FlyerTalk Forums - A lot of travel in a short space of time - Singapore twice, Austin, Berlin & New York

Are you going for non-domiciled status?

Hello there dear readers. It's been some time since I treated/bored (delete as applicable) my four regular readers with a TR. You have to go back to Mrs Lem and I visiting Japan last year for one in fact...

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https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip...g-qf-ek-f.html

Gratuitous plug:Off

But I'm back with you now, and finding myself once again sat on a plane coming home from Singapore, I figured I'd share the last couple of months of travel. I haven't seen home much, and it led to the question above from a good friend when I was at a football match recently on a rare weekend I was back.

I won’t go back all the way to once we were home from Japan, we’d be here all day, but I’ll kick off from mid-Feb this year – which is when things got hectic.

So, sit back, relax, pour yourself a glass of wine if that’s your thing, and standby for:

Singapore with Mrs Lem (SQ J)
Austin, TX with Mr Lem Snr (DL J and F, VS J)
Berlin with Mrs Lem (BA J and Y)
New York (BA F and J)
Singapore again (QR J)

As ever, these reports will be word heavy and picture light. If you’ve ever wondered why, it’s because I’m as bad at remembering to take photos as I am at packing. In short, if Mrs Lem is there, she’ll do it – if not, well it’s just a mess.

Obviously if there is something as fundamentally life changing as getting a pink steak on BA, then there will be photos, but otherwise I just tend to look at things, mutter an affirmative comment and then move on.

Anyway, on with the show.

Getting to Singapore, trip #1

I found myself needing to be in Singapore in mid-February for a very important stage of a project I’m running. I say ‘needing’ – I didn’t need to be there at all as I have a good team in place who know what they’re doing, but my boss insisted I was there to oversee and help with any issues that may arise. Of which there were precisely none – because I have a good team in place who know what they’re doing. But who am I to argue if they want to send me all that way and spend a lot of their money.

Letting Mrs Lem know, she declared she wanted to come too – her team has people in Singapore as well, so she figured it was about time she went out to see them. Her bosses were thrilled – but wouldn’t pay for it as it wasn’t chargeable to a client (a true demonstration of why the Big 4 are as wealthy as they are). So that was nice.

My work had already booked me on direct flights with SQ, so we set about finding the best way to get her highness out there. Let’s just skip to the end – all alternatives were rejected out of hand and she ended up on the same flights as me at quite some cost (yet, bizarrely, cheaper than my work TA paid). Still, she was happy, and that’s the main thing right? Right?

After the driver decided to go through London on Friday night, meaning it took two and a half hours to get to Heathrow (compared to our usual one hour and a little bit), and a completely forgettable hour in the SQ lounge, we boarded the late flight out to SIN on an A380. This was my third flight on it in the last couple of months and, to be honest, I don’t like it. The problem for me is that I’m 6’ 3” tall, so I simply don’t fit and there’s no way for me to lie straight when the seat is in bed mode. I also find it far too solid when in that mode too, and having to lay diagonally into a small foot coffin also bothered me. For all the positives of the great food, excellent crew (more on that in a mo), and the seat being wide and comfortable when in seat mode, if I can’t use it to at least try and sleep on it when flat, then it’s not that great. I ended up leaving it in seat mode and reclining it as far is it would go – was then able to get a few hours sleep.

Mrs Lem on the other hand, loved it. But then she’s short (or ‘normal sized’ as she puts it)

As mentioned above, I simply cannot fault SQ’s crew who were all excellent. On this flight in particular however, there was a lady who was so utterly beautiful that I basically forgot how to talk properly. In my defence, I had just woken up and was a bit disoriented, when a Singaporean angel floated into my vision.

“Can I get you anything to eat or drink Mr L?”
“Spahva doe beeday”
“I’m sorry, I’m not sure what that is”
**Absolute silence from me as my brain was incapable of making coherent sounds, and the pretty lady wandered off looking confused**

I still cringe internally when I remember that moment.

Soon after we descended into Changi and were shortly thereafter in a taxi to our hotel for the next two weeks, the Pan Pacific on Raffles Blvd – by far my favourite hotel in Singapore.

After a quick dinner, we went to bed at an entirely respectable time – and naturally still woke up in the early hours.

Balls.

We’re starting our descent into Doha now, so I’ll stick this bit up now and be back soon with more.