Going to UK

Overnight in Sydney

I was still packing when Chris came to pick me up for the airport. :) I definitely started packing early this time but still, it became a last minute thing again. My Qantas flight was late as usual (One day, they will surprise me by being on time). The airport hotel Sydney for a night of transit is as boring as it can be. I don’t even get a phone in the room! Oh well, I really just need a place to sleep for a few hours.

Sydney is wet but I’m going out for a walk - its time to catch up with the Anderson family for dinner.

I will be in London tomorrow, yay! The gangster monkey is breaking out! (monkey story?)

Dubai

Last night, I booked a taxi to pick me up at 3am this morning. This morning, after another 2 calls to the taxi company, finally, at 3.40am, I was picked up by a taxi and headed for the airport. It turned out that it was not easy to get a taxi on an early Friday morning. Sydney taxi drivers only do “individual jobs” which means that they would not let you share taxi with others. What do you do then? Keep calling taxi until you get one, I guess. The trip to Sydney International from the hotel was only 10 minutes yet it created so much drama.

The second after I walked through the Customs line - you know, the white line taped that’s on the floor next to the Customs Officers’ booths… I realised that I had left my camera bag behind. Sadly, I was behind the white line so I was officially outside of Australia already! :-o I was not allowed to turn around the get my bag. I had to ask a Customs officer to get the bag for me. :-o Almost losing my Canon before the holiday even start? Clearly, getting up at 2am with only 3 hours sleep had proven to be a disaster.

The TRS booth opened around 5am and there was a long queue in front of it. The airport has just opened, where did all those people come from? It looked as if they camped here overnight like an Apple new release event.

It took 40min for everyone to board the A380. My feet wanted to touch the ground a bit longer so I sat and watched them. A meal and a nap later, I got up for a walk only to find out that we were just flying over Singapore. That was a bit depressing! :-o The young couple next to me watched movies on different screens. They started and paused the movies at the same time so they were on the same scene all the time. How cute! :-) The food was better on Emirates and there was more seat space. The best thing would be the power supply on each seat for the devices. My phone was on low battery already since I played with it none stop this morning - Sydney airport still offered free wifi. The headsets are horrible on Emirates’s flights, bring your own. Emirates’s OnAir Wi-Fi service lets you connect to the internet while in flight, price plans for Wi-Fi start from just USD 2.75 for smartphones and USD 7.50 for tablets and laptops (feels a bit expensive comparing with what we used on flights in US). Select A380 flights also offer mobile phone use and data roaming using GPRS/EDGE. Every seat on board the Emirates A380 has a satellite telephone and onscreen email/SMS services.

I got off the flight from Sydney to Dubai, walked from arrival to departure and it was already the time to board the flight to London. I decided to be the last to board again. I just sat down and the old lady next to me leaned over and asked, “What did they say love?” “Section D can start boarding.” I answered. She then started telling me her life story. Her husband had passed away recently and she then was diagnosed with breast cancer. After chemotherapy, she was in remission so she decided to spend her savings to see the world. She then told me that she had missed her flight yesterday but the good people from Perth got her on another flight. “Perth? In Australia? I love Perth!” I said. “Yes, yes, me too.” She added. We smiled at each other - now we have so much to talk about. This is the part of travelling that I enjoy the most - meeting people along the way and hear their stories.