eponymous_coward

I feel manifestly unequal to the task at hand, after reading so many good trip reports here. Seeing people who actually paid thousands of dollars for their tickets, doubling over in laughter, knowing that many more before you have done a far better job at maximizing their travel, going to even more exotic places than you have, staying at luxury hotels and villas... and, well, generally not making a hash of things as I am likely to be doing.

And yet, here I am. I suppose I shall do my best and make this work as best I can. Doubtless I've bitten off more than I can chew here.

This trip hasn't happened yet, but we'll go with the outline here. Hopefully this will shame me into completing the trip report.

Part 1: Planning and whatnot. Inspiration
Part 2: Leaving SEA... and UA intercontinental F
Part 3: Does our hero leave NRT? Oh, and how did the NH flight go?
Part 4: Hong Kong: A Pub and whatever else we can find...
Part 5: Come to beautiful Bali... with Singapore Air
Part 6: Two sides of Bali
Part 7: Off to Bangkok with Thai
Part 8: The Chao Praya
Part 9: To Macau
Part 10: On to Europe and Berlin, thanks to Swiss F, and a brief FRA interlude with LH... and what's this, back to Y on AB?
Part 11: 5 days of oontz in Leipzig
Part 12: Dinner with a friend in Cologne... and scotch for breakfast in the FCT.
Part 13: Conclusion

eponymous_coward

So what possesses someone to take a route around the world for 3 weeks like this?

SEA-SFO-NRT-HKG-SIN-DPS-BKK-HKG-ZRH-FRA-TXL-LEJ-CGN-FRA-SEA

Well, it was knowing that the 20th anniversary of this was going to go on during a break in time between my contracts as a software engineer, hearing the stories of my friends who went there, and reading everything from Mark Twain, Bill Bryson, bloggers like gleff, the Wandering Aramean and lucky and even the trip reports of folks like SFO777, jacob_m and eightblack... plus many of you, sharing information. It led me to realize "I can do this, go somewhere very far away".

I've been to Europe twice, taken my daughter to the Yucatan... but this was going to be something different, a premium class redemption. Then the helpful US Airways *A award thread, along with generous promos to share miles and get bonuses on hotel point transfers made me realize I could turn it into something really, really cool- I could go to North Asia in first class and take a stop in Europe (and my industrial music festival) on the way home. Then I realized that due to CO bonuses and Key Bank giving me a $150 cash bonus, I could essentially add a trip to South Asia on top... and make money on the deal after getting the debit cards. Oh, hell, might as well throw in the once in a lifetime CO Gold match of AS status- I figure CO's lifetime wasn't going to be longer than mine, not by a longshot. OK, let's keep some SPG status, work a Hilton promo and start narrowing things down on Wotif.com and booking.com...

OK, before I start going too far into the weeds of travel and frequent flyer hacking, let's just say where I am coming from. I set out to be fairly simple and thrifty in this, since it's just me travelling. So no W hotels with hot and cold running champagne for me. No rental villas. No three star Michelin restaurants (and besides, I want to see if Anthony Bourdain is right about street food, no better places to do that than SE Asia). Nothing poshy-posh. Just a clean place to lay my head, take a shower, and have fun- I decided early in I'd try and stay out of hostels (no need to have a 40something show up in the middle of college kids), I'd research with TripAdvisor, Wikitravel, whatever, and I'd come up with stuff that would mix local flavor with whatever good values I could come up with.

So it sort of turned into things like "I'd like to surf in Bali", or asking friends about Hong Kong or Bangkok street food... and hoping that I'd get the experience Rick Steves describes of being a "temporary local" instead of a tourist. I managed to stick through a contract ending early (nearly ruining my plans, I literally got a job at the last minute before I'd have had to bail on my plans, and my new, old boss who rehired me gave me the blessing to do this, something I am infinitely grateful for), a mild stroke (fortunately recovered from), which has just reinforced the idea that I need to do this...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

-- Mark Twain

So it just reinforced this with me: what if I don't have twenty years?

Anyways, this is the genesis of the idea. The tickets are all finally bought, the rooms I want are all reserved, I'm in the final week of this preplanning, and I am nearly giddy with the thoughts of meeting new people, going to new places, and flying around the world. Not just luxury hotels, Westins and Sheratons and Hiltons, not just lie-flat seats, not just caviar, Johnnie Walker Blue and "Would sir prefer the Dom or the Krug"... but being out in the world.

So I hope I can take you along with me, in a sense. It's the least I can try to do, for all this community has done for me.

shuckit

I'm ready. Let's go.

ademarco

I'm ready to read about your adventures as well. I will be heading to Bali, Seoul, and Bangkok for the next 3 weeks. Originating from Dubai. Side note - I called UA and they gave me business class from ICN to BKK for 15k miles and economy BKK to DXB for 30k miles on nonstop TG.

mad_atta

Great start! Bring on Fit the Second, I say. ^^

eponymous_coward

En route update: the SFO IFL has Dom Ruinart.





This is quite acceptable. Won't match macabus's record, but I don't think we can say UA is being cheap on the champers in the lounge.

eponymous_coward

Second en route update: the UA IFL is air conditioned. A lot of Narita is not, for obvious and understandable reasons.

And yet another update: met an FTer (he mostly lurks) and we repaired to the ANA Suite lounge. They have Suntory Hibiki 17. Highly recommended.

eponymous_coward

I'll probably do a more substantial update from Bali... that is, if I don't go "hang it all, I'm having a good enough time such that I don't intend to waste it updating my trip report".

Last night was flitting about Kowloon and then Lan Kwai Fong. Granted, I am too damned old to be partying with people in their teens and twenties. But the enthusiasm is infectious on a Friday night in Hong Kong, enough so that I didn't feel completely silly in the crowd.



And some Hong Konger in the morning guessed my age at a decade and a half younger than it truly is (or was engaging in flattery, I'll delude myself with the former), so we'll go with that.

Today is a travel day... on SQ. You know, that airline that nobody is supposed to be able to fly on Star Alliance awards in premium classes. Apparently they have made an error and are letting me on there on business class. So no Dom or Krug, but I hope enjoyable nonetheless. The old-timers think the "book the cook" Lobster Thermidor served in business class has gone downhill, but having never had any before, perhaps it will escape my notice.

Prior to that, it will be breakfast in the HKG *A lounges... a battle of TG vs. UA vs. SQ. Who wins? Stay tuned to find out...

eightblack

What a pleasure to read. And a great sense of adventure. A man after my own heart...

Stop by in Singapore for a drink. I'll be here...

MagicWok

Awaiting the Bali section with excition! I have a trip coming up soon, so find myself getting obsessed with other peoples feedback and opinions

eponymous_coward

Still not a full update with pictures (that will come later in the week, I think), but enjoy what I will scrawl down here.

The battle of the HKG lounges... TG wins for food, SQ wins for having Drappier whereas UA and TG had no champagne. Carlsberg and San Miguel were the alternate pale yellow beverages I chose. And I got lots of dim-sum-y sorts of food, sushi and so on.

SQ's lounge is stately. Sort of state funeral stately, because of the dark enclosed space and all. Perfectly adequate but UA and TG beat them in ambiance. UA's lounge gets packed in before their flights- not crowded crowded but busy.

SQ's catering on a regional flight in C beats UA's catering in international F (as well as NH's). And it wasn't even close. I suppose if half your revenue comes from premium classes (according to an article I saw in the Straits Times), you had better do it right, or it won't be staying around. Oh, and Highland Park 12. Very nice. Did I mention I drink?

Oh, and thanks to SQ's T2 remodeling of their lounges, yours truly ended up with some Johnny Walker Blue during his SIN layover. It seems that the F lounge still has F drink selection, even though they are letting in C pax while the C side is being remodeled.

Finally, I am also too damned old to be surfing. I was definitely the slow kid in the class, but my instructor, Frank, was great with me. So go to his school. (I suspect my stroke has impacted my sense of balance, which is sort of important for surfing). I did manage to get up for a few seconds. We'll try again tomorrow, and I still had a blast, anyway.

Bali is wonderful and I see why people keep coming back. Chicken satay as street food with nuclear-powered sambal rocks.

eponymous_coward

Well, after a second day of mostly falling, slightly surfing, and tramping around Seminyak and Kuta, I am, well, decrepit. Everything hurts. I found good hole in the wall warungs serving Makkasan and Manado food, and great sambal, drank beer with college surfers and my guide, and found out that the local mosquitos treat the DEET-laced bugspray I am using like I treat whisky.





People survive dengue fever, right?

I think the next few days in Lovina will be spent recovering by a pool with tropical drinks. Not even the $6 Balinese massage from last night and aspirin is enough, though it is still a fantastic time. And I might as well finish up missing parts of this trip report.

Edit: it's not often that you get a bus station with a kiwi. And I don't mean the human kind of New Zealander.

eponymous_coward

As I have declared today a day of doing Nothing, I have also declared that working on a trip report counts as sufficiently close to Nothing as to meet the qualifications.

And what do I mean by Nothing? Christopher Robin will explain for us:

Christopher Robin: Pooh, what's your favorite thing in the whole world?
Winnie the Pooh: My favorite thing is me coming to visit you, and then you ask, "How about a small smackeral of honey?"
Christopher Robin: I like that, too. But what I like most of all is just doing nothing.
Winnie the Pooh: How do you do just nothing?
Christopher Robin: Well, when grown-ups ask, "What are you going to do?" and you say, "Nothing," and then you go and do it.
Winnie the Pooh: I like that. Let's do it all the time.
Christopher Robin: You know something, Pooh? I'm not going to do just nothing anymore.
Winnie the Pooh: You mean, never again?
Christopher Robin: Well, not so much.

I think leisure trips are fine times to do Nothing, even if one is well past Christopher Robin's age.

So, we shall wind back the clock a bit to a week ago in Seattle...

eponymous_coward

(Note, expect pictures to be added in later, and some more detail. Too much work would no longer be considered Nothing.)

I spent the night at an anonymous SEA hotel (the Coast Gateway, if you must know, but it was so anonymous that I didn't bother with pictures) so that I could 1) not worry about being picked up on time by my car, and 2) have dinner and drinks with dear friends who were leaving for a new home and jobs in New Jersey, and were in an airport hotel for their last nights in Seattle.

Couldn't sleep well, though. I finally was going someplace really, REALLY far away with frequent flyer miles, in the front of the plane. True, no big deal for you frequent flyer veterans, but a BFD for me (as the US Vice President might say).

So, the appointed hour comes, and, well, having paid the munificent sum of $1500 or so for all these miles, I decide it's time to hit the Red Carpet Club in the basement of SEA. For it being isolated from natural light it's quite all right.

However, this flight being pre-dawn, it appears the bar isn't open. I refrain from writing my Congressman or demanding e-certs and content myself with pineapple juice from a smiling and apologetic attendant.

Soon enough I am boarding…

UA 468 5/25/2011
SEA-SFO, 678 m
757-200, Seat 3A (full F cabin, though I suspect from FA chatter one or two NRSAs)
Ch 9 on

Oh, good, they are boarding through 2L. I GET TO TURN LEFT. Silly that it should be a big deal, but all of my F experiences are on narrowbodies boarding through one door, with the one AA widebody 762 swapped out for a 757 last minute…

People seem to like UA's domestic F seating more than AS's (the airline I am most familiar with). I am not impressed with the 757. No real place to stow my laptop backpack, pitch isn't all that. But time for the de rigeur foot shot…

Oh, and the accompanying shot of food and beverage. Scone and bloody mary. Breakfast of champions.





We fly down over lots of cloud cover at 38,000 feet, and Channel 9 is on and interesting (a feature of UA I really enjoy), and soon enough, we're landing at SFO…

And I am off to the International First Lounge. I get another set of boarding passes there (important so I can show them to lounge dragons in NRT and get into F lounges).

Well, we've all seen the SFO IFL, haven't we? Oh, wait, what's this, Dom Ruinart? Well, this is very nice…. let's have some with sushi.

Oh, time to board?

UA 837 5/25/2011
SFO-NRT, 5124 miles (wow, this is a long way, though I've flown longer-PDX-FRA, in LH Y. And I mean LONGER.)
Seat 2A, cabin full
Channel 9 on

Well, off to the seat.



It's blurry. I might be too. But no matter. More champagne, menus, and so on.

The Japanese food + starters are competent, nothing special (I eat dinner, plus nibble a bit at breakfast). The service is good- the crew is attentive, passes through the cabin a lot for water. I feel well taken care of, even if the OMG FIRST CLASS factor (plus a general aversion to sleeping on airplanes, plus it being daylight hours) doesn't let me sleep much.

And after movies, Anthony Bourdain and small nap, we are soon coming towards Tokyo… and Fit the Third.

qbrain

The random blurb reporting style is working quite well. If you end up never posting pictures and only half document the formal side of the trip, your report will still be quite the success.