Chuck Another Brim on the Barbie
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Showing posts tagged flying
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Terminal 5 and a lot of Boeing 777
I’ll have to make this quick as we will be landing in Shanghai soon, in fact I think we are on the final approach before the seatbelt signs come on.
Where to start? So far everything has been fairly uneventful (in a good way). Packing, planning and then getting to the airport were painless. From the time I got onto the train at Newport with an emotional mum waving me off to the time I am writing this, it’s all been jolly good. Rath-er.
Heathrow terminal 5 is pretty awesome. As I walked in I was in the Arrivals but quickly found a lift up to departures. It’s huge! It’s a massive open space between the doors and the check in desks. Quite strange when you consider how empty it was and that I just walked straight up to my bag drop desk and didn’t see another passenger all the way down the terminal. Checked my bag in (I was first check in of the day!)’ and walked through security all in about 10 minutes. Lovely, now to kill some time for the 3 hours until my flight. There is the usual array of duty free and cosmetics shops but there was also some very high end stuff (mini Harrods) and low end stuff (JD Sports). I wandered around for a bit just having a look to see what’s there and trying on every pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses in T5, desperately trying to find some that suited me. None did.
After much wandering and a little photo taking, I happened upon a Wetherspoons and grabbed a continental breakfast to both kill time and provide a little energy. 2 croissants and a coffee, nothing further to report.
I was looking for a nice walkway or general high place to take some pictures of some planes taking off and landing but it seemed that the only proper gallery was in the BA Executive Club Lounge which I wasn’t supposed to go in. Of course, I just walked straight in like I owned the place, got someone to make me some coffee, grabbed a pain au chocolat and sat down in a comfy chair to watch the planes go past. Being in the club lounge also gave me some Internet access to I naturally checked in to Facebook and tweeter about where I am.
Enough time passing/wasting, time to get to the gate. Terminal 5 is split into 3 sections with all the shops in section A (this is where I was) and gates in sections B and C. My flight was departing from gate C65 so I hopped on the little underground train, got to my gate early, walked around waiting and eventually boarded the plane.
One little feature of the modern age is the on line check in. This allowed me to grab a seat at the front of economy so as to ensure a decent amount of leg room (I checked in 1 minute after online check in opened). I got settled in my seat, kicked me shoes off and waited for my favourite part of the flight, take off.
All went smoothly and the next thing you know, I’ve eaten my line and coconut chicken, finished watching X-Men: First Class and Greys Anatomy. At this point we are about half way through the flights and most people are sleeping.. I’m not sleeping because I’m rubbish at sleeping on planes. Next to me was a nice young Chinese couple with a little toddler who had recently woken up and was climbing everywhere. For once I wasn’t annoyed with a little noisy child and in fact, the child proved to be the best thing about my flight. Because the baby was so restless, I was offered a free upgrade to premium so that the toddler could climb over 3 seats instead of 2. They didn’t have to ask me twice. I quickly moved all my stuff over, reclined my new fully adjustable chair and never looked back to the pleb section.
The rest of the flight was uneventful. I tried to sleep, mostly couldn’t. I managed to get about an hour and a half in before breakfast. Really tired now. Breakfast kinda sucked to be honest (not helped by the fact that I spilled orange juice in my lap). After breakfast, I sorted out all my stuff (checked I’ve still got everything, packed everything away and filled in landing card).
And here we are now, writing a blog.
I’ve just been told that I have to turn this off as the seatbelt signs have been on for 5 minutes now. I really hope Ben managed to get me a driver, although the MagLev should be fun if not.
Updates on my first day in China to follow, although I have a sneaky suspicion that we are going out for Chinese tonight…
Tags: China, flying, travelling,
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Goodbyes, MagLev and more flying
It seems that everything is ‘e-something’ now-a-days. This means that I had an e-ticket and e-boarding-pass for my flight to Australia. This posed a problem for me; Ben or no one else that he lived with had a printer. Because of this I arranged with him to meet for lunch one more time and he would print my boarding pass for me back at the office.
While waiting for it to be lunch time, I had to gather all of my stuff together and pack it all up again. Gone was the nice and neat folded clothes that left the UK, everything was just thrown in the case and forgotten about. I thought I had everything, so went off to meet Ben for lunch.
I got a cab again as there is no simple way of getting to Ben’s office from where he lives other than by road. I met Ben on a large intersection and he said that all the guys from work were at a little Schezuan restaurant just across the road. We decided to join them.
This was the first place in China that the Chinese food looked like what I was used to as take-away in the UK. There was fried rice, kung po chicken and chow mein. There was also some battered chicken albeit with some heads and feet in the mix too. Unfortunately this was Chris, Peter and the other guy’s stuff (I only just met him then and couldn’t remember his name after him leaving my presence). Liking the look of what was on the table, Ben and I ordered the kung po chicken, the noodles and some fried beans.
While we were waiting for our food, the other guys left as they had to get back to work. I said bye to Chris and Peter again and our food soon arrived. It was so, so tasty. Xiao Bing’s was very, very good food but there is something that can be said for just eating something that you are used to and know is good. I chopsticked up loads of cashew nuts, beans and chicken but struggled getting noodles into my face without it going via the tablecloth.
We finished, paid up and then headed back to Ben’s office. Ben took me to his workstation and was very proud to tell me that he had to fight for his table in the corner where no one could see what he was doing. This was his little domain and he loved it. As well as the boarding pass, Ben printed me a map back to his flat and also a ‘taxi slip’ for the maglev. The taxi slips are basically a little printout of the address in both English and Chinese. Helpful if you don’t speak Chinese.
I said my goodbyes to Ben as I would be heading off to the airport straight from his flat. The goodbyes were emotional (I’m kidding of course). Another cab ride and I’m back at Ben’s flat. It was fun lugging the 23kg suitcase and my backpack down 6 storeys of stairs (again kidding).I hailed a cab and showed him my taxi slip and he just gave me a sort of queer look as if to say “really?”. He read out the road name and what he said looked approximate to what was on the English part of the taxi slip do I just said ‘dui’ (correct) and we drove off. I was in the taxi that felt like an age and when I knew we were getting close I think the driver got lost so I had to try and direct with my limited Chinese (I’ve got; left, right, straight on and stop here. Impressive I know).
I bought a ticket for the maglev and made my way up to the platform. The maglev platform is really weird as it just a raised platform with a half-cylinder metal roof with nothing at either end. The maglev tracks look like 2 big pieces of fettuccine that have been made into a roller coaster track.
I waited around a while for the train and it eventually glided into the station and lowered itself from it’s usual magnetic hover. Everyone boarded the train and I was a little disappointed. I’m not sure what I was expecting, maybe something super-futuristic perhaps, but inside it was just a normal train. I took a seat and hoped that things got interesting.
We glided out of the station without a sound and I was still feeling a little disappointed. I was watching the speed clock climb to max speed and took some pictures of it. We finally reached the max speed of 431km/h after banking around a few corners and then a huge straight. Even with the banking (at one point it looked like we were going to topple off the track) the ride was still really smooth, I guess that was the really impressive part.
When we started slowing down, there was a huge noise and the other train hurtled past us the other way, making most people in the carriage jump in shock. The whole journey was relatively short at only 15 minutes. I stepped off hte train and was in the airport again. Boring.
It is worth pointing out at this point that when I was at Ben’s and leaving with my suitcase, I did a quick check to ensure that I had all of the important stuff. Wallet, passport, boarding pass. Oh fuck, where’s my boarding pass? That’s right, I’d left it on the printer in Ben’s office. Great.
I gave Ben a quick call but knew that there was no help that he could give me anyway. I decided to wing it, as I once had when travelling to Italy and back without a passport, and see if the electronic copy on my iPad would suffice.
Fast forward back to the airport queue. I’m near the front and am actually the first e-ticket person for my flight. Not surprising when you think of China’s heavily locked down internet to be honest. I explained my situation while the whole time the check-in lady was holding new boarding passes in her hand. It seems that everyone gets one, regardless of how you check in. Relief.
Once I was through the security checks (once again waived through because I had a western face), there was nothing to do but hang around for a few hours. I found some computers with limited access to the internet so I sent mum and dad some emails. I noticed a pay phone and thought that it would be a good idea to give mum and dad a call but I didn’t have any notes small enough to buy the phone card.
There was a nice little coffee shop near the phones so I grabbed one of their Blue Mountain roasts and sat down for a bit, playing with my iPad. Once I was done with the coffee I had enough change to call mum. I managed to get her first time at work, which is a rarity as she is usually away from her desk. We chatted for a bit about the usual stuff and then my money ran out. Next was dad. I tried to get him on the phone but it was engaged. I tried again and again. After a few more tries I gave up and went to send him an email. I guess he was on the phone to mum because I already had an email saying that he heard that I phoned mum. I replied saying that I tried to call him but to no avail.
I eventually reached dad and we again had a good chat with it ending when the money went. I still had a little time to pass and noticed that there was some table tennis playing live on the TV. After playing table tennis everyday in work, I now consider myself a fan of the sport so sat down to watch some of a pretty rapid game.
Boarding time. This is my least favourite part of flying. It’s so boring. Just queueing up so that you can sit in your seat and wait. When I get on the plane, as I am nearing my seat I ask the flight attendant how much it would cost to upgrade. I was never going to pay to upgrade, but I wanted to see what I could get for free. I played the whole “I’ve been in a car crash” card to see what I could get. Unfortunately, I was never upgraded. The very nice flight attendant did try and move me to an exit row seat so I would have more room but his manager snapped it up for someone else before I could pounce. I’ll stick with standard economy then…
I sat in my seat and waited and miraculously, no one came to sit in seat next to me. 2 seats to myself and a bit of extra legroom. Amazing, I didn’t even need my rubbish attempt at getting an upgrade.
The flight went pretty smoothly; I watched Hanna (good film, rubbish soundtrack), some Simpsons, Family Guy and Grand Designs. All good choices. The food was good too; chicken with some potato cubes. As I am now a master of eating the Asian way, I ate everything with chopsticks! Really good and I was off to sleep for a bit too!
The rest of the flight was uneventful and boring. Nothing to report except watching the flight map between trying to sleep. Landing was very soft and whad’dya know it, I’m in Australia!
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Fortress of Brolitude
Got off the plane in Sydney and was then shepherded into a huge passport control queue. I was a bit weary that I only had 2 hours until I had to board my flight and the queue was barely moving. The queue was huge with 10 zig-zag with each one holding about 50 people. So that’s 500 people all being served by a grand total of 3 people.
There was a shortcut queue for people with e-passports. The symbol they showed was the same one as the one on my passport. I tried my luck and was instantly turned away. The guy said that I had the wrong type of e-passport. How many different kinds can there be?
I eventually made it through and into baggage reclaim. I’d been in the queue so long that my suitcase was already on the carousel. That is the first time that this has happened to anyone. To check in my bag I had to go through another long line for security. I spoke to the guy and told him how soon my flight was. He sent me down an empty queue and I threw my case into the scanner. With that over, I wheeled like a demon until I got to the bag drop. Nice and quick, dropped the bag off. My bag seems to change weight every time it is weighed, even with the same stuff in it.
I had to get a bus to the other terminal for my flight and I narrowly missed one (it was still taking people when I got there but the person in front of me was the last one). I was told that it was only 10 minutes until the next bus and I think someone told the driver too. There was a huge queue of people but the bus driver just sat there reading his paper until 10 minutes and 59 seconds had passed. The bus ride was only 5 minutes and I was in the terminal, waiting to board. All that rushing and I end up waiting to board.
The flight was really strange. The plane was not as plush or kitted out as the international ones I was now used to and the flight was just over an hour. I had the window seat and sat next to me was a really nice woman who worked in Sydney and was travelling to Melbourne for business. It seemed really strange to hear that she just pops back and fourth Sydney and Melbourne as easily as I’ve jumped on the tube in London. I continued reading A Dance With Dragons and the flight obviously passed very quickly.
It was really cool to just look out of the window as we were only just above the cloud line. The cloud “landscape” looks just like all the photos of the artic that you see. It really looks like that you could step out of the door and just land on soft snow. On the main screen of the plane was the live map of our travels; kind of pointless when it spent most of it’s time zoomed out to a whole world view. The little plane that showed our progress didn’t even move…
Off the plane and once again at baggage reclaim (domestic flight don’t have passport control, obviously). This time my stuff took ages to arrive but at least I wasn’t in a rush to get anywhere. After grabbing my bag, I got a cab from outside the station, feeling both excited and nervous as this was really the beginning of a completely new chapter of my life. China was a holiday and the rest was just travelling; this was it, on the way to the new apartment, work the next day. Nervous and excited.
I had $150 in cash that I’d planned to use for the first few days until I could get my travellers cheques changed. I was enjoying taking in all of the the new sights, but my attention was constantly drawn back to the meter as it seemed to be climbing faster than I thought it would be. 10, 20, 30 and 40 all passed without my feeling like I was any closer to my destination. It was really strange that we somehow just appeared in the centre of the city, amongst sky scrapers and traffic only seconds after being on the motorway.
The taxi glided into the driveway of Freshwater Place and I forked over the $53 begrudgingly. I ended up walking into the wrong building and was promptly turned around and pointed to the other revolving door. I walked through into what felt like an expensive hotel. I walked up to the concierge desk and asked about the person from Corporate Keys that was meant to be meeting me here. I was a bit anxious as I was told someone would be there as soon as I get there.
I turned on my phone and checked the time, I was 45 minutes earlier than expected so my anxiety subsided. The time passed quickly with a little more A Dance With Dragons on the iPad. The nice lady from Corporate Keys was bang on time and lead me into the lift and up to the 16th floor.
The lift and the corridor again gave me that expensive hotel impression and I wasn’t disappointed when I walked through the door. I’d already seen pictures on the website of what I was getting but it didn’t really do it justice. As I walked through the door and into the main area of the studio flat, I was amazed at how light the whole room was. I must admit, the general design and décor is what I would like to eventually have in a place of my own.
The kitchen is all white with silver Smeg appliances, the living area has a comfy sofa and a big TV, the bedroom has a very comfy bed and is light and airy and the bathroom has the expensive hotel bathroom fell. Everything I wanted. My Corporate Keys friend gave me a little intro, gave me the key and left me to my new home. The Fortress of Brolitude (FOB) was mine! It was still all sinking in so I did something that is entirely against my personality; I unpacked and tidied everything up. I felt a little weird after that so took a shower in the nicest shower that I have ever been in. It’s like being blasted with a warm fire hose.
After the shower, I was feeling a bit peckish so I wandered down to the shopping area below my building and grabbed myself a Subway. Having Subway in the building will probably now work out well for my health!
Once I’d eaten, I cam back and looked how far I was from work. I wanted to do a quick walk there to ensure I knew where I was going for my first day back at work. There is nothing worse than rushing or being late on the first day. Normally I hate been early for stuff but this is one of the few times that I will actually try to be early for something.
The walk itself took less than 10 minutes. When I got to the building I wasn’t sure if it was the right one. I could see the occupant directory just a bit further inside but I couldn’t make out the names so was still unsure. I got lucky when someone left the building and I could go through the open door. I was in luck and in the right place. Awesome. A quick walk back, a lift ride and I was back in the Fortress.
I had to give corporate keys a quick call about sorting the internet out but other than that everything with this whole move has gone so smoothly! I couldn’t believe I was finally there! I suddenly realised how exhausted I was so fell onto my new feather bed, wrapped myself up in my feather blanket and drifted off to sleep.
Notes:
1) Pictures that I took of my apartment can be found here
2) The title. Will from my old team at work gave me the idea for the title when he kept referring to the apartment as the Fortress of Brolitude. He’s currently enjoying the whole “bro” culture, albeit mostly ironically. A Fortress of Brolitude is basically where a bro lives and is his own space for chillin’ with his bros and whatever else bros do.
©2011–2012. Postage by Greg Cooper. Icons by PixelResort. Thanks to Jamie Cassidy & Panic.
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