I Know What You Did Last Summer...
Oct 12, 2015, 4:14 pm
#18
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: New York, NY
Programs: AA Gold. UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt (Lifetime Diamond downgraded to Explorist)
Posts: 6,776
Oct 12, 2015, 5:15 pm
#20
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: New York, NY
Programs: AA Gold. UA Silver, Marriott Gold, Hilton Diamond, Hyatt (Lifetime Diamond downgraded to Explorist)
Posts: 6,776
Oct 12, 2015, 8:54 pm
#23
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: 6km East of EPAYE
Programs: UA Silver, AA Platinum, AS & DL GM Marriott TE, Hilton Gold
Posts: 9,582
Oct 13, 2015, 4:20 am
#25
Moderator, Trip Reports
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA GS-2MM, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 3,715
It never ceases to amaze me how travel affects people. Let me explain.
I remember driving to the airport with my parents one day when I was a kid. We were going on a family holiday. As we were nearing the airport, my mother gave out an almighty shriek and exclaimed, “I’ve forgotten my make-up bag. We need to go back home immediately!”
There was total hysteria in the car.
We lived a solid 45-minutes from Tullamarine. And if I recall, I think we were going to Queensland. The Vegas of Australia.
Apparently even Queensland women (and some cross dressing politicians) wear make up and I’m told they sell the silly stuff in many, many department stores. Gas stations even.
Ok I know I am being sarcastic. But the point is this. People wig out over the silliest things when it comes to getting on a plane. The last time I looked, even places which bomb the living daylights out of each other sell toothpaste, toilet paper and yes, even make up.
But no, my father drove back home as if there was a hamster riddled with rabies in his trousers all for the simple sake of getting something that could easily be replaced at our destination.
My philosophy with travel is simple. If the problem can be solved with vodka, tomato juice and a credit card, then its not really a problem.
Now whilst my old man may have been born in Australia, he is still 100% Chinese. Ever since I can remember, he has been a terrifyingly bad driver.
Lets face it, when was the last time you saw a Chinese person on the F1 circuit.
See, I told you.
To make matters worse, he used to drive a Volvo station wagon. A white one. When we were kids, my sister and I would make him drop us off a couple of blocks before our destination because we were so embarrassed. And because he is all of 4 feet 9 inches tall and around a buck ten dripping wet, when you used to drive behind him, all you saw was the headrest. You thought the car was driving itself. Which it was most of the time.
His vision was on par with Mr. Magoo. He wouldn’t indicate when changing lanes, thought the top speed on any road was 45 mph and believed that touch parking was legal. In fact, absolutely necessary.
I have let him drive me exactly once since I was 18 and was old enough to drive myself.
If you are female, you may not want to read the next bit but I know fathers will read it with much sympathy. Look away in fact if you are eating or operating heavy equipment.
After our daughter was born, my wife decided that it would be a good idea for someone semi qualified to remove my testicles. Have I told you this story before? If not, good. If so, good again. You need to be reminded of the entire horrific ordeal.
Two of my good friends in Australia are dentists. Actually one is a dentist and the other is an oral surgeon. Both are wonderfully serious drinkers.
When my wife informed that she was going to mutilate “my boys”, I took matters into my own hands and sought the advice of my 2 alcoholic medico buddies. As you do. Or would.
My surgeon buddy gave me a referral to some doctor with a hyphenated name and an appointment was made.
I was given specific instructions by some man hating, short angry woman to show up at a private hospital, which specialized in the extraction of men’s walnuts and wisdom teeth. Logical really.
I was also told that under no certain circumstances was I to be intoxicated or under the influence of any drug at all. Which is sort of like asking Hugh Hefner to not get married again to a 21-year-old buxom girl called Amber.
I still remember it like yesterday.
They admit you and another angry woman barks…
“Take all your clothes off and put this robe on”
“Now?” I quip
“Yes now” she barked
“Why?” I plead
“Don’t be an idiot, you are having an operation under a general anesthetic”
“Listen lady, I’m not having an operation. I am being permanently disfigured”
She rolled her eyes and spun on her chunky ankles and muttered, “Your anesthetist will be along shortly”
Then a lot of serious people in white robes ask you a million questions and put a wristband on you and one around your ankle. Probably so when you are screaming in pain they can grab your leg, look at your name and laugh at you.
I have tried to scrub the whole traumatic ordeal from my withering memory but some things are still crystal clear.
I was sure I was still awake when they wheeled me into the operating theater. Because it is Australia and our hospital system is run by a lot of men wearing beige cardigans, they think that vasectomies are routine. They are anything but.
All I remember is seeing a whole line of hospital trollies with helpless fathers like me ready to be butchered. Like lambs to the slaughter I tell you.
Do you know what happens in a vasectomy?
My wife kept telling me to stop being a baby and the operation was but a few tiny snips. Snips my Alpha Sierra Sierra.
What they do is this.
A lot of near psychotic women with a lot of unresolved issues remove your knackers, place them on a steel tray and proceed to beat them to a pulp with a wooden rolling pin. Then they stuff them back into their natural pouch and send you on your traumatized way.
As the sedative slowly wears off, more women hover around you and pretend to care.
I remember waking up and yelling “Nurse, Nurse!”
Someone who looked like a female approached me and asked me what was wrong.
I replied that my mouth felt fine even after having my wisdom teeth removed but my walnuts were hurting like hell.
The blood quickly drained from the nurse’s face and there proceeded to be a lot of arm waving, mild panic and the checking of charts to ankle tags.
Anyway, after I was kicked out of hospital early for creating a scene, with a bag of frozen peas duck taped to my gentleman’s area, I sat in the hospital waiting room, totally dejected and wondering whom to call. And even more betwixt at why hospitals don’t have any sort of sense of humour. At all.
I was so desperate that as a last resort, I called my old man.
To this day, he has no idea why I went to hospital. All he knew was that I was married to an American. To him, that meant no explanation was required.
And that drive home from the hospital that fateful day was the first and last time I have let him pilot a vehicle in the last 30 years.
Sorry how did we get to talking about this?
Ah, driving. And then somehow planning travel. And my Mom’s hysteria around a forgotten make up case. And how people wig out when minor things go wrong. And my old mans woeful driving skills.
See, I told you we’d get back on track. We always do.
My son and I think along the same lines when it comes to travel. If we miss a flight, we’ll simply catch the next one. Ok that’s not quite true. He has no clue.
But my wife believes that airline itineraries are carved into the proverbial clay tablet, never to be changed or messed with. She wouldn’t believe you even if God himself could prove that UA840 departs not just today. But every single day. You get the idea. I know you do.
Which brings me nicely back to my wife and daughters trip out to Australia. They ended up getting to LAX with minutes to spare.
My wife tells me that they were sprinting from the UA terminal to where ever the hell Virgin departed from, with their mountain of luggage and that they “barely made the flight to Australia”. She used the word nightmare a lot. And the fact that it was indeed, all my fault. But of course it was.
On the other hand, my son and I had a cracker of a time in Tokyo. We finally got to see the famed Tsukiji Fish Market. To my amazement he even woke up at o’christ o’clock so that we could get there in time.
We ate the most delicious meal at something like 7am from one of the many little restaurants that are off a petite alley beside the market. It was one of those places that only seats 12 or so people at the counter. You couldn't swing a cat in the place.
People wait in line for hours to eat at the better fish market restaurants and the last time I went there, I think a group of FT’ers waited so long that 2 of them started dating, got married and then divorced.
Or something like this.
There was a lot of orderly yelling and screaming at this tiny little joint and the place never seemed to stop bustling with activity. If I recall it was a set menu and you are given 12 pieces of sashimi and at the end of the meal they ask you in broken English what you liked most, and give that to you again.
Because it was Japan and I didn’t want to offend the nice men behind the counter, I thought it only polite to order a beer with my meal. Okay, maybe two. And besides, have you seen how sharp those knives they use are?
You know you have a drinking problem when your young teenage son raises one eye brow and says something like “Dad, bit early to be chugging beer don’t you think?”
I decided to ignore him and attempted to stab him in the leg with a chopstick but it was to no use. The little piece of fragile wood just snapped in half like a matchstick and it only made him cheekier.
One of these days when we go to Japan, we will get organized and actually arrange to see important things. Touristy things even. Because teenage boys have about as much interest in looking at cherry blossom or Imperial Palaces as they do in cleaning their bedrooms, we sort of just hung out for a couple of days.
We slept late. We ate lunch. We took a nap. We got up and argued about where we would go for dinner. And then we slept some more.
Last time we went to Tokyo, one of my favourite restaurants was being renovated. Actually, the whole second floor (where the restaurant was) of the Hilton hotel in Shinjuku was undergoing a make over. I have no idea why.
It’s a Teppanyaki restaurant. I’ve been going there ever since I started going to Japan 20 years ago. It is but a pearler of a place. Eye wateringly expensive, but well worth it. In fact the meal we ate cost more than the hotel bill for 2-days.
My son has only eaten Teppanyaki at something called a Benihana’s. I don’t want to offend people who like the place but it is about as Japanese as an F-150 pick up truck.
I think if you want to become a Teppan chef in Japan, you have to train for something like 10-years before they will even let you touch the grill. Which makes perfect sense if you ask me. On the other hand, if you want to work the grill at Benihana’s all you need to be able to do is speak English and be able to throw food at people.
You will be pleased to know that the arm waving subsided a little when it came to the girls travel.
I am but a rookie when it comes to booking redemptions, I stopped doing mileage runs a long time ago and I have no idea which credit card goes with what. But I do know this.
There are 2 hotels within the Hyatt chain which mere mortals like me need to sell a body part in order to afford to stay at. The Park Hyatt Sydney and the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek. I’ve never used real money to stay at either. But I have stayed at both places multiple times using points.
And Hyatt’s recently tarted up Diamond program means that they will treat whoever it is you make the booking for like a real guest. They wont do a Basil Fawlty on you. Or your guest.
Because I am a model husband, I redeemed 2 nights for my current wife and daughter at the Park Hyatt Sydney.
I thought I was being super thrifty – but then Amex started to send me alarming emails about the room service bill.
And then. And then it went downhill from there.
I'm going to have a bex and a lie down. Uno momento...
I remember driving to the airport with my parents one day when I was a kid. We were going on a family holiday. As we were nearing the airport, my mother gave out an almighty shriek and exclaimed, “I’ve forgotten my make-up bag. We need to go back home immediately!”
There was total hysteria in the car.
We lived a solid 45-minutes from Tullamarine. And if I recall, I think we were going to Queensland. The Vegas of Australia.
Apparently even Queensland women (and some cross dressing politicians) wear make up and I’m told they sell the silly stuff in many, many department stores. Gas stations even.
Ok I know I am being sarcastic. But the point is this. People wig out over the silliest things when it comes to getting on a plane. The last time I looked, even places which bomb the living daylights out of each other sell toothpaste, toilet paper and yes, even make up.
But no, my father drove back home as if there was a hamster riddled with rabies in his trousers all for the simple sake of getting something that could easily be replaced at our destination.
My philosophy with travel is simple. If the problem can be solved with vodka, tomato juice and a credit card, then its not really a problem.
Now whilst my old man may have been born in Australia, he is still 100% Chinese. Ever since I can remember, he has been a terrifyingly bad driver.
Lets face it, when was the last time you saw a Chinese person on the F1 circuit.
See, I told you.
To make matters worse, he used to drive a Volvo station wagon. A white one. When we were kids, my sister and I would make him drop us off a couple of blocks before our destination because we were so embarrassed. And because he is all of 4 feet 9 inches tall and around a buck ten dripping wet, when you used to drive behind him, all you saw was the headrest. You thought the car was driving itself. Which it was most of the time.
His vision was on par with Mr. Magoo. He wouldn’t indicate when changing lanes, thought the top speed on any road was 45 mph and believed that touch parking was legal. In fact, absolutely necessary.
I have let him drive me exactly once since I was 18 and was old enough to drive myself.
If you are female, you may not want to read the next bit but I know fathers will read it with much sympathy. Look away in fact if you are eating or operating heavy equipment.
After our daughter was born, my wife decided that it would be a good idea for someone semi qualified to remove my testicles. Have I told you this story before? If not, good. If so, good again. You need to be reminded of the entire horrific ordeal.
Two of my good friends in Australia are dentists. Actually one is a dentist and the other is an oral surgeon. Both are wonderfully serious drinkers.
When my wife informed that she was going to mutilate “my boys”, I took matters into my own hands and sought the advice of my 2 alcoholic medico buddies. As you do. Or would.
My surgeon buddy gave me a referral to some doctor with a hyphenated name and an appointment was made.
I was given specific instructions by some man hating, short angry woman to show up at a private hospital, which specialized in the extraction of men’s walnuts and wisdom teeth. Logical really.
I was also told that under no certain circumstances was I to be intoxicated or under the influence of any drug at all. Which is sort of like asking Hugh Hefner to not get married again to a 21-year-old buxom girl called Amber.
I still remember it like yesterday.
They admit you and another angry woman barks…
“Take all your clothes off and put this robe on”
“Now?” I quip
“Yes now” she barked
“Why?” I plead
“Don’t be an idiot, you are having an operation under a general anesthetic”
“Listen lady, I’m not having an operation. I am being permanently disfigured”
She rolled her eyes and spun on her chunky ankles and muttered, “Your anesthetist will be along shortly”
Then a lot of serious people in white robes ask you a million questions and put a wristband on you and one around your ankle. Probably so when you are screaming in pain they can grab your leg, look at your name and laugh at you.
I have tried to scrub the whole traumatic ordeal from my withering memory but some things are still crystal clear.
I was sure I was still awake when they wheeled me into the operating theater. Because it is Australia and our hospital system is run by a lot of men wearing beige cardigans, they think that vasectomies are routine. They are anything but.
All I remember is seeing a whole line of hospital trollies with helpless fathers like me ready to be butchered. Like lambs to the slaughter I tell you.
Do you know what happens in a vasectomy?
My wife kept telling me to stop being a baby and the operation was but a few tiny snips. Snips my Alpha Sierra Sierra.
What they do is this.
A lot of near psychotic women with a lot of unresolved issues remove your knackers, place them on a steel tray and proceed to beat them to a pulp with a wooden rolling pin. Then they stuff them back into their natural pouch and send you on your traumatized way.
As the sedative slowly wears off, more women hover around you and pretend to care.
I remember waking up and yelling “Nurse, Nurse!”
Someone who looked like a female approached me and asked me what was wrong.
I replied that my mouth felt fine even after having my wisdom teeth removed but my walnuts were hurting like hell.
The blood quickly drained from the nurse’s face and there proceeded to be a lot of arm waving, mild panic and the checking of charts to ankle tags.
Anyway, after I was kicked out of hospital early for creating a scene, with a bag of frozen peas duck taped to my gentleman’s area, I sat in the hospital waiting room, totally dejected and wondering whom to call. And even more betwixt at why hospitals don’t have any sort of sense of humour. At all.
I was so desperate that as a last resort, I called my old man.
To this day, he has no idea why I went to hospital. All he knew was that I was married to an American. To him, that meant no explanation was required.
And that drive home from the hospital that fateful day was the first and last time I have let him pilot a vehicle in the last 30 years.
Sorry how did we get to talking about this?
Ah, driving. And then somehow planning travel. And my Mom’s hysteria around a forgotten make up case. And how people wig out when minor things go wrong. And my old mans woeful driving skills.
See, I told you we’d get back on track. We always do.
My son and I think along the same lines when it comes to travel. If we miss a flight, we’ll simply catch the next one. Ok that’s not quite true. He has no clue.
But my wife believes that airline itineraries are carved into the proverbial clay tablet, never to be changed or messed with. She wouldn’t believe you even if God himself could prove that UA840 departs not just today. But every single day. You get the idea. I know you do.
Which brings me nicely back to my wife and daughters trip out to Australia. They ended up getting to LAX with minutes to spare.
My wife tells me that they were sprinting from the UA terminal to where ever the hell Virgin departed from, with their mountain of luggage and that they “barely made the flight to Australia”. She used the word nightmare a lot. And the fact that it was indeed, all my fault. But of course it was.
On the other hand, my son and I had a cracker of a time in Tokyo. We finally got to see the famed Tsukiji Fish Market. To my amazement he even woke up at o’christ o’clock so that we could get there in time.
We ate the most delicious meal at something like 7am from one of the many little restaurants that are off a petite alley beside the market. It was one of those places that only seats 12 or so people at the counter. You couldn't swing a cat in the place.
People wait in line for hours to eat at the better fish market restaurants and the last time I went there, I think a group of FT’ers waited so long that 2 of them started dating, got married and then divorced.
Or something like this.
There was a lot of orderly yelling and screaming at this tiny little joint and the place never seemed to stop bustling with activity. If I recall it was a set menu and you are given 12 pieces of sashimi and at the end of the meal they ask you in broken English what you liked most, and give that to you again.
Because it was Japan and I didn’t want to offend the nice men behind the counter, I thought it only polite to order a beer with my meal. Okay, maybe two. And besides, have you seen how sharp those knives they use are?
You know you have a drinking problem when your young teenage son raises one eye brow and says something like “Dad, bit early to be chugging beer don’t you think?”
I decided to ignore him and attempted to stab him in the leg with a chopstick but it was to no use. The little piece of fragile wood just snapped in half like a matchstick and it only made him cheekier.
One of these days when we go to Japan, we will get organized and actually arrange to see important things. Touristy things even. Because teenage boys have about as much interest in looking at cherry blossom or Imperial Palaces as they do in cleaning their bedrooms, we sort of just hung out for a couple of days.
We slept late. We ate lunch. We took a nap. We got up and argued about where we would go for dinner. And then we slept some more.
Last time we went to Tokyo, one of my favourite restaurants was being renovated. Actually, the whole second floor (where the restaurant was) of the Hilton hotel in Shinjuku was undergoing a make over. I have no idea why.
It’s a Teppanyaki restaurant. I’ve been going there ever since I started going to Japan 20 years ago. It is but a pearler of a place. Eye wateringly expensive, but well worth it. In fact the meal we ate cost more than the hotel bill for 2-days.
My son has only eaten Teppanyaki at something called a Benihana’s. I don’t want to offend people who like the place but it is about as Japanese as an F-150 pick up truck.
I think if you want to become a Teppan chef in Japan, you have to train for something like 10-years before they will even let you touch the grill. Which makes perfect sense if you ask me. On the other hand, if you want to work the grill at Benihana’s all you need to be able to do is speak English and be able to throw food at people.
You will be pleased to know that the arm waving subsided a little when it came to the girls travel.
I am but a rookie when it comes to booking redemptions, I stopped doing mileage runs a long time ago and I have no idea which credit card goes with what. But I do know this.
There are 2 hotels within the Hyatt chain which mere mortals like me need to sell a body part in order to afford to stay at. The Park Hyatt Sydney and the Park Hyatt Beaver Creek. I’ve never used real money to stay at either. But I have stayed at both places multiple times using points.
And Hyatt’s recently tarted up Diamond program means that they will treat whoever it is you make the booking for like a real guest. They wont do a Basil Fawlty on you. Or your guest.
Because I am a model husband, I redeemed 2 nights for my current wife and daughter at the Park Hyatt Sydney.
I thought I was being super thrifty – but then Amex started to send me alarming emails about the room service bill.
And then. And then it went downhill from there.
I'm going to have a bex and a lie down. Uno momento...
Last edited by eightblack; Oct 13, 2015 at 4:29 am Reason: typos as usual
Oct 13, 2015, 8:16 am
#27
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Geneva, Dubai, Paris
Programs: Disillusioned Cent
Posts: 1,880
Thrilled to see that you're back and very inspired, eightblack. How much do you want for the exclusive rights of this quote?
Last edited by JohnRain; Oct 13, 2015 at 8:32 am