violist

0113 SQ 21 EWR SIN 2300 0655+2 345 34A

I had my cutest outfit on (for a borderline elderly
man), and I could have sworn that the young Indonesian-
looking woman would op-up me, but she didn't. At least
I got the exit row and an invitation to the SAS lounge
without asking.

Security was ugly but not too bad - got there at 7:55
and was out at 8:25, rather fast. Noticed that one guy
was enforcing his idea of order rather cruelly, waving
his hand at the largely Indian populace like a baton
and roaring, "Left, keep left, I said left ..."; his
relief appeared to be much more polite. The procedure
at Newark looked chaotic but may not have been, as it
seemed to get people through in not too much time.

The SAS lounge is just after security on the right,
along with the LH lounge. I thought of asserting my
rights as a RCC member and Star Gold by trying to
get into the Senator lounge, but I'm too old
for that sort of thing. The SAS place itself is okay,
pretty much like the one in Heathrow and not so nice
as the one in Copenhagen. The booze selection, well,
Bacardi Gold is the best spirit it offers. The wines:

St. Francis Chardonnay 2003 - the distinct taste of
cheap grapes - hard to describe - in a fairly clean
but rather too obviously estery wine

Delicato Merlot - this is the box wine that is supposed
to usurp pride of place of Two Buck Chuck ... The best
of the lot, I think. Decent fruit, pleasant cherry-
merlotty quality, good acid, a bit deficient in tannin

Chianti Spalletti - Unappealing nose; very plummy,
some pepper; a bit harsh, probably owing to its youth.
Also a cheapish wine but one I'd buy. A bit of petrol
on the finish. What can I say, I was in economy class.

Eight kinds of cheeses, most of which looked like
plastic

Cold cuts: decent smoked ham; a Genoa salami that
tasted sort of moldy (which added to its appeal,
actually, otherwise I would have thought it some sort
of nightmare Soviet mule-meat sausage); a respectable,
very peppery cotto

Rolls: like plastic, only making crumbs.

The gate area was much less crowded than the lounge.
I suppose most of the economy passengers must have
been Star Golds or something. They called priority
boarding for all varieties at once, and I was very
early to line up, as I wanted to be careful of my
overhead space, as I had the exit row window.

Turns out almost nobody boarded early (all still in
the lounge I suppose). Turns out also that I had
plenty of room in the overhead: my bags were the
only ones in the bins over 34 to 36.

A pretty full flight, took off mostly on time. Service
was okay; the seat okay; the Wiseman IFE quite a bit
better than other airlines'. Food was average or maybe
a touch better; none of the above, from seat pitch to
food, nearly so good as what one used to get in coach
when I started flying in the '60s. The exit row window
has as much legroom as one can use; the aisle, well,
you might bump knees with the Singapore Girl opposite
during takeoff and landing.

The menu:

Round off the evening with a scrumptious meal and
sip of Champagne

The Champagne was the worst I'd ever encountered.
From where I was, the name Heidsieck surprisingly
stood out, but I couldn't read the rest: no doubt it
said, bottled especially for economy class on SQ.
I asked for a Tiger beer, which was a little skunked.

Tasty Beginnings
Shrimps with chat-potato salad
Three of the smallest shrimp I've ever seen,
crunchy nearly raw potatoes, tasteless.

The Main Event
Braised beef in red wine with root vegetables and
celeriac-pear puree (exclusively created by Alfred
Portale of Gotham Bar and Grill, New York)
I had this - thymey, surprisingly palatable, sort of
like what one might find in a rather poor bistro, or
something I'd make if I were drunk.

Wok fried chicken in Oriental black peppercorn
sauce, seasonal vegetables and fragrant rice

The Cheese Corner
Cheese and crackers
President Camembert. I passed

Sweet Overtones
Ice cream
Haagen-Dazs chocolate. I passed

From the Bakery
Roll and butter
I passed

Choice Brews
Coffee
Tea
More Tiger for me.

Airshow was fun: at one point there was this map
of a large slice of the world, with four places
identified - Amarillo, Godthab, the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, and the Atlantic; shortly thereafter
it was replaced by a map that showed but one
place - Angmassalik.

One of my favorite unknown composers when I was in
college was Alexander Tcherepnin, partially because I
rather admired the cleverness and charm of his nephew,
a young assistant professor at my school. I was
delighted to find an album of Tcherepnin the elder's
music, done by the SSO, on the IFE. Well. My tastes
have changed.

Slept a lot on the flight, maybe 10 hours out of
18 - the seat was comparable to if a little narrower
than a domestic F seat but closer to the wall and
thus more conducive to snoozing.

Halfway through I was wakened by a Singapore
Girl offering chicken pie. Actually, every time
there was a beverage or hot towel service, I
was wakened by a light touch on the arm; but I
decided to ignore most of these (pretending I hope
successfully to be deep in slumber) except when the
smell of chicken pot pie reached my nostrils.
A decent flaky pastry with a very weird filling,
tasting of onions and chicken fat and what seemed
to be Ritz crackers. The only chicken discernible
was a nice big piece of breastbone cartilage. Not,
on the whole, worth waking up for.

Rolled over and went back to sleep before breakfast.

Begin your day with fresh and wholesome pickings

Fresh Pickings
Fresh fruit with champagne syrup
Not very fresh, and no syrup to be detected -
a couple rather bad grapes, some slices of
mushy kiwi; not inspired

Tasty Beginnings
Fruit yoghurt
This was AWOL

The Main Event
French toast stuffed with orange cream and Grand
Marnier, blueberry syrup and sausages (exclusively
created by Nancy Oakes of Boulevard, San Francisco)

Fried egg noodles with chicken and vegetables
As I'd smelled the friendly fragrance of scallions
and sesame oil, I went for this; it was very
tasteless, so I asked for the Kris Chilli - according
to the packet, 57% chillies, 28% sugar, 9% vinegar,
2% salt, 4% water - and was given two packets, which
improved things a lot. There was a nice piece of
braised bok choy nestled among the noodles

From The Bakery
Assorted breakfast rolls, butter and fruit preserve
A plastic roll; I didn't bother with it. Also, a
very tasty, delicious even, walnut muffin

Choice Brews
Coffee
Tea
I had OJ, which tasted canned.

We landed a hair early, and I decided, upon reading
FT, that I'd wait up for the Hong Kong detainees rather
than heading straight into town and wasting a couple
hours in Little India before lunch. There is, after
all, free wireless, free Ethernet, and so on.

But wireless Internet isn't free any more! And I
couldn't get the Ethernet connection to work. So I
paid for some time (S$9 an hour) and did my e-mail.

Good thing I did. 'Cos when I went back to FT, it
turns out Wireless, kluau, SanDiego1K, and JanAZ were
going to be bumped back down to coach on Singapore,
so they decided to take CX instead (an hour later).

So I had more time on my hands. Did a tour of the
food courts of both terminals - saw these really
appetizing-looking chicken wings at $1.20 each, so
I tried one: other than that it was stale and had
been soaked in old grease, it was fine. Also a
"bacon and egg tart," which was I suppose the
Cantonese equivalent of the Egg McMuffin. I don't
much like eggs qua eggs, but I would have kicked
myself had I not tasted one of these weird little
pastries, which look rather like a bacon Danish with
ketchup icing.

Cathay Pacific wouldn't tell me what gate the FT
express was coming in on. Just that the bags would
be at Belt 18. Use your noodle. What would Bennie
do? I went to the departures board and found that
the CX to Hong Kong via Bangkok was going to be
leaving out of C1, so there I went. Found a Saudia
airplane there and lots and lots of people in
festive Muslim garb. I asked an airport concierge
where CX 717 was coming in. C1. Shrugged and did
some more Internet; returned to the gate, and there
on the display, Saudia to Jeddah - C1; Hong Kong gate
changed to C2.

Hung around C2 a while ... just before arrival time
I realized I could e-check-in for my return, which I
ran off and did, snagging 31K, the right window in
the first row of coach.

At 12:45 or so, the plane pulled up and disgorged
its precious crew. We immigrated together, and Jan,
SD1K, and I took a taxi to the Conrad; I walked from
there to the Marina Mandarin, a really easy stroll I
thought ... I was wrong. My favorite food court is
gone, and the entire area is a construction site. To
avoid jaywalking across the hideously busy road I had
to walk past the convention center and around, take a
service stairway, yuck (later I found the appropriate
stairway, which wasn't much better). I was dumped out
right near the normal entrance; accosted by a rather
officious fellow, who flagged down a Singapore Girl-ish
escort, who took me to reception (she knew my name!)
and then showed me to my room, which has a view of the
colonial government buildings and - from the balcony -
the Durian. Average-size room, not recently renovated,
with some dubious design touches (such as a shower
that reminds me of a high-school gym shower) on the
whole attractive enough, but not what I'd expect of
a Leading Hotel of the World. I seem to recall that
the T&L top list used to include this hotel; now its
sister place, the Meritus Mandarin on Orchard Road,
has bumped it off the list.

A much-needed shower and a short nap, and then it was
time to head off to meet people at the Conrad (I won't
enumerate the 17 people I joined) for the cab ride to

No Signboard Seafood, Geylang branch

where our esteemed leader and host mjm had had five
tables reserved. To be cont'd.

SanDiego1K

It was a shock and a pleasure to find violist awaiting us as we arrived 14 hours late in Singapore. I couldn't believe that he would give up his morning in Singapore, as well as lunch in Little India simply to be at our gate on arrival. What a wonderful welcome to Singapore!!

violist

SD1K - the pleasure was mine. And losing a morning in a city I've
explored several times (and will be spending most of a week in with
My Carol next month) wasn't bad when the consolation was getting
to know the airport really, really well (I don't have inbound lounge
access) and then seeing your smile as you stepped off the jetway.

violist

No Signboard does have better and cheaper food than
Jumbo (not that Jumbo was bad, or overpriced, or
anything). The atmosphere is similar, but Jumbo has
the advantage of being near the water, whereas
No Signboard is in what I'm told is a sort of red
light district. It looks pretty tame to me, but
then I'm kind of oblivious.

We were such a big group that we decided that each
table would order on its own. I can describe only
what our table had and hope that others do likewise.

Lobster apple salad with fried accompaniments - this
was a hard sell by the waitress, who actually took
quite good care of us and didn't steer us wrong. The
lobster of course was freshwater and a big one, a
kilo easy. The meat had been taken from the shell,
diced up with the crispy but mild apples that you get
these days, and mixed with a slightly sweet (but by
no means Japanese) mayonnaise. The accompaniments
were fried fish paste, fried fish paste with taro,
and fried fish paste with something else. All of these
latter pretty good but in essence just bulk.

Of course, crab was the main event; we had both chilli
crab and white pepper crab. The former was spicier and
less sweet than Jumbo's, very toothsome; but most of
us still preferred the pepper crab, excitingly seasoned
and perfect with the Tiger beer (which we drank in
abundance). A benefit of this preference was that I got
more than my share of chilli crab, with people tending
to concentrate on the other.

I ordered e fu noodles as our bulk-up. Nice, brown,
mushroomy, cheap.

And butter prawns, big freshwater jobs dipped in butter
and coated with crushed biscuit, fried on a stick, yum.

Someone, perhaps sailaway75, said we had to try cereal
prawns, which were very similar only curled and with
more topping. Unfortunately, they were so similar to
the butter prawns, and they arrived so late in the
meal, that the order was redundant, and much of the
dish went uneaten. I tried to peddle them to the
other tables, but everyone else had likewise ordered
an overabundance of food.

Sambal kangkong was delicious: hollow green sauteed
with shrimp and hot peppers.

For the nonseafood eaters, barbecued spare ribs -
really chops cut up and served in a subtly sweet and
sour sauce, quite nice. One figures the Cantonese
know what to do with pork.

Someone ordered steamed bread (man tou) and white rice,
because he thought that no crab meal was complete
without them. My only issue with this was that people
then tended to fill up on starch, result being lots of
leftovers. I think the point was balancing the meal,
but as in most matters, I say pfui on balance.

Sailaway had brought some boxes of goodies from the
Singapore Airport Authority; Kiwiflyer brought some
little kiwi dolls, and cawhite was deputized by
traveliter (who showed up the next day with her
?husband) to distribute the official buttons of the do.

We ended up being a party of 38, I believe, just
fine for 5 tables, actually. A number of guests were
foiled by airline connections; a couple of these met
up later for drinks of Harry's; there were also a few
unexplained no-shows, who no doubt had things come up
unexpectedly.

After dinner, we split up into maxicabs to go to our
respective destinations; when all was settled, I
accepted mjm's kind offer to taste the famous Trois
Rivieres 1977 Martinique rum - spicy cooked plums;
pretty dry; a taste of cloves came out on the very
long finish. An excellent rum with just enough bite
to be interesting and enough smoothness that you just
wanted to keep drinking and drinking.

And then to Boat Quay and Harry's Bar, where a Guinness
set me back $2 more than at the hotel, ugh!

As it was getting late, I tried to find AusTXHiker and
airoli to walk back hotelwards (they were at the
Conrad, a few minutes north of my hotel), but I guess
that by the time I was ready to head out, they were
gone. So I accompanied Kiwiflyer on a leisurely walk
back across the river; we said goodbye around the
Esplanade and I headed for the Mandarin through the
maze of darkened construction and midnight-emptied mall.

Bretteee

So do you prefer the 18 hour nonstop than a 1 stop.

violist

Bretteee -

I was just trying it out for size, and I rather enjoyed it.
A big plus was that in both directions I got 10-hour
blocks of sleep, which meant that fatigue and jet lag
were not major concerns.

My seatmate on the way back pointed out that one
gets twice as much food on (say) JFK-FRA-SIN, but
in fact that may be one of the problems.

rain

Violist, you know more about where to get best sin food than me. You certainly describe it better! ^ ^ ^

violist

Thanks, rain ... it was mjm and various other FTers with whom he consulted
who deserve credit ...

= = =

Got up bright and early; headed off on a walk to take
advantage of the crystal clarity before the heat of the
day. Found my favorite food court gone but discovered
that some of the stalls at least are relocated to the
Marina Square food court on the 4th level. They were,
however, all closed up on Sunday morning. So, as I was
going to lunch with Jan and SD1K and thus was to miss
the hawker extravaganza, and having a hankering for
that sort of food, I went to the hotel restaurant (!)
and ordered

WANTON NOODLES (Soup Or Dry) Egg Noodles with Pork
Dumpling and Barbecued Pork in Clear Soup or served
Dry with Chilli Sauce

and a Tiger beer. No beer, the bar wasn't open, and
they had some out, but they were warm. So I had OJ
instead for about the same price. It was good OJ.

I think that with the largely American clientele, the
lobby restaurant, geared to breakfast buffet, wasn't
expecting to have any orders for noodles at that hour,
but on the other hand, this gave the cook something to
do besides wheelbarrow-loads of bacon and eggs for the
white folks. It took 20-25 minutes to come, but on the
other hand it was better than any hawker (or other)
version I've ever eaten.

I ordered the noodles dry: they'd used the shrimp
vermicelli and cooked a batch fresh, cut some char siu
fresh, and made the soy sauce chiles and the sambal
fresh. A small bowl of dumpling soup (with shrimp
dumplings) came on the side. $16, a bit steep (the
dish would be $3 without dumplings or $4 to 5 with
at a stall), but as I said, very very good.

Back to the room to find a message that Jan and SD had
run off without me, and I was on my own for lunch.
Thought of trying the Garlic Restaurant by the water
but then decided to join everyone for the hawker thing.
Got to the Conrad at 11:50 - Seanthepilot was there,
waiting for Spiff. I hung out with him and looked for
signs of other FTer life - none to be seen. [Turns out
that the meeting place had changed from the Conrad to
the Sheraton without my having heard about it.] We had a
good chat; MANFlyer came down on his way to Changi and
visited briefly, after which Sean and I walked out and
through the underground Citylink Mall to Raffles City,
where he picked up some toys for his friend's kid, and
then it was to meet miles4all at the Long Bar for his
historic walk through the city. Started off at Raffles;
went on to various churches; then CHIJMES (a former
convent and school that have been developed as shops
and restaurant space). On to various museums (miles4all
had only time to give us just a precis of the contents
of these); then up Orchard and to St. Gregory the
Illuminator (the oldest church in the city), especially
interesting to me because of my own historical ties to
the Boston Armenian community; then the old fire
station, the new and old Parliament buildings, the
statues of Sir Stamford Raffles, the cricket club, and
our final thirsty destination, the Fullerton ... where
we found out that the bar wasn't open for another half
hour. Anyhow the Fullerton is wicked expensive, so some
of us decided not to wait and walk up Boat Quay. Where
we bypassed Harry's Bar in favor of the Thai place
where bseller and WWBGD had found cheap Tiger
beer earlier. Turns out this was closed, but the other
Thai place next door was also offering the same
terrific deal, a jug (2 L I think) of brew for $15.
Let's see, those present included bseller, WWBGD,
restlessinRNO, miles4all, sailaway75 (who showed up
somewhat later), and myself. 4 pitchers of beer and
various assorted other things. And a good time was had
by all. At length, we'd drunk enough, and it was late.
I wasn't feeling night safariish, so I took my leave of
everyone and walked back via the Garlic Restaurant,
which was pleasantly hopping with a young, local crowd.
I was seated right away at a window away from the young
folks. Had the garlic soup, which tasted like thin
chicken gravy with a lot of garlic (neither of which is
a bad thing); it had a few cloves of boiled garlic in
it and some shreds of chicken skin. Not bad at all.

The chilli crab noodle (voted into Singapore's top 10
dishs in 2004, says the signboard outside) was pretty
good as well, with a spicy and not-too-sweet broth,
good al dente noodles, and half a softshell crab body
on top. Unfortunately, the menu had claimed that the
dish was topped with "a softshell crab," which led me
to expect a larger portion of shellfish. But along
with another Tiger, this made a pretty decent meal.

I got back to my room to find a modest welcome amenity
(10 hours before I was going to check out!) - a nice
bowl with three (crisp but tasteless) apples and a note
saying

WELCOME
Apples are a great source of vitamins and fibre. They
are free from fat and cholesterol. An apple a day
provides you with a third of a day's requirement for
vitamin C. We hope you will enjoy these apples and wish
you a very pleasant stay with us.
/s/
Eddie Tan, General Manager, Mandarin Marina Singapore

Did a bit of e-mail (couldn't upload anything; my
computer doesn't want to acknowledge the hotel's
ethernet network, or vice versa) and was in bed before 10.

violist

Okay, my flight wasn't until noon, but there was the
dance of the SWUs to be done, and I figured I could
check in early and visit with the other Doers for a
while and then eat myself silly in the Raffles lounge.

So I awoke at 3, raring to go. Managed to get back to
sleep for an hour; got ready at 4:15, out of there by
5. Should have hoofed to the Conrad at 4:40 or so to
hook up with the people leaving from there, but given
the darkness and without the shortcut through the mall,
that didn't sound so appealing to save ten bucks. I
decided to pick up the lone taxi out front. Turned out
to be a voluble Hokkienese who had strong ideas about
law and order and how Singapore was far more sensible
about things than the US. I might have been inclined
to agree with some of what he was saying, but I didn't
feel like a political discussion right at the moment.
I told him I'd be trying to catch a few moments' nap,
just to shut him up.

Just after 5, the airport is a pretty laid-back-seeming
place; but by 5:30, the UA area was hopping; first with
anxious-looking Chinese, then with the far more relaxed
FTers. I stood by while bunches of colleagues went up
to claim their nice Connoisseur seats. And, it turns
out, a good thing I hung about, as at least one of us
had a (pessimistically anticipated) difficulty with her
reservation, for which my 1K card (handed back and
forth across the rope a few times) provided eventual
relief. Thanks, wireless, for helping me out, as well!

I told people I'd hurry to SQ and try to check in and
meet up with them at the SATS lounge, so I went off to
the shuttle train, only to discover that it wasn't
running for another quarter hour. So I walked to T2 in
the drizzly warmth (you can walk between terminals in
air-conditioned comfort if you've cleared security, but
I hadn't, so out the door into the darkness, past what
looked like some kind of bus staging area, then through
the parking garage, not a really nice walk.

Presented myself at SQ shortly before 6, where an
apologetic agent, after the computer rejected her
attempt to check me in, consulted with a supervisor
and discovered that for this flight the US insists on
American-style security, which wouldn't be available
until 9:30. I pulled a bit of a long face, but to no
avail. The check-in girl really did try. She went over
to the security desk, where I could see them engaging
in fairly spirited conversation. Alas, no happiness.
The arms of the US still reach very far. A pity I
couldn't get through. A parting drink in the SATS
lounge with the folks would have been really fun.

I was reduced to disconsolately wandering the corridors
of the restaurant level, where the only thing open was
Yummy Noody ... the black pepper burger or one of the
chicken oddities at Marrybrown next door might have
intrigued me, but nothing at Yummy Noody looked worth
spending money on. So off I walked. I must have been a
sight carrying my laptop open before me checking for
signal - eventually I found a hot spot by the elevator
to the CAAS office and did an hour's Internet. Then
wandered around a bit before checking in at 9:15.
They gave me an invitation to the SATS lounge.

This lounge is somewhat less attractive than the other
SATS lounge, if that's possible. And when it's full,
the only advantage over the gate area is that there's
free booze and some awful sandwiches (the dim sum
machine was off). But off peak times, it is okay. I
had some Pringles and a handful of mixed nuts, along
with a Courvoisier VSOP Exclusif (slightly less acrid
than usual) and three Remy VSOPs. After which it seemed
I'd kind of exhausted the place, so I decided to go to
the Raffles Lounge to meet AusTXHiker and mauld. mauld
let me in as her guest (Star Gold doesn't get one much
on SQ), and shortly afterward AusTX joined us, and we
had a pleasant conversation. Time flew, and before I
had a chance to scope out the booze and food selection
(I wasn't thirsty any more anyway), it was time to hike
to the gate.

0117 SQ 22 SIN EWR 1205 1700 345 31K

Just a couple minutes after we showed up, boarding
began. Walked through those comfy cabins to my seat in
coach to find that my own seat had an inch more pitch
than those at least in the second C cabin (although my
seat didn't change magically into a flat bed or stuff
like that). Seat width too was more than adequate.
Overhead space as well, with the bin shared with the
last row of C (and it turned out that my briefcase was
the only resident of that bin during the flight).

Presently the cabin began to fill: I saw one guy with a
fiddle case whom I'd seen on other flights, but whom I
don't know. Thought of introducing myself to him, but
something in his demeanor toward the FAs stopped me
from doing so. My seatmate was a shy young Swarthie
from Penang, just graduated and with a job at a bank
in New York. We had a good chat, mostly about air
travel (he admitted that he has lurked on FT but
has never posted) and then it was lunchtime:

I started off with a Singapore Sling, as I haven't had
one of these in Singapore since 2002. This tasted as
though it hadn't any gin in it, but it was still better
than what they serve at the Long Bar, which I find
insupportably sugary and tasting like Hawaiian Punch or
a Pat O'Brien's Hurricane. Then lunch came, along with
which I had some kind of Provencal white that did a
clever impersonation of a bad San Joaquin Chardonnay.

Indulge in a leisurely mid-day meal
Tasty Beginnings
Marinated scallops salad with sundried tomato
dressing - Some of the scallops were nice and sweet;
some were not nice and not sweet. The dressing was
good enough for me to eat by itself.

The Main Event
Roasted fish fillet in a New England clam chowder
sauce with bacon and spinach (Exclusively created
by Alfred Portale of Gotham Bar & Grill, New York) -
I had this; the fish was a bit overcooked and dry,
but the dish itself was of decent flavor, and there
were a half dozen baby clams (in the shell - hard to
eat) at the edges of the dish.

Stirfried chicken in hoisin sauce with vegetables
and fragrant rice - my seatmate, who had said that
one should try the highlighted dishes, unfortunately
chickened out (as it were) - his dish looked kind of
gluey and unappetizing, although he ate most of it.

The Cheese Corner
Cheese and crackers - this was Traditions Cheddar
in a plastic packet; I flexed the slice through the
packet, and it promised a modicum of sharpness, so
I ate it. It was actually okay.

Sweet Overtones
Ice cream
This was a Wall's Magnum bar, which is very much
like an Eskimo Pie, if you are old enough to
remember those things

From the Bakery
Roll and butter

Choice Brews
Coffee
Tea.

Fell asleep right after lunch and didn't wake up until

Round off the evening with a scrumptious meal and
sip of Champagne

Tasty Beginnings
Cucumber salad with hot smoked salmon, Dill mustard
sauce - the salmon was pretty decent, although dry;
the cucumbers instead of being sliced nicely were
chunked, much less attractive

The Main Event
Braised beef in red wine with spinach, roasted
vegetables and mashed potato (Exclusively created by
Gordon Ramsay of London) - not as good as the beef
on the way out. An acrid sauce with prominent tomato
notes couldn't disguise second-rate meat; the carrots
in the roast vegetables were unbelievably bitter; the
mashed taters were okay. The only point of interest
was a big old cardamom pod that had apparently given
up its soul if not body in some other place, as there
was no spice flavor in the dish at all

Stir fried prawns in dry chilli and Chinese wine,
seasonal vegetables and fried rice

The Cheese Corner
Cheese and crackers - Traditions Cheddar again, perhaps
the best thing on the tray, but I didn't feel like
cheese and didn't eat it

Sweet Overtones
Chocolate cream gateau - rather old and sandstonelike;
I peeled off the buttercream frosting, which had in
part been absorbed into the cake, and ate just that.
When I tried to see if the bottom was moist enough to
eat, the whole thing fell apart, like a beach castle,
the answer being no

From the Bakery
Roll and butter

Choice Brews
Coffee
Tea

I had the Fortant de France Merlot, about which I had
recently been warned by a colleague. It was a mistake,
the wine, not the warning. Odd, because some Skalli
wines, including the Fortant Viognier, are okay.

After dinner, I fell asleep to Nigella Lawson and was
wakened by AusTXHiker, with whom I walked to the snack
bar in back. We chatted for a while, fueled by dried
cranberries and blueberries and mini-Oreos; soon mauld
joined us and we had a fun visit. Both of them reported
that Raffles was comfortable enough but not impressive,
so I was less disappointed by my not having gotten C.
AusTXHiker and I agreed that the plane was differently
appointed from other 345s - his bed was different, and
I chimed in that there was no overhead air nozzle on
this flight (I think my previous one had had them).
Someone took our picture, which I hope eventually gets
posted someplace.

At length it appeared they were getting ready for the
last service of the flight, so we returned to our
cabins for the remainder of the journey.

Snoozed again (I found the seats acceptably comfortable
for the purpose) and woke up to hear "would you like a
turkey puff?," to which I said okay. I think that my
turkey puff was mislabeled, as the alternative choice
was a vegetable puff, and mine had succotash in it and
no apparent turkey. It was also unbelievably soggy. It
came with some kind of Australian fruit yogurt drink.
Shoulda stood in bed, as they say. But I wonder what
a vegetarian who got the turkey by mistake would say.

On the whole an acceptable flight, and the additional
space in the all-Y+ cabin as compared to regular coach
was welcome and made a bit of difference. Service was
attentive and competent, from the hanging up of my
jacket to the efficient meal service. However, on this
trip the food, especially later in the flight, was
below par - on the way out I thought it better than
United Economy and less good than United Business; on
the return it was at the level of United Economy and
crept below as the flight went on.

My seat had minor problems - I could not half-recline;
it could lock upright, but with any recline at all, it
sagged until full recline, which probably put out the
person behind. Also, the 110V jack output was spotty,
which is bad because you're required to remove your
laptop battery before plugging in. Luckily I wasn't
doing anything more important than writing e-mail and
trip reports, so I didn't lose anything much. And my
issues were less than the IFE problems experienced by
the row behind. When this was reported to the cabin
crew, an attendant would come to our row, stare at my
seatmate's video screen, then go a row back and stare
at the ones in that row, and back again. I suppose he
tried to fiddle around with the controls a bit, but
he eventually came back to the row behind with an
apology and some kind of service check for them.

Landed a few minutes early, and I felt remarkably fresh
considering that I'd just done an eastbound RTW in
about 90 hours.

At Newark, immigration took a couple minutes only. Bag
claim was pretty quick as well, as mine came out with
a bunch of all priority tagged luggage, right after
the belt was started. It had both Star Priority and
First Class tags on it, so I have told my friends that
my bag flew first class, while I did not. Customs took
moments, although the rather scruffy gent in front of
me was given a bit of a hard time.

During our chat, we'd discussed meeting again in the
RCC; mauld assured us that even with a ticket on a
lesser airline, security would let us in to the United
pier to use the club. So I hightailed it to Terminal A
only to find no AusTX. Waited a while and then wandered
back to Terminal C; walked the entire length of all the
concourses and decided to see what was going on at my
gate. Flight half an hour late. I thought of having a
snack, but instead saw AusTX, and we went to a somewhat
less crowded seating area to chat - turns out he'd run
to try to catch the previous flight to BTV, but even
though the plane was still sitting around there, the CO
gate agent had refused to let him board. It'd be too
much trouble, I suppose, to reopen the manifest. So he
had been kindly waiting at 103 while I'd been wandering.
His originally-booked flight didn't even show a gate on
the board, so that was a cause for concern; I do hear
that he made it home okay without trouble. Mine ended
up boarding about an hour and a quarter late. During
one of the intermediate delays I'd presented myself to
the lady at the gate 6 minutes before the displayed
departure time; asked her if that time was going to
hold, and she said, "I'm not working that flight,"
despite the fact that she was standing right under the
sign that said Baltimore. Eventually another agent came
over and perched under the sign that said Norfolk (or
whatever), so I got in line there. Whereupon the first
agent said, rather loudly, why is there this huge line
in front of us? I looked back, and there was a sizable
line, because it was past time for departure, as stated
by the board. Before I could say anything, the display
magically changed to 25 minutes later, so I went back
and sat with AusTX for another half hour.

Eventually we boarded, and the GA actually working the
flight was gracious and pleasant, so I guess they're
not all prison matrons at CO.

0117 CO3255 EWR BWI 1920 2026 ER4 3C

The flight was full (they needed one volunteer). By the
time I got to my seat, not having CO status and being
right at the front of the plane, there wasn't room
overhead for anything bigger than a dime. (It could
have been worse, I could have been IDBd.) Flagged the
friendly FA, who took my laptop bag and put it into the
closet, which was apparently rather full by the time my
seatmate arrived with his suit bag. The FA sort of
sighed but found room. Took another short delay on the
tarmac, then a quick flight, and we landed maybe an
hour behind schedule but in one piece, on the same day.

My Carol picked me up in short order, and soon I was
enjoying a shower, my first substantial contact with
water in 30 hours.

chichow

SSO?

San Fran Symph Orch?

Chichow

violist

Whoops ... meant SPO.