Sorry About That...
Jul 12, 2017, 12:09 am
#91
Moderator, Trip Reports
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA GS-2MM, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 3,715
Finally. I’m stateside. Talk about a cluster. It just shows you what happens when you fall off the travel conveyer belt after a while. You lose your edge. What a mother of all effort. All I know is that I am at least 10 pounds heavier as a result of the 432 bamboo baskets of dim sum I inhaled these past few days, the excessive amount of beer, wine and champagne that may have passed my lips (which I only drank mind you to help calm my nerves and not offend my hosts) and the 12 solid hours I just spent at 2 CX lounges.
I think all the humid Hong Kong air caused my pants to shrink. This meant I had to go full on Asian and buy a polyester track-suit. You know the ones with the elastic waistband. Shiny gold color to boot. Man oh man, someone should have told me about these wonderfully eclectic fashion garments years ago. To annoy my daughter and wife, when I see them, I am going to wear white socks with my glistening new outfit and pull the pants up as high as they will go before I choke on my own walnuts.
FedEx showed up just prior to 11am HKG time and I was in a cab within 20 minutes, weaving my way down off The Peak and heading to Chek Lap Kok. For about the 16th time in 4 days. At least that’s what it felt like.
Rose, the most underworked housekeeper in HKG did a jig as she handed me the Fedex envelope, relishing in the fact that me leaving meant one less person to feed. And fewer pairs of underwear to iron. Another friend of the boys had appeared on the doorstep on Sunday so I was kicked out of the spare room to make way for her and sent to bunk down in a storage room on a blow up bed for my last night in Honkers. I felt like Harry Potter in the first few movies, you know, when his bedroom was under the stairs.
That’s the thing about expat life. If you live in places like Singapore and Hong Kong and you have a guest room, you will be inundated with wandering travelers. All the time.
People who you barely recognize will call you up…
“Hey Simon how are you, its Nick”
“Nick who?”
“Nick Williams. You know, I used to date your sister”
“Dude, that was in the 4th grade”
“Yes, it has been a while”
“Anyway, I have 5 kids now and my 2nd wife and I are coming through Singapore and were wondering if we could crash a few days”
“Umm. Sure. I suppose”
“Can you pick us up?”
“I guess. Anything else?”
And then my wife would go semi-postal as when the person who we hardly knew rolled up with his tribe, I would conveniently have a work trip and leave for a week. That woman had zero tolerance, I tell you.
I thought the CX flight was just ok. Nothing special. I didn’t want to be rude when the polite staffer offered me a bottle of Krug although I did object a little bit when they served the champagne at the same temperature as the surface of the sun.
I politely told the vague CX staffer that you could be arrested for serving bubbles that warm. There was much scurrying and cussing from the galley in New Zealand and moments later, a much colder bottle appeared.
Apparently that crazy travel blogger, Lucky, reckons that CX is the most comfortable bed in the sky. Which I think is stretching it. Ok, it’s very pleasant and it certainly is a wide seat, bit there’s just something about CX’s product now that is not quite right. I cant put my finger on it. Kinda like that weird Uncle at Christmas who keeps to himself in one corner of the room, says nothing to anyone all day and then, right before he’s about to leave, starts calling everyone Helen. In Portuguese. You know nothing good would come out of looking at his browser history.
To me, LH F nails it. Every time. I am biased about EK so we wont go there.
Although I quite liked the new Pier place near gate 65. I started out at The Wing and then got bored. So I trekked down to The Pier and found a very nice corner with a rather elegant high back chair and an ottoman and basically moved in for the next 720 minutes.
12 hours in an airline lounge is nothing if you ask me. It is but child's play. I have a high threshold of pain when it comes to camping out in these places as some of you know.
To occupy the time, I went and had a massage – but was somewhat dismayed when the nice young lady told me to put all my clothes back on. Not having had a massage in Asia fully clothed before, I decided to keep an open mind and try it.
Completely overrated if you ask me. Useless in fact.
Anyway.
The dining room at The Pier had a weird feel to it – it felt like a school canteen. Place had bad juju and I think when the local CX head honchos came to hire the Feng Shui man to bless the new digs, they must have ran out of money when they got to that part of the joint.
I think airlines need to go all out at their home port when it comes to their own lounges. Qantas, who are tighter than the proverbial fish's bum even capitulated when it came time to build their new F lounges. They threw caution to the wind and hired some chic interior design firm, who must have been slightly inebriated when they crafted their bid because they added many zero’s after the initial estimate. I think they sent it in as a joke.
Even though bashing Qantas is a national sport and a revered Aussie pastime, I have always been impressed with the way Qantas approaches lounges. You should be too.
The rather frightening thing I realized as I approached the edges of the US is that my solo journey was about to be rudely interrupted.
You see, my wife was landing within 5 minutes of me. She had, to my astonishment, booked an AirBnB joint and said that it was ok if I crashed there with her. Our daughter was airborne, and was due to land in the wee hours of the coming morning.
But like many things with travel and our family, things were not well in Venice Beach. For starters, my wife had rented a car. This for most people is a relatively straightforward affair.
However, the vehicle they gave my wife, well someone had recently power vomited in it. Not wanting to be rude and say anything, the mother of my children drove around with her head shoved out the window and telling herself that “the smell will buff out”. Which it clearly did not.
Then it disintegrated further when she got to the AirBnB. It literally was in a ghetto. As in the ghetto. She refused to get out of the car and promptly spun around and scurried back to the airport.
No sense of adventure is all I can say.
So we ended up getting a room at the Hyatt Regency. My wife then regaled me with the horrors of her travel experience that day. I essentially told her that stuff like that never happens to me and that she must have just been unlucky.
We’ll all be running for the hills if she ever does discover FT. Make no mistake, she’ll come after everyone. I wont even be safe in a Federal witness protection program.
In the immortal words of every child riding in the back seat of the family mini-van somewhere on a US interstate this week…
“Are we there yet?”
Well, yes we are. Sort of.
I think all the humid Hong Kong air caused my pants to shrink. This meant I had to go full on Asian and buy a polyester track-suit. You know the ones with the elastic waistband. Shiny gold color to boot. Man oh man, someone should have told me about these wonderfully eclectic fashion garments years ago. To annoy my daughter and wife, when I see them, I am going to wear white socks with my glistening new outfit and pull the pants up as high as they will go before I choke on my own walnuts.
FedEx showed up just prior to 11am HKG time and I was in a cab within 20 minutes, weaving my way down off The Peak and heading to Chek Lap Kok. For about the 16th time in 4 days. At least that’s what it felt like.
Rose, the most underworked housekeeper in HKG did a jig as she handed me the Fedex envelope, relishing in the fact that me leaving meant one less person to feed. And fewer pairs of underwear to iron. Another friend of the boys had appeared on the doorstep on Sunday so I was kicked out of the spare room to make way for her and sent to bunk down in a storage room on a blow up bed for my last night in Honkers. I felt like Harry Potter in the first few movies, you know, when his bedroom was under the stairs.
That’s the thing about expat life. If you live in places like Singapore and Hong Kong and you have a guest room, you will be inundated with wandering travelers. All the time.
People who you barely recognize will call you up…
“Hey Simon how are you, its Nick”
“Nick who?”
“Nick Williams. You know, I used to date your sister”
“Dude, that was in the 4th grade”
“Yes, it has been a while”
“Anyway, I have 5 kids now and my 2nd wife and I are coming through Singapore and were wondering if we could crash a few days”
“Umm. Sure. I suppose”
“Can you pick us up?”
“I guess. Anything else?”
And then my wife would go semi-postal as when the person who we hardly knew rolled up with his tribe, I would conveniently have a work trip and leave for a week. That woman had zero tolerance, I tell you.
I thought the CX flight was just ok. Nothing special. I didn’t want to be rude when the polite staffer offered me a bottle of Krug although I did object a little bit when they served the champagne at the same temperature as the surface of the sun.
I politely told the vague CX staffer that you could be arrested for serving bubbles that warm. There was much scurrying and cussing from the galley in New Zealand and moments later, a much colder bottle appeared.
Apparently that crazy travel blogger, Lucky, reckons that CX is the most comfortable bed in the sky. Which I think is stretching it. Ok, it’s very pleasant and it certainly is a wide seat, bit there’s just something about CX’s product now that is not quite right. I cant put my finger on it. Kinda like that weird Uncle at Christmas who keeps to himself in one corner of the room, says nothing to anyone all day and then, right before he’s about to leave, starts calling everyone Helen. In Portuguese. You know nothing good would come out of looking at his browser history.
To me, LH F nails it. Every time. I am biased about EK so we wont go there.
Although I quite liked the new Pier place near gate 65. I started out at The Wing and then got bored. So I trekked down to The Pier and found a very nice corner with a rather elegant high back chair and an ottoman and basically moved in for the next 720 minutes.
12 hours in an airline lounge is nothing if you ask me. It is but child's play. I have a high threshold of pain when it comes to camping out in these places as some of you know.
To occupy the time, I went and had a massage – but was somewhat dismayed when the nice young lady told me to put all my clothes back on. Not having had a massage in Asia fully clothed before, I decided to keep an open mind and try it.
Completely overrated if you ask me. Useless in fact.
Anyway.
The dining room at The Pier had a weird feel to it – it felt like a school canteen. Place had bad juju and I think when the local CX head honchos came to hire the Feng Shui man to bless the new digs, they must have ran out of money when they got to that part of the joint.
I think airlines need to go all out at their home port when it comes to their own lounges. Qantas, who are tighter than the proverbial fish's bum even capitulated when it came time to build their new F lounges. They threw caution to the wind and hired some chic interior design firm, who must have been slightly inebriated when they crafted their bid because they added many zero’s after the initial estimate. I think they sent it in as a joke.
Even though bashing Qantas is a national sport and a revered Aussie pastime, I have always been impressed with the way Qantas approaches lounges. You should be too.
The rather frightening thing I realized as I approached the edges of the US is that my solo journey was about to be rudely interrupted.
You see, my wife was landing within 5 minutes of me. She had, to my astonishment, booked an AirBnB joint and said that it was ok if I crashed there with her. Our daughter was airborne, and was due to land in the wee hours of the coming morning.
But like many things with travel and our family, things were not well in Venice Beach. For starters, my wife had rented a car. This for most people is a relatively straightforward affair.
However, the vehicle they gave my wife, well someone had recently power vomited in it. Not wanting to be rude and say anything, the mother of my children drove around with her head shoved out the window and telling herself that “the smell will buff out”. Which it clearly did not.
Then it disintegrated further when she got to the AirBnB. It literally was in a ghetto. As in the ghetto. She refused to get out of the car and promptly spun around and scurried back to the airport.
No sense of adventure is all I can say.
So we ended up getting a room at the Hyatt Regency. My wife then regaled me with the horrors of her travel experience that day. I essentially told her that stuff like that never happens to me and that she must have just been unlucky.
We’ll all be running for the hills if she ever does discover FT. Make no mistake, she’ll come after everyone. I wont even be safe in a Federal witness protection program.
In the immortal words of every child riding in the back seat of the family mini-van somewhere on a US interstate this week…
“Are we there yet?”
Well, yes we are. Sort of.
Jul 12, 2017, 1:54 am
#92
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Lusaka, Zambia
Programs: Delta, United, Emirates
Posts: 1
Actually they were on my poor dog, not me, as my underwear was all heavily ironed as a rule...
Jul 12, 2017, 8:18 am
#93
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2010
Programs: AA
Posts: 14,728
Jul 12, 2017, 2:32 pm
#95
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Moreland Hills (CLE)
Programs: Over-entitled UA 1.3MM Gold, AA Gold, Hilton Diamond, Marriott L-T Plat, Hertz PC
Posts: 5,521
As always, great report, Simon.
Totally agree with you re LH F....the Grand Siecle champagne served is but as minor failing, IMHO.
(Apologies to the king of Dom P, macabus).
A recent news story claims LH consumes 1/4 of the world's annual caviar production.
I always do my part to help them maintain that statistic.
Glad you made it back to the USA.
Totally agree with you re LH F....the Grand Siecle champagne served is but as minor failing, IMHO.
(Apologies to the king of Dom P, macabus).
A recent news story claims LH consumes 1/4 of the world's annual caviar production.
I always do my part to help them maintain that statistic.
Glad you made it back to the USA.
Jul 12, 2017, 3:23 pm
#97
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: OSL
Programs: BA Gold | SK Gold | A3 Gold
Posts: 4,553
As always, great report, Simon.
Totally agree with you re LH F....the Grand Siecle champagne served is but as minor failing, IMHO.
(Apologies to the king of Dom P, macabus).
A recent news story claims LH consumes 1/4 of the world's annual caviar production.
I always do my part to help them maintain that statistic.
Glad you made it back to the USA.
Totally agree with you re LH F....the Grand Siecle champagne served is but as minor failing, IMHO.
(Apologies to the king of Dom P, macabus).
A recent news story claims LH consumes 1/4 of the world's annual caviar production.
I always do my part to help them maintain that statistic.
Glad you made it back to the USA.
I find it hard to believe given that LH F is almost never full, and they only have one box of caviar per flight (and usually I'm the only one eating any).
I would have imagined the likes of EK get through more...
Jul 12, 2017, 3:31 pm
#98
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: WAS
Programs: Free Agent
Posts: 1,757
It's not quarter, it is however, five percent.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle14174392/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle14174392/
Jul 12, 2017, 3:35 pm
#99
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: OSL
Programs: BA Gold | SK Gold | A3 Gold
Posts: 4,553
It's not quarter, it is however, five percent.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle14174392/
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...ticle14174392/
Jul 13, 2017, 12:24 am
#102
Moderator: Lufthansa Miles & More, India based airlines, India, External Miles & Points Resources
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: MUC
Programs: LH SEN
Posts: 48,152
The champagne changes frequently, a history is chronicled here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/lufth...ampagne-f.html
Jul 13, 2017, 5:35 pm
#104
Moderator, Trip Reports
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Denver, CO
Programs: UA GS-2MM, Marriott Ambassador
Posts: 3,715
Do you sometimes tell people about us? Not me and you. But you and us. As in FT us. Ay Carumba, that’s a messy sentence. But I know you understand.
Even though I fell off the grid for a little while, FT was always there in the back of my mind. I think it always will be. This community is way better than a religion and it’s far more fun than a cult. We actually get stuff done.
I mean take my wife for example. Seriously, someone take her.
Kidding. But actually, her sister is free.
Anyway, my better half wisely decided to come collect our daughter. Incidentally, why do people say “my better half?” My better half is from the waist down, not the woman I married. But I digress. So she booked her plane ticket, booked something called an AirBNB and then for good measure, threw in a rental car.
In the space of 2 days, she aborted the accommodation, blindly accepted the puke mobile from whoever she rented it off and then blew off a pair of plane tickets because our temperamental teenager decided that she didn’t want to stay in LAX after all – and in an attempt to annoy me, they both decided to fly home on the same flight as me.
And that’s the fundamental difference.
A true believer, a true FT’er wouldn’t tolerate such nonsense. Firstly, any serious member of our tribe wouldn’t contemplate using AirBNB unless there were a pot of points at the other end. And no serious FT’er would accept a puke filled rental car without a full on arm waving session with a person of importance - which resulted in a full refund, a wad of upgrade vouchers and a date with the station managers hot ex wife. And who just blows off 2 perfectly serviceable airline tickets, without at least trying to pry something of value from an overworked agent. Or their dimwitted reservation engine. Hang Up And Try Again means nothing to the people who refuse to follow. Or learn.
To me, the very essence of travel is not just the destination, but the whole maximizing the last drop out of the journey. I’m still a hack compared to most, and while I might like to regale the odd person on here with my First Class exploits, the simple truth of the matter is that I might have only ever paid for revenue F once or twice. And that was between Australia and New Zealand. So it hardly counts.
Sure, I’ve had plenty of client-funded travel where I accidentally booked revenue F. Like 25 times in a row. But the client in question was this quirky little German software company and their accounting department was run by a portly woman called Stephanie who kept asking me if I wanted a Weiner Schnitzel for lunch. Every single day I was in the office. Apparently she loved Australia and all things Australian. But hey, I can’t help it if she wanted me. She’s only human.
Ok, I think we’re done. For now. I’m writing this from my favorite watering hole (the same place Number 1 son washes dishes). My current wife says I spend way too much time here. By the way, if you do actually meet her one fateful day, we all need to stick to the same story. My handle isn’t “eightblack” on FT and I go to the local pub maybe once every 6 months. I’m counting on you to back me up. Otherwise I’m going to be living in your basement. And drinking your bourbon.
As I was winging my way home last night from LA, I thought how lucky I have been to be a part of a community such as FT. I mean, 2 FT’ers had a significant part to play in the logistics of this very trip. Actually maybe I can blame them for the whole thing going pear shaped.
To everyone who posted a comment, I thank you. This is my favorite corner on FT. For very good reason. There are some simply stupendous story tellers. Way, way better than me. People like Macabus. Seat2A. And SFO777. The list goes. I never get tired of reading their tales.
Over and out. Or if you speak teenager…Yeet!Yeet! And YeeBoi!
Even though I fell off the grid for a little while, FT was always there in the back of my mind. I think it always will be. This community is way better than a religion and it’s far more fun than a cult. We actually get stuff done.
I mean take my wife for example. Seriously, someone take her.
Kidding. But actually, her sister is free.
Anyway, my better half wisely decided to come collect our daughter. Incidentally, why do people say “my better half?” My better half is from the waist down, not the woman I married. But I digress. So she booked her plane ticket, booked something called an AirBNB and then for good measure, threw in a rental car.
In the space of 2 days, she aborted the accommodation, blindly accepted the puke mobile from whoever she rented it off and then blew off a pair of plane tickets because our temperamental teenager decided that she didn’t want to stay in LAX after all – and in an attempt to annoy me, they both decided to fly home on the same flight as me.
And that’s the fundamental difference.
A true believer, a true FT’er wouldn’t tolerate such nonsense. Firstly, any serious member of our tribe wouldn’t contemplate using AirBNB unless there were a pot of points at the other end. And no serious FT’er would accept a puke filled rental car without a full on arm waving session with a person of importance - which resulted in a full refund, a wad of upgrade vouchers and a date with the station managers hot ex wife. And who just blows off 2 perfectly serviceable airline tickets, without at least trying to pry something of value from an overworked agent. Or their dimwitted reservation engine. Hang Up And Try Again means nothing to the people who refuse to follow. Or learn.
To me, the very essence of travel is not just the destination, but the whole maximizing the last drop out of the journey. I’m still a hack compared to most, and while I might like to regale the odd person on here with my First Class exploits, the simple truth of the matter is that I might have only ever paid for revenue F once or twice. And that was between Australia and New Zealand. So it hardly counts.
Sure, I’ve had plenty of client-funded travel where I accidentally booked revenue F. Like 25 times in a row. But the client in question was this quirky little German software company and their accounting department was run by a portly woman called Stephanie who kept asking me if I wanted a Weiner Schnitzel for lunch. Every single day I was in the office. Apparently she loved Australia and all things Australian. But hey, I can’t help it if she wanted me. She’s only human.
Ok, I think we’re done. For now. I’m writing this from my favorite watering hole (the same place Number 1 son washes dishes). My current wife says I spend way too much time here. By the way, if you do actually meet her one fateful day, we all need to stick to the same story. My handle isn’t “eightblack” on FT and I go to the local pub maybe once every 6 months. I’m counting on you to back me up. Otherwise I’m going to be living in your basement. And drinking your bourbon.
As I was winging my way home last night from LA, I thought how lucky I have been to be a part of a community such as FT. I mean, 2 FT’ers had a significant part to play in the logistics of this very trip. Actually maybe I can blame them for the whole thing going pear shaped.
To everyone who posted a comment, I thank you. This is my favorite corner on FT. For very good reason. There are some simply stupendous story tellers. Way, way better than me. People like Macabus. Seat2A. And SFO777. The list goes. I never get tired of reading their tales.
Over and out. Or if you speak teenager…Yeet!Yeet! And YeeBoi!
Last edited by eightblack; Jan 17, 2018 at 6:33 am