My adventures in China from Beijing Mar'18

Last week, I took a quick trip to China. The main reason for this trip is to try out Cathay Pacific business class which I have paid for late last year during a promotion.

Unfortunately, as things always turn out, my schedules change and I wasn't able to take the return trip.

Anyway, I left the Cathay Pacific flight in Beijing, China and have about 4 days to explore. Previously, I have been to Beijing twice and have seen the main attractions, such as the great wall and the birds' nest. So I decided to spend the time in other cities of China.

I have pre-booked a Scoot flight out of Guangzhou as the flight is usually cheap and the flight leaves at 3:45am in the morning, giving me the whole day to explore China and ensuring I reach Singapore on the next day morning for my work.

Travelling from one city to another in China is best done on train for a budget. Unlike Japan, there are still many overnight sleeper trains, even with the influx of high speed trains. This is great for saving time and $.

After landing in Beijing, I wanted to explore Tianjin via a 30-minute high speed train ride. There are many frequencies on this route and tickets can be bought at the manned counter for foreign visitors like me. I need to show my passport to the counter staff before tickets are issued. Though there are automated machines, they require scanning of the local identity card before purchasing the ticket. 

The train operating the Beijing-Tianjin route was 复兴号. Economy class seats are arranged in a 3-2 configuration. Legroom is great and seat is comfortable. The train even feels new to me.

A typical train station in China

I only have time to take the train to and from Tianjin, without any time to explore the city proper. I barely made it back to Beijing to catch the pre-booked sleeper train.

One thing to note when travelling by train in China, there can be more than one railway station in a city. In Beijing, there are three different railway stations. I purchased the Beijing-Wuhan overnight train ticket on ctrip mobile. The ticket will indicate the boarding and alighting station. After returning from Tianjin, I realised that this train will be departing from Beijing West station. The good thing is that Beijing West, like many intercity train stations in China, is also connected to the local metro train. Nevertheless, it is still some stations away.

Once I reached Beijing West station and gave my mobile ticket number to exchange for the ticket, it is time for boarding. I barely made it onto the train.

This is my 'home' for the next 10 hours.

I booked the hard sleeper cabin. Each cabin consists of two rows of three-deck beds. The cabin is open and there are limited chairs and table along the corridor for seating. I feel that the bed is reasonably comfortable for the night. Power sockets are not sufficient and is located along the corridor. Only one per 6-pax cabin. Fortunately, I was assigned the lowest bunk, which makes for easy getting in and out. There is no ladder provided to access the higher bunks though. My cabin is full and fortunately everyone is gracious. A pleasant night for all!

Once the train moves, the train attendant comes along to exchange my ticket for a temporary train card. Not sure why.

Soon, I turned in for the night. The train leaves and arrives on time. Just like most other trains in China. Similar to the swiss punctuality.

In this trip, I have learnt how to take trains in China. It proves to be a convenient way to see parts of China. I shall leave my adventures in Wuhan to the next post!

Cathay Pacific business class lounge @ New Delhi and Hong Kong

After a short one week break and a couple of days flying to China, it is now back to my work routine. I need to earn for my next trip. Haha!

My next overseas adventure will be in June. Thus far, I have made several flight and hotel bookings in Europe and SQ 787-10 business class return flight to Osaka. These are booked far in advance to take advantage of the early bird discounts. My travel plans are yet cast in stone as I'm constantly looking out for flight and hotel deals suitable for me. 

My current travel plans are shaped mainly by the deals that I found, rather than my desires. This will be the way going forward, so that I can reduce my travel budget. Hopefully, I'm able to find deals that can lead me to explore countries in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America.

After checking in for my Cathay Pacific business class flight in Delhi, I was invited to the Plaza Premium lounge. A perk of travelling in business class!

The lounge is on the small side and is crowded when I visited. I was informed by the receptionist that the showers were under renovation and thus not available.

Food and drinks variety were limited. Free wifi access were available from the reception. The Indian beer, kingfisher, could be ordered from the bar tender, who gave me a bottle.

As the lounge was quite a walking distance away from the gate, I left early and walked leisurely to the gate in time for boarding.

The Plaza Premium lounge in Delhi is nowhere fantastic, in my opinion. And I certainly won't use my free lounge passes to access it.

In Hong Kong, Cathay Pacific business class passengers are in for a treat. There are a grand total of 4 lounges spread out in the airport. The Pier, The Wing, The bridge and the cabin.

The Pier is the newest lounge in the airport. As I have limited layover time at the airport, I visited the Pier, which at first was quite far from the initial boarding gate, and requires me to take the airport shuttle train.

Turns out, there was a gate change for my onward flight. The boarding gate was changed to nearby the lounge. This allowed me to spend more time in the lounge!

The lounge was located one floor down

My first order of business in the lounge was to take a shower.

Shower room is luxurious and filled with amenities

After a great shower, I went to explore the lounge. There are tons of seating in the long, narrow lounge. It was never filled up all the time I was there, on a weekday late morning. 

However, I find that the food options tend to be limited for a big lounge like this. There is a manned food station for noodles and dim sum, another station for pastries, and a bar. Other drinks and beers are available in the fridge.

The windows in the lounge offer great views of planes landing and parking. Including this Cathay Pacific A350 plane.

The long, narrow corridors in the lounge

The Pier is a large and sparsely populated lounge. Definitely worth a visit. I just wish they could serve more varieties of food in the lounge!

Cathay Pacific business class flights Delhi-Hong Kong-Beijing

This is the highlight of my March trip, and the reason for my adventures in China. These 2 sectors are operated by A330 aircraft, featuring reverse herringbone flatbeds in a 1-2-1 arrangement. For both flights, I chose seat 12A, a window seat in the second row. It is always a privilege to sit at the front of the aircraft so I usually chose the front seats whenever possible.

In both cases, only one meal is served due to the short flight duration.

An amenity kit and a duvet is provided only on the Delhi-Hong Kong overnight sector, but not the Hong Kong-Beijing daytime sector.

Reverse herringbone flatbed

Each window seat is allocated two windows.

Entertainment options, though many, are still less than what the ME3 airlines and SQ offer.

Breakfast on the Del-Hkg sector. There are only 2 options available. Unlike SQ, there's no book the cook.

Connection times and gates for all passengers on board are shown on the IFE screen. The one bound for Beijing is for me!

Cathay A350. Missed the business class flight last year due to work.

Seat length and width is sufficient for me

Cockpit !

What a good way to start the flight with my champagne !

All in all, a great flight with Cathay Pacific. Though the aircraft is the A330, the seat and bed is very comfortable with the duvet.

Unfortunately, need to cancel my return sectors due to work. Not sure whether can qualify for a refund.

Singapore Changi Airport terminal 4 departure and AirAsia flights Singapore to Delhi via Kuala Lumpur

I'm back in Singapore after a quick trip to China. I would have like to have a longer holiday, but due to work I need to return early. As much as I enjoy vacations, work and of course health, is still my priority. With work, there is income, which pays for my bills and my vacation.

All the times I have travelled, I have always put a lot of faith into my flight connections. Though I will always try to avoid tight connections, there are times when it cannot be avoided. Fortunately, after travelling for ~10 years, I have hardly, if I remembered correctly, missed a flight due to bad connections. Sure, I have encountered flight delays, but not serious enough to affect my subsequent flights. Of course, some times, it involves me running or walking hastily to catch the next flight. For this, I felt grateful.

So my trip started off on a Monday afternoon. An mrt train ride to Changi Airport terminal 2, followed by a shuttle bus transfer to terminal 4, where AirAsia departs from. 

Apart from costs, I'm not sure why the airport cannot build a skytrain to link up terminal 4 with the rest of the airport terminals. Currently, to get to terminal 4, either passengers get dropped off by private transport or by the free shuttle bus from terminal 2. I feel that the airport should really consider building a skytrain to link up terminal 4 and the future terminal 5 to the other airport terminals for ease of transfer.

Anyway, apart from visiting terminal 4 during its open house, which I have reviewed in a previous post, this is my first time departing from this terminal. All the automated features...

AirAsia provides mobile boarding pass for those departing Singapore. With that in hand, I arrive at Changi Airport slightly more than an hour to a sparsely populated terminal. Without having to approach the check-in counter, I proceeded straight to the manned centralized security screening. This is different from terminals 1, 2 and 3, where security screening is conducted at individual gates. Currently, there are only a couple of big duty free shops in terminal 4. Not much in terms of shopping experience. Then there are the open boarding gates. Less than 10, I believe. As in other terminals, there are power sockets and usb ports at some, but not all, seats. I used the waiting time to charge my phone, since I will be boarding AirAsia, a budget airline from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur to Delhi, India. Both AirAsia flights ended up delayed. 

Open, spacious seating at Terminal 4. Underutilized on a weekday afternoon, I think.

AirAsia A320 plane

Standard A320 seating arrangement

Free wifi is advertised, but not available on this flight. Not sure since when did AirAsia offered free wifi.

Upon taking off from Changi, saw the almost completed jewel !

Reaching M'sia

This meal and drink costs 17myr. Not sure if I would get a better deal at the airport.

The first flight delayed due to late inbound flight. The second flight actually boarded on time, but then spent some time waiting while taxiing on the tarmac. Not sure why. There was no announcement at all from the flight deck.

I booked these 2 AirAsia flights on separate tickets, so I need to clear immigration and check in again in Kuala Lumpur. Initially, I planned for a 3 hour connection, which I felt was sufficient for the transfer. The first flight ended up arriving in Kuala Lumpur ~ 1 hour late. The long immigration queue followed by another custom queue didn't help either. Not sure why so long on a weekday afternoon. To add on, AirAsia uses klia2 terminal building, which is a very, very, very long walk to immigration. On the other hand, check-in was fast. I prepaid for a meal at the check-in counter for 17myr and paid with a credit card. I might have paid a bit more as the prepaid meals were advertised at 15myr inside the aircraft. It seems they were promoting it at check-in to get more revenue.

Originally, I intended to check out the plaza premium lounge using my free access thanks to the amex ascend kf credit card, but I reasoned there is not much time left to boarding. So I took up the prepaid meal option.

After that, a reasonable queue at security screening and immigration, followed by the same long walk to kila2. I arrived at the gate just in time for boarding. Yup, so a 3 hour AirAsia connection at kila2 is just sufficient for me, with no spare time available.

Both flights were uneventful. I chose AirAsia flights from Singapore to Delhi as they offer the cheapest ticket on the day and time I wanted to travel. Save for the prepaid meal, I didn't include any other chargeable service. 

On the short Sin-Kul sector on A320 aircraft with 3-3 seating, I was given the window seat, which is great for admiring the scenery and I didn't need to leave my seat. 

On the longer Kul-Del sector on A330 aircraft with 3-3-3 seating, I was given the aisle seat, which is again great so that I can get up and walk for a more pleasant flying experience. I ended up reaching Delhi airport ~ 30 minutes behind schedule.

All in all, an alright experience with AirAsia. I will book it again if the price is great and the timing is suitable. Leave plenty of time to walk to klia2 terminal. Allow plenty of time for flight delays too.

To China again !

I'm getting excited at flying on a plane again ! It's been about 3 months since I've been on solid ground. The prospect of flying and vacation is building up my momentum !

In the last few days, I have managed to fix my itinerary. This short trip lasting about 4 days will see me heading to Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tianjin, Wuhan, Changsha and Guangzhou. The cities that I'll be exploring are mainly in China while the rest merely serve as transit stops. The highlight of this trip is the Cathay Pacific business class flight from New Delhi to Beijing. Another mini highlight is exploring cities in China.

In particular, I'm looking out for new experiences this time:

Cathay Pacific business class

Tianjin city

Wuhan city

Changsha city

Overnight sleeper train in China

Bullet train in China

Quite a compact trip for me haha ! Looking forward to an enjoyable trip.

Across the Pacific & a brief tour of Shenzhen

My departure out of San Diego involves taking an overnight Amtrak coach + train + coach for a morning arrival into San Francisco. Fortunately, the connections are easy with short waiting times.

Amtrak thruway coach seating. Amtrak has a fleet of coaches which provides transfer to train passengers to areas not served by its train such as San Diego city and San Francisco city.

Train scenery en-route

This particular Amtrak train features double decker seating on a first-come-first-served basis for its normal seats. The economy seats are definitely more comfortable than economy class seats on a plane and has power outlets for every seat. The train was initially crowded during boarding but slowly empties out closer to San Francisco, where another coach is waiting to ferry the passengers into San Francisco city.

For myself, I arranged to be dropped off at Westfield shopping mall, where fortunately there is a free bag deposit service after checking with the concierge. So I'm able to explore the city for another round. 😃

The same night, I boarded a Virgin American flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles to connect with the Hainan airlines transpacific flight to Chongqing, China. It is this part of my month-long trip where some issues cropped up at the Virgin America's San Francisco check-in counter and the rush to connect at Los Angeles airport after a delayed flight. Luckily, things always seem to turn out fine in the end and I manage to end up in China, though my luggage is lost forever. Apparently, my luggage did not make the connection and up till today, I have no idea where it is in the world.

Anyway, after a couple of hours at Chongqing airport, I took a domestic flight on Hainan Airlines to Shenzhen. Not sure if it is a blessing in disguise, but without my luggage, I'm able to wander around and explore Shenzhen. This city has many theme parks, but since I have only limited time here, my first stop would be the 世界之窗 window of the world. It gives a glimpse of the world out there through replicas of the monuments of the world in miniature sizes, such as the Eiffel tower, Taj Mahal, etc. Hence the name of this attraction.

This cool looking spot is actually the entrance to the Shenzhen metro.

The Eiffel tower replica behind me

Taj Mahal replica

The famous domes of Moscow

X'mas cheer in Shenzhen

Next I went to the lian hua shan park. Not exactly a tourist destination, but more for the locals to hang out.

Lian hua shan park in Shenzhen

After the park, I set off for the Shenzhen railway station via metro and transfer to the high speed rail to Guangzhou. I took the normal seat for the bullet train. It is more than comfortable for the short journey between Shenzhen and Guangzhou. There are toilets on board. Food is buy-on-board, with the train attendants bringing around a menu for passengers to peruse and order.

This marks a short but fruitful day trip in Shenzhen.

Cheap Turkish Airlines economy class fares from Gothenburg, Sweden to Seoul, South Korea

Yesterday, I chanced upon cheap Turkish Airlines economy class fares from Gothenburg, Sweden to Seoul, South Korea.

At ~S$375 roundtrip from Europe to Asia. And on Turkish Airlines, with its famed catering even in economy class, and wonderful IFE, it only took me a while to purchase a ticket for myself. From experience, I knew that such cheap fares will not last long. Just a day later, this fare is almost gone.

Dates were wide open from March right up to December. On some March dates, the fares were below S$300. Sadly, due to the nature of my work, I had to settle for a bit more at S$375 😃

As my March and June trips were planned, I had to book the ticket for travel in December, which is like 9 months away. 

Yup, so this december, if all goes well, I will be visiting Gothenburg, Sweden for the first time, and Seoul for the third time. While in South Korea, I'm thinking of positioning to Osaka, Japan and onwards to Hawaii - A place that I have wanted to visit for sometime but not able to due to constraints. Hopefully, I get to visit it this year!

Provided I'm still fit to travel. haha ! Nowadays I don't take anything for granted. I'm thankful to be able to wake up every morning and go about doing whatever I need to do. I treat everyday as my last so I try to live each day meaningfully.

Yup. So that's my travel plans for december. Talk about long term planning. Haha!

San Diego City & St James Historic Hotel

After arriving at San Diego airport on Virgin American airlines, I left the small, modern airport quickly to find the public bus that will take me to my hotel, St James historic hotel in downtown. One quirky aspect on this bus is that I have to tug at a string running alongside the window of the bus to activate the bus stopping bell!

I booked a night at St James historic hotel as it offers a reasonable rate for the date I'm staying. In addition, I thought the name 'historic' means that the hotel has a long history so maybe has some aspects worth checking out. Turns out it was a great decision.

Though the exterior doesn't look inviting, the hotel receptionists cannot be friendlier and the bellman opens and closes the door for every guest walking past the door. I hardly encounter this service in any other hotel nowadays.

The standard room is large. The bed is comfortable. The toilet door is uniquely 'historic'. The sink is located outside the toilet. All essential toiletries are provided. 

My hotel stay does not come with breakfast, but the nearby subway with its affordable sandwiches makes up for it. Other than subway, the rest of eateries near the hotel are high class restaurants.

On the first morning that I arrived, the receptionist kindly allowed me to check in early. Leaving my bags in my room, I quickly left the hotel to explore the city. The San Diego hop-off-hop-on bus stop is located within walking distance of the hotel.

My first stop is the San Diego Zoo, a famous attraction judging by the number of visitors.  The star attraction is the two giant pandas!

Spotted this free ride vehicle. If I ever visit San Diego again, I would like to try it out.

San Diego traditional hop-off-hop-on bus. I like it ! The bus driver doubled up as the tour guide, providing entertaining commentary.

Passed by a small Japanese garden

Finally reached the San Diego Zoo ! After a long walk from the bus stop.

The star attraction was busy feeding on bamboo !

Didn't know that such architecture exist in the United States. Reminds me more of Europe.

After the Zoo, I continued on the tourist bus to its terminus, the San Diego Old Town Market. Basically shops selling souvenirs.

On the second day in San Diego, after checking out of the great hotel, took a uberpool ride and depositing my bag at the train station for a fee, I left to wander along the waterfront. 

I passed by the USS Midway Museum, converted from a warship, so decided to check it out.

The many retired military planes on display on the ship are worth exploring.

X'mas decor inside the USS Midway

At the waterfront is the Star of India

I ended my day in San Diego with a two hour cruise.

Due to early sunset hours in winter, this cruise became a sunset cruise with fascinating views of the curved bridge and the sunset in the distance.

San Diego, though not a popular tourist destination compared to nearby San Francisco, has some attractions definitely worth visiting, such as the Zoo and the USS Midway museum. 

Also, the St James Historic Hotel is worth staying for its convenient location in the city and its old-fashioned lift ! 

All in all, I enjoyed myself in San Diego !