Leaving early I try not to escape from New Zealand so early in the year as the cold and wet doesn’t normally set in till later.  But this year, I couldn’t wait to get away as it has been horribly wet in late May. My early departure was prompted by Air New Zealand suspending flights […]

I slept around 5h30 or maybe even 6h on the flight.  It was nearly empty midship and I had moved up from the aft zone to grab an entire row there.  Dennis had fallen asleep upright next to me, upon take-off so I couldn’t get him to move up with me. Despite wobbles due to […]

Despite the lightning strike which put the flight on hold briefly, we landed at Auckland about 30 mins ahead of the scheduled time of 0940. This was when we lost our gain.  The airbridge operator had trouble with the airbridge and after some time trying, had to get an engineer.  After about 30 mins, the […]

As we descended into Tokyo Narita, I thought I caught a glimpse of a large white peak from the port side window.  Fuji, I thought?  Sunset was around 1630 in the area and it was pretty dark already. The pilot came on to give his landing announcement, partially in Japanese.  We landed around 1725, some […]

Flying out I got to Auckland airport around 2h30 before my 0955 flight to Tokyo.  Kiosk check-in was not available for this flight, so I had to join the long queue which fortunately moved quite quickly.  There were 10 counters for four flights. I was given a boarding pass straight away by the check-in agent […]

It didn’t feel like I had slept after my inflight dinner but because time didn’t drag on, I must have dozed slightly.  My slight sinus and cough from the previous days appear to have eased but the dry cabin air had given me a sore throat. I appear to have come a full circle as […]

Leaving Kuching Today I leave Kuching for the journey back to Auckland, with a self-connect at Singapore.  My brother dropped me off at Kuching airport around 0800 after a slow drive during rush hour. With no food outlets in the international section of the airport (apart from a sandwich stand, I later learnt), I ate […]

Killing time Despite not having napped yesterday afternoon in order to encourage a good night sleep, it didn’t work.  I’m not so good flying eastbound.  Retiring at 2115 last night, I woke up about 3h later. After about an hour, I took a half-strength sleeping pill which didn’t quite work so well.  I didn’t feel […]