Possibly the least informative trip report for EK F. But it's my first one...
Jul 11, 2017, 6:40 pm
#31
Join Date: Aug 2007
Programs: QF LTG:
Posts: 1,859
Hi fukki, loved your TR and certainly agree that we are indeed lucky to be able travel as we do.
Showering on a plane is something you have to do at least once.
The EK lounges are good and having been through a few recently including NRT I've noticed they all look the same. Still consistency is the key.
Showering on a plane is something you have to do at least once.
The EK lounges are good and having been through a few recently including NRT I've noticed they all look the same. Still consistency is the key.
Jul 12, 2017, 10:40 am
#32
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Indonesia
Posts: 361
K-Kansei dorifto??
Aaanyway, there's a lot that I can relate on your introvert perspective. Love your writing style. Keep 'em up.
Jul 15, 2017, 10:19 am
#33
Join Date: Apr 2008
Location: Highlands, Scotland
Programs: EK,BA,QR
Posts: 547
Thank you Fukki, for brightening up a very grey and very wet Scottish Highland Saturday afternoon. We are having our annual Highland games today but it was so wet, we stayed at home - however, your TR gave me a great read and lots of laughs.
I can actually hear the din of the Pipe Band at the games from my house - if you want to be really miserable, come here and watch them next year!
As has been said before, you really do have a talent for writing, keep on doing it!
I can actually hear the din of the Pipe Band at the games from my house - if you want to be really miserable, come here and watch them next year!
As has been said before, you really do have a talent for writing, keep on doing it!
Jul 22, 2017, 4:36 pm
#35
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2017
Location: London
Programs: EK, Virgin Atlantic, SPG
Posts: 11
Addendum: National Rail
I have lived up and down the UK during the past 15 years that I have lived here. It started off right in the middle in Sheffield during which I learnt English with a thick Yorkshire accent. I then I went to boarding school in Edinburgh in the mighty Land of the Scots where I acquired the taste for king rib suppers and deep fried mars bars (haggis too of course, but that goes without saying). My accent corrected there, bizarrely, to what is probably closer to Queen’s English more than anything else (nae, am no speakin’ in a Sco’ish accent). I then became a true Brit and joined the tea drinkers and Elizabeth lovers in London for university. 6 years was far too long to spend in uni and in a place like London, where communication amongst strangers was expected and introverts are cast aside like lepers in the biblical era. Furthermore I didn’t really have a common bell to ring with most people in my faculty in the same year, as their idea of ‘fun’, inexplicably and without fail, was to organise loud, boisterous, extroverted gatherings called parties and regularly attend these horrendous establishments called nightclubs, which are filthy, with atrocious taste for music and temperatures that could rival what I experienced in Dubai. I would much rather organise quiet, introverted gatherings like movie nights (Chaplin, Hepburn, or anime, obviously), and regularly attend more civilised establishments like opera houses. I finally moved out of London after graduation and I now reside in the compost heap of England, which I am not entirely sure was a step up or down from university, but at least I am earning money now.
It is the sad fate of ‘countryside living’ that most shops and places you need or want to go are all concentrated in a major city and do not exist in the rural setting. There were many occasions where I would have to take the Southeastern High Speed Service to/from St Pancras until I bought a car, which was quite literally this morning. However, there was not a single train journey which would sum up the capabilities of the National Rail as perfectly as last week’s journey back from London, after going for a car viewing. I will recount the story here, and I assure you it is a remarkably accurate representation of what you may expect to encounter should you be planning a trip to the UK (hint: Go to Dubai or Tokyo instead!).
I found out on Google Maps when I left the car dealer that it was actually closer to Stratford station rather than St Pancras, so I headed there. I purchased a ticket to my current hometown and went in the gates, which accepted my ticket without issue. I then followed the signs saying ‘Platforms for National Rail’. I got onto the platform and it was running the London Overground (which is an entirely different set of trains to the one I wanted). I wandered around aimlessly for the next 20 minutes trying to locate the ‘National Rail’ platform. If I had been objectively aware of what I looked like, then I wouldn’t have done that. I was dressed in a tattered anime hoodie and tracksuit, carrying a backpack, going to and from platforms and up and down passageways. No wonder a member of staff approached me with a cautious look.
After much stuttering and ums and ahs, I managed to extract from this member of staff that all National Rail Southeastern trains are running from Stratford International, rather than Stratford.
‘How do I get to Stratford International?’
‘Er…I dunno’
‘Oh…I’m sorry…’
One would think that 1. Tickets from Stratford International would not go through ticket gates at Stratford, and 2. Station staff would know how to get from Stratford to Stratford International, as I realised later on, it was only a 5 minute walk away. But then again, this is Britain, where service is a privilege only granted to the upper class and those working in the service sector I can only imagine must be specifically trained not to provide any service and instead trained to prompt you to say ‘above average’ in their 4 times daily customer satisfaction surveys.
Mind you, Stratford and Stratford International are different stations, so I had to exit the ticket gates that let me through 30 minutes previously. I nervously approached a group of staff manning the gates.
‘Excuse me, I am really sorry but I got in here by accident and…’
‘Yeah sorry mate, just give us a sec would ya?’
They continued to chat and sip tea for the next few minutes.
‘Sorry mate, what can I do for ya?’
‘Yes, sorry, I got in here by accident and I need to go to Stratford International instead. Could you please let me out?’
‘You need to go to Stratford International?’
He then went and told his companions about this and they all started laughing while I stood there blankly. He eventually opened the gates and beckoned me through.
‘Er, could I please have my ticket back?’
He let out the biggest sigh of exasperation I had ever heard and thrust the ticket into my hand. He then went back to sipping tea and talking with his friends. Well, at least the Englishmen’s love for tea is sincere, even though their customer service is not.
I then made the 5 minute walk through the Westfield shopping centre and found the platform serving the Southeastern trains. I checked on the board and my train was on platform 7. I followed the signs to platform 7 and it was platform 2. I followed the signs to platform 2 and it was platform 10. I then asked a lady at a kiosk where platform 7 was, and she gave me a very complex set of directions that made me think platform 9¾ would have been easier to find. Clearly National Rail are playing far too much of an intelligent game for me. Why would I even think of turning left when the sign says so? Of course it means turn right in reality, everyone knows that. I have to work on my flexibility I guess, and not just limit it to EK F and flexible sigmoidoscopies.
Eventually I reached the platform, and I checked on the board and confirmed that the train just arriving was my ride back home. I got on and found an empty seat.
I was just staring incompetently into space when I heard the train master coming through the carriages to check tickets. I showed him my ticket, still not thinking very much. So when he said anything other than ‘thank you very much’ to my ticket, I jumped a little in my seat and made a noise similar to what one would make when somebody does a digital rectal examination on them unannounced.
‘Where are you travelling to, sir?
‘@@@ (my destination)’
I then got a first good look at his face. He had a very large nose, with hairs coming out of it that looked like it could house a rabbit. He also had a rather flashy piercing in his right ear which probably made him look more chavvy than he actually was.
‘Not on this train you’re not’
‘…?’
I looked at him blankly and he stared back. I was still in the middle of trying to construct a sentence. Now, here’s a secret for all you people who can talk naturally to other people, about us introverts. We of course understand what the other person is saying, and we know the jist of what we want to say in our heads. Our mouths, however, can’t convey that information and we get startled by our own voices. Therefore, we have to take several moments to think word for word what we are going to say in our head, make sure it’s appropriate, search for alternate wordings that may be better, think of a few responses from the other person and how to answer each of those, and then finally say it. People seem to think that during this time it takes for us to process our thoughts into spoken words we are just stumped and can’t say anything, or we are ignoring them, but we aren’t. We are just looking for the right thing to say and worry about if it’s right or not.
Clearly, the train master thought I was an idiot. Or foreign. Or both. He spoke to me very slowly with a vocabulary befitting of the ‘simplified English’ page on Wikipedia.
‘This train goes to %%%, not @@@’
‘But it said it stops at @@@ at Stratford’
‘Well that must have been wrong. You will need to get off at $$$ and take the opposite train to reach @@@. We will reach $$$ at 1730 (1 hour from now), and it takes 2 hours on the slow train from there to @@@’
‘And that’s the fastest way to get to @@@ from here?’
‘Yes. You will also need to pay a fine of £20’
Most people here would argue against the fine. But I did not want to talk to this guy anymore so I just went with it. It is only £20 after all, which is nothing compared to what the EK F bourgeois experiences I am used to are worth in monetary terms.
‘At $$$, you will need to go to platform 4, and your train will arrive at 1800’
So I reached this unknown station in the middle of nowhere which I will never visit ever agian at 1730 and went across to the platform 4, which was undergoing engineering works and was closed. However, because it was a small station I soon found the train to take me back home. There was a staff member standing in the doorway to the train.
‘Where are you going, sir?’
‘@@@’
‘Yeah this one goes there. At least I hope it does…’
How reassuring.
15 minutes later I would know what he meant.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay. We are currently trying to find a mechanic to connect some carriages together. Hopefully we won’t be too long. In the meantime please relax and have a cup of tea’
A further 10 minutes later there was this announcement.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay. We have managed to connect the carriages, but we don’t have anybody to actually drive the train at the moment. Hopefully we will find somebody soon’
A few minutes later a lady came on board, huffing and puffing from the extreme amount of exercise which involved getting up from her office chair and walking the 10m from her platform cabin to the train.
‘You’ll need to get off and take the 1905. We don’t have a driver’
She then stormed off without so much an apology.
At least the 1905 was correct, vaguely on time, and got me to my destination. I was, at this point, far too tired to walk from the station to my accommodation which I usually do, so I jumped in a taxi. The driver must have thought I looked far too worn out for a proper conversation, which I appreciated. As I paid, he offered his commiserations about the National Rail, which should be the expectations for any potential travelers to the UK:
‘In the last year, trains weren’t running on more than 40 of the weekends. You’re lucky today they were running’
No rail service is worse than the UK. Maybe except in Italy.
Future travelers beware, you have been warned.
I have lived up and down the UK during the past 15 years that I have lived here. It started off right in the middle in Sheffield during which I learnt English with a thick Yorkshire accent. I then I went to boarding school in Edinburgh in the mighty Land of the Scots where I acquired the taste for king rib suppers and deep fried mars bars (haggis too of course, but that goes without saying). My accent corrected there, bizarrely, to what is probably closer to Queen’s English more than anything else (nae, am no speakin’ in a Sco’ish accent). I then became a true Brit and joined the tea drinkers and Elizabeth lovers in London for university. 6 years was far too long to spend in uni and in a place like London, where communication amongst strangers was expected and introverts are cast aside like lepers in the biblical era. Furthermore I didn’t really have a common bell to ring with most people in my faculty in the same year, as their idea of ‘fun’, inexplicably and without fail, was to organise loud, boisterous, extroverted gatherings called parties and regularly attend these horrendous establishments called nightclubs, which are filthy, with atrocious taste for music and temperatures that could rival what I experienced in Dubai. I would much rather organise quiet, introverted gatherings like movie nights (Chaplin, Hepburn, or anime, obviously), and regularly attend more civilised establishments like opera houses. I finally moved out of London after graduation and I now reside in the compost heap of England, which I am not entirely sure was a step up or down from university, but at least I am earning money now.
It is the sad fate of ‘countryside living’ that most shops and places you need or want to go are all concentrated in a major city and do not exist in the rural setting. There were many occasions where I would have to take the Southeastern High Speed Service to/from St Pancras until I bought a car, which was quite literally this morning. However, there was not a single train journey which would sum up the capabilities of the National Rail as perfectly as last week’s journey back from London, after going for a car viewing. I will recount the story here, and I assure you it is a remarkably accurate representation of what you may expect to encounter should you be planning a trip to the UK (hint: Go to Dubai or Tokyo instead!).
I found out on Google Maps when I left the car dealer that it was actually closer to Stratford station rather than St Pancras, so I headed there. I purchased a ticket to my current hometown and went in the gates, which accepted my ticket without issue. I then followed the signs saying ‘Platforms for National Rail’. I got onto the platform and it was running the London Overground (which is an entirely different set of trains to the one I wanted). I wandered around aimlessly for the next 20 minutes trying to locate the ‘National Rail’ platform. If I had been objectively aware of what I looked like, then I wouldn’t have done that. I was dressed in a tattered anime hoodie and tracksuit, carrying a backpack, going to and from platforms and up and down passageways. No wonder a member of staff approached me with a cautious look.
After much stuttering and ums and ahs, I managed to extract from this member of staff that all National Rail Southeastern trains are running from Stratford International, rather than Stratford.
‘How do I get to Stratford International?’
‘Er…I dunno’
‘Oh…I’m sorry…’
One would think that 1. Tickets from Stratford International would not go through ticket gates at Stratford, and 2. Station staff would know how to get from Stratford to Stratford International, as I realised later on, it was only a 5 minute walk away. But then again, this is Britain, where service is a privilege only granted to the upper class and those working in the service sector I can only imagine must be specifically trained not to provide any service and instead trained to prompt you to say ‘above average’ in their 4 times daily customer satisfaction surveys.
Mind you, Stratford and Stratford International are different stations, so I had to exit the ticket gates that let me through 30 minutes previously. I nervously approached a group of staff manning the gates.
‘Excuse me, I am really sorry but I got in here by accident and…’
‘Yeah sorry mate, just give us a sec would ya?’
They continued to chat and sip tea for the next few minutes.
‘Sorry mate, what can I do for ya?’
‘Yes, sorry, I got in here by accident and I need to go to Stratford International instead. Could you please let me out?’
‘You need to go to Stratford International?’
He then went and told his companions about this and they all started laughing while I stood there blankly. He eventually opened the gates and beckoned me through.
‘Er, could I please have my ticket back?’
He let out the biggest sigh of exasperation I had ever heard and thrust the ticket into my hand. He then went back to sipping tea and talking with his friends. Well, at least the Englishmen’s love for tea is sincere, even though their customer service is not.
I then made the 5 minute walk through the Westfield shopping centre and found the platform serving the Southeastern trains. I checked on the board and my train was on platform 7. I followed the signs to platform 7 and it was platform 2. I followed the signs to platform 2 and it was platform 10. I then asked a lady at a kiosk where platform 7 was, and she gave me a very complex set of directions that made me think platform 9¾ would have been easier to find. Clearly National Rail are playing far too much of an intelligent game for me. Why would I even think of turning left when the sign says so? Of course it means turn right in reality, everyone knows that. I have to work on my flexibility I guess, and not just limit it to EK F and flexible sigmoidoscopies.
Eventually I reached the platform, and I checked on the board and confirmed that the train just arriving was my ride back home. I got on and found an empty seat.
I was just staring incompetently into space when I heard the train master coming through the carriages to check tickets. I showed him my ticket, still not thinking very much. So when he said anything other than ‘thank you very much’ to my ticket, I jumped a little in my seat and made a noise similar to what one would make when somebody does a digital rectal examination on them unannounced.
‘Where are you travelling to, sir?
‘@@@ (my destination)’
I then got a first good look at his face. He had a very large nose, with hairs coming out of it that looked like it could house a rabbit. He also had a rather flashy piercing in his right ear which probably made him look more chavvy than he actually was.
‘Not on this train you’re not’
‘…?’
I looked at him blankly and he stared back. I was still in the middle of trying to construct a sentence. Now, here’s a secret for all you people who can talk naturally to other people, about us introverts. We of course understand what the other person is saying, and we know the jist of what we want to say in our heads. Our mouths, however, can’t convey that information and we get startled by our own voices. Therefore, we have to take several moments to think word for word what we are going to say in our head, make sure it’s appropriate, search for alternate wordings that may be better, think of a few responses from the other person and how to answer each of those, and then finally say it. People seem to think that during this time it takes for us to process our thoughts into spoken words we are just stumped and can’t say anything, or we are ignoring them, but we aren’t. We are just looking for the right thing to say and worry about if it’s right or not.
Clearly, the train master thought I was an idiot. Or foreign. Or both. He spoke to me very slowly with a vocabulary befitting of the ‘simplified English’ page on Wikipedia.
‘This train goes to %%%, not @@@’
‘But it said it stops at @@@ at Stratford’
‘Well that must have been wrong. You will need to get off at $$$ and take the opposite train to reach @@@. We will reach $$$ at 1730 (1 hour from now), and it takes 2 hours on the slow train from there to @@@’
‘And that’s the fastest way to get to @@@ from here?’
‘Yes. You will also need to pay a fine of £20’
Most people here would argue against the fine. But I did not want to talk to this guy anymore so I just went with it. It is only £20 after all, which is nothing compared to what the EK F bourgeois experiences I am used to are worth in monetary terms.
‘At $$$, you will need to go to platform 4, and your train will arrive at 1800’
So I reached this unknown station in the middle of nowhere which I will never visit ever agian at 1730 and went across to the platform 4, which was undergoing engineering works and was closed. However, because it was a small station I soon found the train to take me back home. There was a staff member standing in the doorway to the train.
‘Where are you going, sir?’
‘@@@’
‘Yeah this one goes there. At least I hope it does…’
How reassuring.
15 minutes later I would know what he meant.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay. We are currently trying to find a mechanic to connect some carriages together. Hopefully we won’t be too long. In the meantime please relax and have a cup of tea’
A further 10 minutes later there was this announcement.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we apologise for the delay. We have managed to connect the carriages, but we don’t have anybody to actually drive the train at the moment. Hopefully we will find somebody soon’
A few minutes later a lady came on board, huffing and puffing from the extreme amount of exercise which involved getting up from her office chair and walking the 10m from her platform cabin to the train.
‘You’ll need to get off and take the 1905. We don’t have a driver’
She then stormed off without so much an apology.
At least the 1905 was correct, vaguely on time, and got me to my destination. I was, at this point, far too tired to walk from the station to my accommodation which I usually do, so I jumped in a taxi. The driver must have thought I looked far too worn out for a proper conversation, which I appreciated. As I paid, he offered his commiserations about the National Rail, which should be the expectations for any potential travelers to the UK:
‘In the last year, trains weren’t running on more than 40 of the weekends. You’re lucky today they were running’
No rail service is worse than the UK. Maybe except in Italy.
Future travelers beware, you have been warned.
Jul 22, 2017, 10:52 pm
#36
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Queensland, Australia
Programs: QF WP; HHonours
Posts: 53
Thank you so much for a fun to read tr. I live in Australia & travelled in UK. I'm familiar with the England trains, very thankful my experience doesn't mirror yours. Eurostar 1st class in Italy is another story. Well done, enjoyed your humour.
Jul 23, 2017, 12:08 am
#37
Join Date: Apr 2014
Location: Indonesia
Posts: 361
Except one time when we need to go to La Spezia from Milan Centrale. We entered the passenger zone about half an hour earlier. No announcement on my trains, nor in the electronic timetable. I asked the station staff and he said to keep waiting for the announcement, he got no idea either.
So we anxiously waiting until the T time. The staff was looking for us and he ushered us to certain platform opposite to us. We ran like being chased by zombies. The wheels began to roll, but fortunately we were able to throw the bags in and hop on from the very end of the coach.
Jul 24, 2017, 1:53 pm
#39
Join Date: Oct 2015
Location: Pacific Wonderland
Programs: ʙᴏɴᴠo̱ʏ Au, IHG Au, HH Dia, Nexus, Pilot FlyingJ Preferred
Posts: 5,336
Loved the trip report and very glad you've jumped right into the deep end of posting! Perhaps a failure in the goal of least informative but had me laughing throughout.
The only downside is you've raised the bar for what a first TR can be. I think I'll stay over in the wading section now.
The only downside is you've raised the bar for what a first TR can be. I think I'll stay over in the wading section now.
Jul 25, 2017, 11:38 am
#40
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: I 35 south bound, finally stopped
Programs: LT Plt, 4mm, *A GLD, burned out medical provider, executing our estate plan
Posts: 1,665
Great TR. It was so inspirational I made Okonomiyaki with left overs from the fridge. And tomorrow.... Omurice!
Jul 25, 2017, 9:33 pm
#41
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: SF BayArea
Programs: Nothing worth mentioning
Posts: 2,223
Fukki
Ah, shy, humble traveler: domo arigatou gozaimasu. Your trip report was an absolute pleasure for this reader. It's a brighter horizon with the possibility more of your travel scribbles are coming our way.
Ah, shy, humble traveler: domo arigatou gozaimasu. Your trip report was an absolute pleasure for this reader. It's a brighter horizon with the possibility more of your travel scribbles are coming our way.
Jul 26, 2017, 2:13 am
#42
Join Date: May 2011
Location: Kelowna Canada
Programs: Aeroplan, HHonors Diamond, BonVoy Gold, AAdvantage, IHG Priority Club, BA EC, AS MVP
Posts: 110
Loved your report and your humour is engaging.
Enjoyed your pictures of the Rotana as I stayed there for a month in 2003. Brought back fond memories (not an expected response ;-) )
thanks again.
Enjoyed your pictures of the Rotana as I stayed there for a month in 2003. Brought back fond memories (not an expected response ;-) )
thanks again.