2009 - November 1 (Trip to Singapore)

Okay folks, another interminable ramble from the displaced Texan. This time I have only two major destinations for the trip. I am going to Singapore and to Dubai. No Caspian site this time. I am flying a bit of a longer set of flights for the trip. I am flying from Houston to Minneapolis/St. Paul (MSP), on to Tokyo's Narita airport (NAR), then Singapore (SIN). I will be in Singapore only three working days and I am then on to Dubai for 5 days. At the end of that visit I am on a nearly direct flight home. I will be flying a new airline, Qatar Airways. I will leave Dubai, fly a one hour flight to Doha, then a single leg all the way to Houston. I have been told by others that it is better than Emirates. They have to be pretty impressive if they expect to top what I have seen on Emirates. We'll see.

I am a bit concerned about how the trip from Houston to Singapore will go. I am flying Northwest airlines. But Northwest is now actually Delta, which has given me nothing but travel nightmares each time I have flown them in the past. So this merger and my flight will be a test of whether I fly this code-share team in the future.

The first leg has gone well. My flight from Houston to MSP went off without a hitch. I was not able to find the sky lounge for Delta in Terminal A at IAH, so I waited at the gate for two hours. Not a good start since there is only Continental President's club in this terminal. Not very convenient if you want to relax and wait in a lounge. But the flight was on time and they took care of everything right. No complaints about the trip itself. I arrive in MSP without incident and I do manage to find the Delta lounge there. No food, just booze. Normally that would be all I needed, but I am not up to drinking before noon, so I just check my email and browse around the airport. As usual, people watching is a major pastime for me anywhere I go and this airport is no exception. I think I like the eye-candy that they generate in Minnesota. It is Minnesota isn't it? Doesn't matter, nice eye-candy ratio anyway. It makes time go by quickly.

We board the plane for the next leg, MSP to Tokyo's Narita airport (NAR).

This flight started differently. First off, I am flying on a 747 for the second time ever. And this time I am up in the "bubble" on top. It used to be the sky lounge, but long ago the airlines stopped devoting the space to a bar and started putting passenger seats in it. All the seats are the really nice pods with lay-flat beds. Another item is that they allocate under-window storage that is large enough to hold most people's checked baggage. If you get a flight where you are upstairs, be sure to get the window if you are bringing on a large amount of carry-on. The downside is that overhead storage is smaller than expected. I saw several people having to juggle their bags to get them into alternate locations when their carry-on would not fit above their seats.

I also noticed that the left-most seat in front of each pair of pod seats has some foot room blocked by the mechanicals that manage the seats. So always go for the right-most seat when you book your flights.

We get off on time and the marathon of food and drink begins. I have requested the Western menu this time since I have learned that, while it is fun to get the regional cuisine from you destination, your going to be eating some variation of that meal for several days. So stick with the Western menu until you HAVE to go native. You will thank me in the end. My selection starts off with a really tasty cream of asparagus soup that actually did taste of asparagus. This is a dish I will consider make t home in the future. Mostly when asparagus is dirt cheap or I have a bunch of leftover stems. It was accompanied by a smoked salmon slice on top of shredded Nori seaweed, edamame bean, and sesame seed salad. In addition there was a green salad with chickory, raddichio, jicama, and a sesame dressing. All accompanied by hot rolls and butter. I had a nice Sangiovese blend red wine. Dinner is served and I am having a pork dish with Bok Choy and noodles. Pretty good. Lots of ginger in the dish (even bit into some whole slices) but it is not spicy hot. The noodles are WAY overcooked but, then again, the cooking is done by a flight attendant and a microwave. What can you expect? It tastes okay and will certainly keep me from wasting away on this 22 hour travel event.

I have a quiet man sitting next to me. He is from Argentina. He is an investment advisor specializing in emerging market funds. We spend a short time chatting, just to break the ice and make it official that we have a commitment to save each other if the plane goes down. Otherwise we don't speak for the rest of the trip. The flight is no problem. I get to Tokyo without a hitch. I am getting pretty good at maneuvering in Narita airport and head to my gate for the flight to Singapore. When I get to the gate I see something disturbing. The gate shows my flight number and it shows a destination of Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam! I didn't go during the war and I am certainly not getting on a plane to go there now. I look for the nearest airline agent. I explain what I found versus what I intended. They check the tickets, make a couple of calls, and about 5 minutes later they have given me new boarding passes for a different flight and gate. The takeoff time is the same, the gate is nearby, and they tell me there is no cost for the change of tickets. I love the Japanese way of handling travelers in the airport. They really know how to solve problems quickly and with minimal fuss.

I find my gate and boarding goes without a hitch and I'm on my way to Singapore. Boy this trip isn't worth the blog time so far. Would have been more interesting if I had mistakenly boarded a flight to Vietnam. Pity I had too much office work to get done. Might have been quite fun.

So I'm on the right plane and only 7 hours from my destination. With flights and layovers I have not been in route for over 18 hours. Getting pretty tired. This last leg is fully booked and I am caught in a window seat. But Northwest has the best blankets I have ever seen on a plane. They are real fabric (probably cotton) and it is properly quilted and very warm. Good thing too. People are zonled out and the cabin is so cold that all you can see are the tops of passenger heads sometimes with a blue nose sticking out shyly. But the flight is quiet and it was only marred by a very late takeoff. They made up all the lost time during the flight. We arrive at 1 AM according to schedule. All my passport and visa data is in order, so I am through Customs and Immigration with my bags before 2:00 AM. I grab a taxi and am at my hotel by 2:30 AM.

But now some new changes are in effect. First off, I am not in my normal room type. It seems our travel group took it upon themselves to get me a Jr. Deluxe room (is that sort of like jumbo shrimp?) It is a single room with twin beds. Just like old sitcom couples sleep in. Remember Lucy and Ricky, or Rob and Laura Petrie? This is instead of my regular 2 rooms plus bathroom. Then I am told that, while I do have free Internet in the room, I do not have access to the Grand Lounge services. It seems that I have always managed some special exceptions that gave me access. Sometimes it was part of a special room rate. Sometimes it was due to the number of stays on my account, sometimes it was some promotional activity. In any case none of those applied this time. I did not understand at the time so I just took my key. Then I found out they had put me in the back tower with a great view of a bunch of rent-controlled high rises. Just my idea of a view. This helps ice the cake. I knew things were going too well.

But I am exhausted so I go to my room. I don't eve unpack. I just head to bed. Tomorrow is another day. So ends the diary for this day.

Note to all my readers - I wrote in my last blog that I would put everything about a single visit in one story. Forget that noise. The stories were too long. Too boring, and I caught Hell for driving everyone to tears and unconsciousness with my tale. So I am back to a day-by-day story. But only for days worth talking about. If you want to know more about any trip, you have to visit with me face-to-face. Or send me a note.

Another note - I have been corrected about my use of the "blog" tag for what I write. It is more properly a diary and that is how I will refer to it in future missives until I get a real blog web site up. 

Another note to the "Another note' - you are now reading this in my real blog, so get off my back about using the word. So there!