Author archive
8 September 2005
Admin My last few days have been busy. We celebrated Mum’s 78th birthday but other matters were more of an admin nature. Things like renewing my passport and opening a bank account. Some things are harder than they sound as I have to ensure that the bank has a fully-featured internet banking facility which is […]
3 September 2005
Above: Mum’s apartment block in the right of the picture. Yesterday was a filling day, eating and visiting my aunt. It’s a good reminder that Singapore is such a cheap place for eating despite being a developed country. Thanks to poorer neighbours that supply produce and labour. You can’t believe various research that claim it’s […]
1 September 2005
We landed at the Lion City only 24 mins late at 1904, having made up some time inflight. Mum and step-dad had insisted on picking me up from the airport. I was happy to have grabbed a taxi. It ended up being a half hour wait for them because they got lost on the way […]
1 September 2005
It was a foggy morning in Auckland as I went out to the airport driven by Kim. He was on call with the airline and he had tried to get called out to crew my flight, if someone had gone sick. But no such luck. He had his uniform and suitcase in the car, just […]
28 June 2005
We arrived in Auckland early in the morning. We checked at the lost luggage counter for an update on whether our luggage had been found. We were expecting them to arrive in the next day or two, and were expecting to sign forms that would allow them to be cleared by customs in our absence […]
26 May 2005
Mini sightseeing I woke around 0600 and managed to get ourselves downstairs for breakfast at 0700. Kim organised a rental car by phone with Lucky Cars located at the Howard Johnson Hotel. They have some very beaten up cars that wouldn’t be legal in some countries. Kim s is a regular customer of theirs on […]
25 May 2005
Kazan to Samara to Frankfurt to London We have a big day today, flying from Kazan to Samara and then Frankfurt on the same flight, then connecting to London Heathrow, and then self-connecting to Los Angeles. We woke at 0400 and were out of the hotel into a pre-ordered taxi at 0450. It was a […]
24 May 2005
We woke early again. it was a combination of our body clock (train lag), noise and light. We dozed and took it easy until breakfast around 0800. Today’s kinda our spare day in case things don’t go smoothly. So we didn’t have any big plans. Perhaps just repeat some sightseeing and explore a bit more. […]
23 May 2005
With a two hour time difference from Ekaterinburg, we woke early. Around 0500 local time, or 0700 where we were yesterday. The breakfast downstairs was quite nice; it was tasty stew of potato and meat, but I went off it when I realised it was kidney and liver. The cabbage stew was tasty with a tinge […]
22 May 2005
Departing Ekaterinburg We were woken by our alarm at 0645. Today we take the final leg of our train journey from Ekaterinburg to Kazan. It’s a relatively short ride today, in fact, just a day-trip. But it is a significant day as we cross from Asia to Europe today. We fuelled up on a breakfast of […]