Sarah here folks for the last blog of this holiday. I hope those who have read it have enjoyed it. I doubt Alan will have anything to comment, he’s in mourning over the end of another holiday. No, I’m in a lot of pain. After having precious little sleep for the last 2 days, I played soccer today and got a knee in my back. I’m not moving well. At least 4 weeks of over indulgence at the dinner table didn’t decide to show itself again when I ran around.
We woke up to a sunny, clear and extremely windy Beijing morning, just what you want on the last day of the holiday when all you have planned is going home. The wind obviously had blown away all the smog and haze and left us with a beautiful day, although it was fairly cool.
We managed to get ourselves going, got packed and left the hotel by 12.30pm. The hotel got a taxi for us and we were wondering whether we’d ever get to the airport. What sort of taxi driver has so much crap in his boot that he can barely take two suitcases? After much fussing around, mostly by Alan, two cases were in the boot, one in the front seat along with my carry on and Dad and Alan’s carry on was on their laps.
The trip to the airport was a little dicey, not just from the driver but the wind was blowing a gale.
We were a little early for the check-in but 30 minutes later we were all done, with hopefully our suitcases making it all the way to Sydney. Dad left us to go and find the business class lounge and Alan and I hit Kenny Rogers’ Roasters for some breakfast/lunch. We’d eaten in a few of them in Malaysia including having a couple of great milkshakes. Alas, like everywhere else we had been in China, no milkshakes were to be seen. I ordered a steak and chips and Alan ordered a salmon steak. I always wonder about the places that require you to pay before you get your meal. They don’t seem to care about service. I received my meal (well part of it anyway) about 15 minutes before Alan and when Alan’s arrived we needed to chase up the coleslaw. At least the meal was enjoyable.
Alan contemplated a dessert but managed to resist and we made our way through towards immigration and where our plane was. We were required to get on a terminal train which took about 8 minutes to get to the gate. That was a really long journey with a number of tight bends.
From there we were subjected to a temperature check where we had to walk slowly. I would have thought China were happy for sick people to leave. I don’t remember getting a temperature check on the way in.
We then went through immigration where they took our departure cards, checked our passports and boarding passes. Then immediately we went through another check where they again checked our passports and boarding passes and then through the security check. I understand security but this is a little overkill.
The Chinese always queue up long before the boarding of a plane gets called and this time, we were one of those people. We’d been stuck with our carry on luggage under our feet for the last two flights and we didn’t want to be in the same situation this time. We were lucky as a lot of people had gotten on before us that we did find two bins, one over our seat and one on the row across from us, still empty.
The flight was supposed to leave at 4.40pm and arrive in around 11.20pm with our connecting flight to Sydney at 12.45am. We were therefore not very impressed when the Captain came on 4.45pm and said, due to congestion we were required to stay put for 25 minutes. It would appear some passenger was missing who appeared to have given in his boarding card and not made it so his correct seat. This delayed us and made us miss our departure slot. We were therefore made to wait to queue up on the arrival runway and we, in fact didn’t end up taking off until 5:55pm. You can imagine how impressed we were at that with a tight connection in Singapore.
Takeoff was pretty scary as we hit some of the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced with several times we felt like we were dropping out of the sky. Thankfully it was over in less than two minutes but that was two very scary minutes. Doesn’t help that Alan had on the TV, the night before, an Air Crash Investigation episode. Seriously, Alan, why before flying do you make us watch this stuff? I like to know what the problem might be when the plane starts falling from the sky.
Our plan was to stay awake for this flight and sleep on the next so we both watched some movies. We were very grateful that the pilot was able to catch up on some of the time lost. We arrived safely in Singapore at 11.45pm giving us an hour before our next flight and the departure gate was only two gates away. I felt for those connecting on a Brisbane flight. They only had 20 minutes and their gate was in another part of the terminal. I later checked on their flight and they ended up leaving 15 minutes late so it would appear Singapore Airlines waited for them.
We were on the A380 on the way home and Singapore Airlines are the only airline that has some economy seats upstairs. It was nice. There were rows of two (of which we were sitting in), much nicer seats on the flight we had just gotten off, loads of extra storage down the side and better entertainment units. Plus being a small cabin, we got fed very quickly. The only problem is there are only two toilets upstairs for us (we aren’t allowed behind the curtain to use the toilets for business class) and towards the end of the flight, both were pretty disgusting; someone has peed on the floor in one and someone had been sick in the other.
We started to watch a movie as soon as we took off, knowing that we were going to be fed fairly soon. However, the movie took forever and by the time we were finished, we only had about 3 hours before breakfast would be served so very little sleep was had.
We arrived in Sydney 45 minutes early but another plane was at our gate and we had to wait. The airport was quiet and we were through immigration quickly and as we waited for our bags, I kept an eye out for the customs official. Often they walk around the arrival hall and check off your cards making it easy to get out of the airport. Quickly I spotted him, waved him over and got him to okay the box the Chinese tea set was in I had gotten from Seabourn. Some silly woman on the ship told me that we wouldn’t get it through customs and, sure enough, he waved it through no problem. I wonder if hers arrived home in pristine condition like mine!!
The limo was waiting for us and soon we were on our way home, dropping Dad first.
The fluffies were glad to see us as we were them.
So, that’s it for this trip. As usual, we have plans to keep travelling and, of course, keep blogging about it. It will be helpful for Alan to read it back later as his memory continues to fade. Did we go on a trip? It seems so long ago. My back hurts. I need a lie down. Good night people!
No comments:
Post a Comment