Mum for a couple of days. Someone's gotta make the money I guess.

Over the coming month or two I'll put together another little blog and link it to this one. It'll take some time to process the 850 or so photos and type up the diary. More than one or two events took place so stay tuned.

Kevin Rudd - Prime Minister On Holiday

Kevin Rudd's election campaign slogan in 2007 was "Kevin 07". And he was duly elected Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia by the Labor Party when they successfully took office.

In the 10 months since he became Prime Minister he's been overseas on 10 trips for a total of 43 nights away. Now the Liberal Party are calling him "747 Kevin" or "Kevin 747" in reference to his travel. They're even considering printing a t-shirt with "747 Kevin" on the front and "Where the bloody hell are you?" on the back.

Why stop there? Why not create a limited edition board game along the lines of Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? and call it "So Where in the Bloody World is Kevin Hob-Nobbing Today? He could even star in a movie role that Macaulay Culkin made famous - Kevin, We're Home Alone.

At least when Harold Holt, the 17th Prime Minister of Australia, went missing it was a genuine mystery. Kevin Rudd is just missing in action.

Off To Newcastle For A Few Days

I've got some work to do in Newcastle so I'll be over there until Wednesday and out of contact with the big, wide world. Gotta do some factory acceptance testing and have a sticky beak at the machine we are building copies of.

Be back soon. Honest.

Cities I Have Visited - And Some Of My Favourites

1. Melbourne, Australia


2. Seoul, South Korea


3. Fukuoka, Japan


4. Nagasaki, Japan


5. Paris, France


6. London, England


7. Prague, Czech Republic


8. Bergen, Norway


9. Flam, Norway


10. Narvik, Norway


11. Copenhagen, Denmark


12. Edinburgh, Scotland


13. Kyleakin, Scotland


14. New York City, NY, USA


15. Maui, HI, USA

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