Back in SG !

I'm finally back in SG ! After my one-month long trip, covering three continents - Europe, North America and South America. Not that I'm eager to get home. The travel bug has definitely caught me, so much that I just wish for the trip to be longer. Haha !

Anyway, this has been a fulfilling trip for me. I'm thankful that things have turned out generally smoothly for me. The only negative is that my luggage is not currently with me. Yup, it should still be in Los Angeles. The reason is the tight connection.

Previously, I took a Virgin America flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, with a two hour connection to my Hainan Airlines long haul flight to Chongqing, China. But the earlier flight was delayed by ~30 minutes. So the connection became even tighter.

I also learnt that changing terminals at LAX airport airside involves long distance walking, at least from terminal 6 to tom bradley international terminal. I arrived at the Hainan airlines gate just in time for the boarding process to begin.

Luckily, the gate agents were able to print my Hainan airlines boarding pass at the gate, not sure why I couldn't get it at San Francisco airport. Otherwise I don't know what will happen. So I made it to my flight, but not my luggage, even with a ~1.5 hour connection.

Fortunately, my luggage contains mainly clothes and some souvenirs. My valuables are all safely in my carry-on. Well, here's to hoping I can get my luggage back in SG!

In the next few days (or weeks), I shall be detailing my trips in this blog. A chance to relive my memories of this fantastic trip. It has cost me a lot of money, but the memories are for a lifetime. 😃

Transfer between Hong Kong Airport and Shenzhen Airport

I am in San Francisco now. I have completed my Europe tour and it felt great. Now I am embarking on my America tour.

Before I relive my Europe tour memories here, I want to review the transfer procedure between Hong Kong airport and Shenzhen airport. Which turns out to be easy.

There are several ways to do the transfer. The cheapest but probably tedious way is to take the metro or coach.

I tried the ferry transfer. It is not cheap, but is efficient. After arriving at Hong Kong airport, I followed the signs to the E2 ferry transfer counter. The transfer costs hkd$295 including one free checked bag. Subsequent bags costs hkd$60 each.

After payment, there are plenty of seats to wait for boarding. There are a few frequencies between Hong Kong airport and Shenzhen furong ferry terminal which is close to Shenzhen airport.

Boarding begins 30 minutes before departure. Once past the boarding area, I have to take an escalator down to board an airport shuttle train to the ferry terminal.

There are guides along the way so the journey to the ferry terminal is intuitive. The airport is connected to the ferry terminal all the way so I was never under the weather.

There are boarding gates for different ferries to different destinations such as zhuhai and macau.

The white ferry behind is the one taking me to Shenzhen. Once arriving at the ferry terminal boarding gate, there was only a couple of minutes wait before boarding began 10 minutes before departure.

There are plenty of empty seats on the ferry. Even though seating was assigned on the ticket which don't really correspond to the actual seat numbers on the ferry, it seems passengers can seat randomly.

This route doesn't seem to have much passengers as furong terminal is not close to the city centre. More for passengers connecting to Shenzhen airport. There is another ferry route to a different part of Shenzhen closer to the city centre.

Legspace at each seat was alright, similar to economy seats on airlines. A foldable tray was at every seat.

The ferry left on time and took ~45 minutes to reach Shenzhen furong terminal. Unfortunately the windows on the ferry cannot see through for the entire journey so I cannot take any photos at all.

There is a drinks stall selling some drinks in front of the passenger seating but no one bought anything on this short journey.

After the ship docked, I went through China arrivals immigration. There are arrival cards available in the immigration building for me to fill in on the spot and there isn't any queue. Mine is the only ferry arrival at that time.

Past immigration, there was a waiting free bus to take me to the airport for a ~10 minutes ride.

Yup. All in all, an easy, albeit not cheap way to get to Shenzhen from Hong Kong. I don't need to go through Hong Kong immigration and my baggages are collected for me at Hong Kong airport (need to submit all the baggage tags at the counter) and transferred to Furong terminal. I just have to lug my baggages from the ferry terminal, through immigration to the bus transfer.

Transfer between Guangzhou airport and Hong Kong Airport

This is my first time transiting between Guangzhou and Hong Kong and I want to detail my experience here. Overall, it is a seamless transfer and clear directions are provided.

From Guangzhou airport, take the metro train to Guangzhou East railway station. The metro starts at 06:10am daily and the trip takes ~30 minutes.

After alighting, there are directional signs pointing to the Guangzhou-Kowloon train. There are several frequencies daily on this route. The earliest train departs Guangzhou at 08:19.

The long distance trains operate from a separate building. The Guangzhou-Kowloon line check-in area is on level 4. There are plenty of seats at the waiting area.

Once the door opens, there is the china immigration for departure formalities. After that, proceed to another waiting area again with plenty of seats. There are limited shops selling food and drinks here, so best to get it after exiting the metro station.

Once the door opens, proceed down via an escalator to the waiting train.

This's the train !

The scenery along the journey is not exactly great, mainly buildings or fences.

Once the train reaches Hong Kong Hung Hom station, exit the train and proceed to Hong Kong immigration for arrival formalities.

At Hung Hom station, there are several ways to get to Hong Kong airport. I followed the signs to the bus terminus to board the city flyer double decker bus direct to airport. 

The bus has comfortable seating and recline and a great headrest !

There is a large TV on both decks to monitor luggage movements.

The bus took ~70 minutes to reach the airport. In time to check in for my 2pm flight.

Yup, this is my first time doing this transfer  and it works out great ! There are clear signs along the way so I don't get lost at any point in the transfer.

ScootBiz Singapore to Guangzhou

My month-long trip kickstart with a ScootBiz flight from Singapore to Guangzhou. Then, Scoot was having a sale fare and the ScootBiz fare was marginally higher than the economy class fare for the date I wanted. So I quickly booked the ScootBiz fare on the forward segment and the normal economy fare on the return segment.

And what better way to embark on my adventures than business class on a flight ? 😊

My ScootBiz flight began at Changi Airport. Unfortunately the ScootBiz priority queue was too long, and only 1 counter was serving. Not a good impression for its business class passengers.

I noticed that Scoot has many employees hanging around the check-in areas helping passengers and otherwise not really doing much. I feel that they could be deployed to the counters, either ScootBiz or bag drop to shorten the queue.

So I used the check-in kiosks and got myself a filmsy boarding pass. Definitely not a business class experience.

ScootBiz does not offer lounge access for its business class passengers so I proceeded to the gate. The queue was long. Turns out, business class was about half full, front economy was also half full, and back economy should be almost full, judging by the number of passengers at the gate. This is despite the flight arriving at an ungodly 2am.

ScootBiz leather seat, much like Business class on narrowbody aircraft and domestic first class in the U.S.

Welcome drink is a tub of water. There is a power socket, which is switched on after take-off.

I assigned myself seat 1A, bulkhead seat. Legroom is great and no one reclines into me

Flight literature

ScooBiz passengers access the ScooTV for free. Passengers need to bring their own devices to stream. Wifi is payable though.

Decent, but limited entertainment selections.

To access the ScooTV, I need to get the access code from the cabin crew. It is not proactively offered.

ScootBiz hot meal - Nasi Lemak. There are more premium options that come with hagen diaz ice-cream. Meal options are available online during the booking process.

Guangzhou at night

Guangzhou airport has many art installations and exhibitions

There are quite a number of passengers throughout the night. I arrived at 2am and only catch the first train out of the airport at 6:10am. There are a few eateries opening 24 hours, such as this KFC. More eateries started to open at the pre-dawn hours.

Overall, a pleasant flight on ScootBiz. Scoot is a budget airline, so don't expect much on its business class, which is priced similarly to economy on full service carriers. 

I hope that its Singapore to Guangzhou timing could be improved. A closer to 6am arrival would be better.

My experience with taking Jetstar flights

My recent trip to Okinawa gave me a chance to try out Jetstar flights. It launched its inaugural direct flight with cheap fares so I quickly booked it.

Weeks before the trip, Jetstar sent an email regarding the change in the return timings and new flight options. Other than the direct flight which will depart at ~0800, it offers a flight connection via Osaka and Taipei which leaves at ~1200. 

The late departure flight means I need to wake up too early to get to the airport, and I need not forgo the fabulous breakfast at the airport. In addition, since I am in Japan, I longed for the famed koibito chocolates from Hokkaido which is sold in select Japanese airports as well.

Naha airport has many, big duty free shops selling all kinds of Okinawan souvenirs. But none sold the white lovers chocolates. So the transit in Osaka gave me an opportunity to get those chocolates. The shop is located just after security in Osaka airport, with the goods displayed prominently. And there are long queues as well. Hard to miss it.

The transit timings allow for me to purchase my chocolates, but unfortunately not enough to have a nice Japanese meal at the airport. Jetstar provided those on transit with a transit card. These are picked up from the airport personnel on the jetbridge just after leaving the aircraft. It must be returned at the boarding gate.

After 4 flight segments with Jetstar, I must say I am impressed with the service. All flights left and arrived on time. In flight service, though buy on board, is carried out by courteous crew. The domestic flight from Okinawa to Osaka on Jetstar is particularly memorable, with in-flight food options in Japanese.

All in all, a great trip to Okinawa with great flights on Jetstar !

Okinawa !

Here I am, sitting at Stockholm Airport Skycity, waiting for my Norwegian flight to Helsinki. The skycity seating offers great views of the aircraft movements and the runway. I have embarked on my month-long sort of around the world trip, which will take me to Europe and United States.

Before I forget, I want to permanently store my memories in this blog. So let me continue my previous post on the trip to Okinawa.

This is the Le Bilon hotel in Naha that I stayed in for 2 nights. The rooms are on the small side and the view is of a wall. However, the positives include comfortable sleeping pyjamas, toiletries for bathing and showering and the food is quite memorable, especially the Japanese miso soup. The broth is thick and is so much better than what I get in Singapore.

Hotel decorations

As I had only 2 full days in Okinawa, I wanted to visit the two main attractions: Shuri castle and the Aquarium.

The Shuri castle is easy to visit. It is located at the last stop of the yui rail monorail in Naha. However, from the station, it is a 30-minute walk to the castle compound.

This is the main castle compound. Parts of it are under renovation.

A lot of tourists were taking this picture, so I took it too!

An impressive replica of the Shuri castle

From the castle viewpoint, the city of Naha can be seen. Looks to me like any other city, full of modern buildings. We never see these advertised in Okinawa tourist information.

After the castle tour, I went to Kokusai Street to do some shopping. This is the equivalent of Orchard road in Singapore. It is also not pedestrianized, though the vehicular traffic is restricted to two lanes in each direction.

These shopping alleys are replicated in other parts of Japan as well.

Found this A&W, long disappeared from Singapore. I guess must be a lot of American presence in Okinawa.

On day 2, I visited the churaumi aquarium, which is outside Naha city. To get there by public transport, there are several bus options. I took the direct bus that started from the airport, with many stops before reaching the attraction. 

The bus fare is distance-based, costing about 2000yen from the airport. It is displayed on the tv screen in the bus. Board first, get a ticket stop number, then pay when you alight.

This payment procedure is not consistent, as on the return bus, it is pre-paid during boarding.

The aquarium !

The star attraction behind me, 2 whale sharks in the large tank.

On the day I visited, which is a weekend, there are some food stalls set up in tentages selling native, affordable okinawa food, albeit in small quantities. Need to purchase coupons before buying the food.

The aquarium is located by the coast, so the surroundings offer some great views of the sea!

Yup, so this wraps up my quick tour of Okinawa. Definitely a nice part of Japan to visit.

Jetstar inaugural flight - Singapore to Okinawa

Finally, after booking months ahead, I get to travel to Jetstar's inaugural flight from Singapore to Okinawa. After missing out on the Silkair's inaugural to Hiroshima, I managed to fit the Okinawa trip into my schedule.

Anyway, Jetstar' timing for this outbound flight was perfect. A red eye flight departing Singapore at 0150 for an 0800 arrival into Okinawa. Looking forward to a fun day ahead in Naha.

Jetstar has many self check-in kiosks at Changi airport terminal 1. Even the bag drop is automated now, following terminal 4's adoption of bag drop technology. A point to note, to check-in multiple bags, I need to confirm and receive the baggage tag one by one.

At the gate area, there were some decorations put up, some Jetstar personnel present, mascots for photo taking opportunities and door gifts for every passenger.

The door gifts were quite generous.

Each passenger was handed a Jetstar goodie bag upon clearing security at the gate area.

It contains the Jetstar amenity kit, empty bottles, notepads and a pen. Quite impressive.

The amenity kit contains toothbrush, toothpaste, ear plug, tissue, inflatable pillow and eye mask.

Upon entering the aircraft, a cabin crew hang a chain of fake flower on every passenger. They could have use real flowers though!

Jetstar is a budget carrier, so theoretically no complimentary foods or drinks are provided. However, on this occasion, there are celebrations held at about 6am en-route. A couple renewing marriage vows and a few birthdays, so Jetstar provided every passenger with a muffin and a tiny cup of champagne. 

I actually saved $4 on the muffin haha!

Sitting by the window on the right side gave me great views of the sunrise en-route.

The flight was smooth during cruise, probably at this time of year in Asia. This, coupled with fantastic views, is why I enjoy flying and being in the air. 😃

It allows me to 把烦恼抛到九霄云外！

Upon landing, at the arrival hall, there were staff handing out another bag containing Okinawa tourist map and info. I saw that a podium was set up at the arrival hall for Jetstar personnel to give a speech.

All in all, a good flight on a budget airline. If only all budget airline flights were like this. Haha!