The last course was dessert, which was a green tea torte. Although there's nothing really wrong with the torte, it was probably not the best dish of the series. Probably expected - a light, anticlimax to the entire meal.


Green tea torte.

I enjoyed my cheese plate and dessert with a couple of glasses of the dessert wine, which was an ice wine from the Niagara Peninsula in the USA. This is the first time I've had a dessert wine from North America, and I must say that its taste and character greatly outpaces any other wine I've had from the continent.


Jackson-Triggs Vidal Ice Wine 2007.


The ice wine has such a wonderful colour in the glass and a wonderful flavour and consistency to it.

Just as I was finishing up, the crew appeared at the front. They were offering an unusual service (and I might get the details wrong since I wasn't paying much attention), but apparently it is an offer for you to be able to write a letter to someone (I presume in Germany or South Korea) and it will be delivered for you by the airline. I suppose it's novel because a snail mail letter internationally these days can take at least a week to be delivered, though the old pen-and-paper letter was falling quickly out of fashion thanks to email and Skype. In saying that, the crew pushed it more as a romantic gesture, and that makes sense - whilst also being enveloped (no pun intended) by the electronic revolution, nothing expresses love more classically than a wonderful hand-written letter personally addressed to those you love.

Unfortunately for me, I had no one in Germany or in South Korea whom I'd be thinking of sending such a letter to, so I turned down the offer when the crew came around.


The cabin crew selling the letter service.

My table was cleared away as I asked the crew if they could prepare the bed at my seat. Whilst they were doing this I went to the bathroom to freshen up, liberally using the moisturiser provided as I could feel my skin drying up a bit too much, and further not going to be helped by the rest of the long flight ahead. Teeth brushed, I went back into the cabin and my bed had been made up, though the cabin lights weren't turned out just yet.

OZ set up the bed and have you in a semi-reclined position. You tuck yourself in, then recline it all the way in order to sleep.


Bed set up.


Fully reclined and ready to sleep. Just put the eye mask on, then it's good night!

......

...... Some time later ......


Waking up... here was our position in flight, and with about 4 hours before landing

I woke up after my nap with still plenty of time before we were landing in FRA. Time to keep myself occupied - so out came the laptop and a bit of work to do. The table isn't all that big compared to other F cabins, so it fit my laptop on there and a little more, with most of the rest of everything sitting on the side ledge between my seat and the window. That was enough.

After working away a bit and listening to my iPod (and not being interested in the IFE), I got up and refreshed myself (again being liberal with the moisturiser). As I left the bathroom, I noticed one of the FAs keeping everything in line in the galley. Being that I was in need of something to occupy time, I started a conversation with her.

OZ FAs, like most Asian countries and their airlines, know enough English to do their jobs well. In the case of the FA I was talking to, her English was quite good, but she still felt quite reserved as we talked about working for OZ, favourite stopovers and so on. Maybe this is a cultural thing, but I think it was just more that thing where you're not speaking your native language. (Western people are much the same when they converse in a language other than English). Still, it was a good way to pass the time, but as I checked my watch, there was about 2.5 hours left. I was a bit peckish, but just more that I wanted to sample what was on the snack menu.

Snack menus in F cabins (or any cabin for that matter) are a hit and miss affair. More often than not, they are not meant to be elegant meals, but rather fillers, so they are usually packed with comfort food at best. You can have noodle soup or Lays potato chips on SQ F, a pretty mean steak sandwich on QF F, Penne Arrabiata on BA F, dim sum soup on CX F, and if you are even hungry enough to want anything between meals on LX F, well, you'd better hope there's something leftover from the last meal. In the case of OZ F, their snack menu was pretty simple. I simply chose the native favourite, ramen. Yep, it is instant ramen, presented in a nice bowl with a side of kimchi and pickles. But for the purposes of a simple filler of soup and noodle, it fit the bill.

A word of caution for the uninitiated: Koreans can eat fire pretty well - probably much, much better than their Japanese and Chinese neighbours. Instant ramen is popularly taken with the spicy flavour. For most, the first impressions of eating the soup is that it is not spicy, and you'd probably be very right. But start wolfing down that soup and let the spiciness concentrate itself in your mouth, then you'll feel it. Not for the feint of heart.


Snack of instant spicy ramen with kimchi and pickles, with a glass of water and guava juice on the side.

The ramen soup was enjoyed whilst I tapped away at work. It also pays to be good to your body (and because my own intake was and would be lacking), so I followed that all up with a plate of fresh fruit.


Fruit plate

The flight went on until about 1 h 45 min before landing, when the snack was due to be served. At this point I noticed there was a Korean dish on the menu so although the other two choices looked pretty good, I wanted to have at least something Korean (besides instant spicy ramen) before I left this OZ flight.

The snack was a kimchi-based stew. Quite spicy, lots of kimchi and not much meat, so it's not quite vegetarian but it gets close. The multitude of side dishes make up the rest of the meal. The meal was served on a polished wooden tray, and the Korean traditional metal chopsticks (which can hurt your hands if you have to handle them for a very long time). The snack was accompanied with another glass of Taittinger (apparently, they ran out of Pol Roger sometime during the flight - ah well...)


Kimchi stew "Kimchi-jjigae" with various side dishes