19 December 2014
Leaving home
Today I begin my journey back to my hometown in Borneo for Christmas, but not without stopping along the way (and back). I fly to Melbourne today, stopping for several days before continuing my journey.
24 August 2014
Arrive home
Above: View of Auckland during our descent. I left Kuching yesterday afternoon for KL to connect with my flight to Auckland. Despite the 1h35 connection time in KL, there was plenty of time for me to enjoy the lounge as I was flying Business Class on a reward ticket. It was a very nice flight […]
13 August 2014
Family time again
I managed to get about 5h horizontal (actually, it was diagonal on an inclined flatbed) during the 9h flight from Jeddah to KL, of which about 3h was asleep. The seat was one I was familiar with but I’m not sure if it was the leather (rather than fabric) or the angle (perhaps steeper) that […]
12 August 2014
Transit in Jeddah
I checked out from my Istanbul hotel at 1100 and waited for my shuttle pickup at 1245 which came “on the dot”. After cruising around the Sultanahmet area to fill up with other prebooked passengers, we left for Ataturk airport getting there around 1345. With a 1530 departure to Jeddah to connect to Kuala Lumpur, […]
8 August 2014
To my favourite city again
Leaving Skopje There is a gap in the bus schedule from the station to the airport; either around 0700 or around 1100 which doesn’t suit my 1135 departure for Istanbul. So, I took a taxi organised by the hostel. I was told it would be MKD700-900 depending on the taxi company available a the time. […]
16 July 2014
Leaving for London
Above: My super-quiet Airbus A380. My brother dropped me off at Kuching airport early at about 1600. I was booked on the 2000 flight to KL but there was one at 1745. I asked if I could “go-show” for the earlier one but nowadays, unless one is on a really expensive fare, there is a […]
5 July 2014
Family time
With a departure from KLIA2 to Kuching at 1525, I had a fair bit of time to kill after the check-out from Tune Hotel. Since KLIA2 was new to me, time went quickly with lots of exploration. I have 11 nights in Kuching with family before flying to London for a family wedding in Downham […]
8 June 2014
Leaving home
This trip centred around going to the UK to attend my nephew’s wedding. I managed to snap up a cheap Air NZ fare to Bali flying during the first week of their seasonal operations which was highly discounted; I qualified for a further discount through my partner who works at the airline. Woohoo! It made […]
5 April 2014
Getting interrogated by the authorities
I arrived in Auckland. The immigration officer (actually it is now done by customs staff on immigration’s behalf), looked at my arrival form and noticed that I had been to Sudan. He wrote a capital “T” on it and circled it. After collecting my luggage, I was intercepted by another officer and sent to another […]
4 April 2014
More urban pleasures of Hong Kong
I had seen a phone that seemed perfect for me yesterday for HKD1300 (NZD200). I needed to do some research on it and it shows up as a pretty high spec quad core model. Instead of going all the way back into Hong Kong, we headed to Kwai Fong where we had made purchases before. […]