jjj8

I'll be taking this trip on Dec 17 and returning on Dec 23. It'll be a pretty crazy trip (one night in each place), but I am really looking forward to it.

For now this is a placeholder thread. If you have any suggestions of places to go or things to keep in mind, though, PM me or post them here!

lucky9876coins

Looking forward to the report, and please take some pictures if you get the chance!^ Looks like a very fun trip.

jjj8

Trip stats:
Places: LA, Singapore, Bangkok, Taipei, Seoul, and Osaka
5 countries
8 flights
8 airports
21,000 miles
46 hours on a plane (27% of 168 total hours in the trip)
5 airlines
4 foreign languages

Part 1: Preparation (Dec 16, 2007)

It's about 21 hours before the first segment of my trip (ORD-LAX in UA F), and I've got a few things on my mind.

I have to pack for two weather extremes, Singapore and Seoul. Singapore will be in the 80s, while Seoul will be below freezing. I hadn't even thought of that until two nights ago when I was talking to my friend who was about to fly home to Seoul. She said something like, "Oh, I can't wait to see snow again!" (We're both in the SF Bay Area, so that's thankfully something we don't experience.) But most of my trip will be taking me to warm-weather places. That's good, since I am in Chicago at my parents' house right now, and I can't stand the cold. I grew up here, but I'm certainly not made for Chicago weather.

Also, I'm trying to switch from the SQ A345 to SQ's 77W (the one with the new business class seats) at the last minute. Right now, the I bucket (business class award) is zeroed out, but they're still selling discount business seats, so I'm going to keep checking in case they open up some availability. If I were to rebook onto the 77W (SQ27), I'd have an extra stop in TPE and arrive into SIN a bit later, but I'd get to stay in LA for a few more hours seeing friends and get a better seat.

I've gotten lots of helpful advice from people on what to do at all of my destinations and compiled a little itinerary for myself. It's here, if you want to read it: http://qslack.com/trips/aw07/plan.pdf

Also, I made a little website that will generate flight paths for Google Earth. It's here: http://flyerstats.com

jjj8

Follow along with my photos.

Part 2: ORD-LAX-SIN

I got to the airport by 4:15 AM this morning for my 6 AM flight, and it was surprisingly deserted for a Monday morning. The security lines didn't even open until 4:30 AM.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the ORD C RCC. I had stopped by the B6 RCC earlier, and the person at the front counter was pretty impressed by my itinerary. She wondered how I had booked it. But when I went to the C RCC, to get a view of the runway, I think I confused the front desk person. I told her that my flight after this is to Singapore, and she asked me to see a BP for that flight. I didn't have one, but I did have the e-ticket receipt. She asked me if I was traveling in business class, and I said yes, but that I was also a Star Gold on an international itinerary (which permits lounge access for those of you non-*A people). She didn't seem to understand that, and she asked me if the Singapore code was SQ. I told her yes, and she typed that in. So I think SQ got charged for my RCC visit today! I don't know if that's how it's supposed to work, since I'm a UA *G but also traveling on SQ C. Anybody know?

I took some photos of the RCC, which you all will probably find quite boring, so that my family will see the difference between domestic RCCs and international lounges. It seems that the part of my trip they're most amazed by is that I'll get to visit the "Red Carpet Club" in all these Asian countries.

(Thanks to lucky9876coins for the trip report format.)


Monday, December 17
UA101
ORD-LAX
Aircraft: Boeing 757
Seat: 3D
Scheduled Departure Time: 6:00 AM
Actual Departure Time: 6:15 AM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 8:29 AM
Actual Arrival Time: 8:30 AM
Load: 100%


I got into LA around 8:30, and I was having some friends pick me up at 10:30 and show me around LA. So, I had a few hours to kill at LAX. I trekked over to the Tom Bradley International Terminal, which was quite a far walk. Luckily, I only had a backpack and a small wheeled suitcase. Once I got to TBIT at around 8:50, I found out that the Singapore check-in counters didn't open until 9:30. Oh well. I sat around a bit until they opened, and then I checked in. They almost didn't let me, since my flight didn't depart for another 11 hours, but once they found out I had no bags to check, they were able to (reluctantly) print out my boarding pass.

I entered the security line, which was a mess. There was no priority security (except for a few people who had passes from the airline, and I'm not sure how they got them), and to make it even more hectic, my friends called right as I joined the line to say they were 20 minutes away. I finally made it through, and right when I was standing in front of the amazing (by US lounge standards) food and drink spread at the *A lounge, they called to say they were here. I loaded up my backpack with lots of stuff from the lounge and ran out to meet them.

Our first stop was to pick up another friend on Sunset Blvd. I had never been to LA, only having skirted it on the highways (sorry, I mean freeways) and having spent a couple hours in LAX a few months ago, and all these street names seemed so famous and glitzy to me. I grew up in a family who hated LA (we lived in Chicago), but I tried to keep an open mind. Our first destination was Santa Monica, and we went to the Promenade and then to the boardwalk. We tried digging for sand crabs on the beach but were unsuccessful. After that, we went to Venice Beach, which is a 60s hippie place, and walked along the beach. We parked next to an old city bus that had been converted into a camper. Pretty crazy.

At 5:15 PM we got back onto the freeway to take me back to LAX, and I finally got to experience LA traffic. But we made it to the airport by 6:00 PM, which gave me plenty of time to relax in the lounge and snack up before I boarded my flight.

The business class side of the lounge, which is where I was, had a huge assortment of soft drinks, beer, wine, and some champagne and liquor. I was pretty tired already, so I just had a Diet Coke and some water. As for food, they had some dumplings (which disappointingly turned out to be veggie) and some minestrone soup (which is veggie by definition). They had a small selection of sushi, but what few pieces were there quickly disappeared and weren't replaced by the time I had to leave.

I regrettably didn't have time to check out the observation deck or sample some of the beer. I'll have plenty of time for that in Singapore, though, and it was way more fun to spend the day going around LA.


Monday, December 17
SQ37
LAX-SIN
Aircraft: Airbus 340-500
Seat: 11A
Scheduled Departure Time: 8:00 PM
Actual Departure Time: 8:15 PM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 6:20 AM +2 days
Actual Arrival Time: 6:10 AM +2 days
Load: 100%


My flight to Singapore boarded from gate 101, which was the very farthest gate. I walked up right as business class was finishing boarding and settled into my seat. No lines, no waiting. By this time, I had been awake for 24 hours straight (since I had trouble sleeping before my ORD-LAX flight), so my sleep cycle seemed to have reset, and I was feeling quite awake again. I had a few glasses of champagne and Diet Coke and started to explore the IFE.

It was announced that Superbad, the movie I most wanted to see, wasn't working. I settled on "Contract Lover," a Chinese movie about a Beijing man who hires a woman to pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his family in Guangdong. It was pretty hilarious, especially the white American actor who was included for comic relief. His character was a sissy gay man (and his portrayal would be pretty offensive in the US) with flawless Mandarin, and he seemed to be having great fun playing the role. Who knows, I speak some Mandarin, so maybe I could get roles in Chinese films some day!

I was seated in 11A, the first window seat on the left side. The seat next to me as occupied by a guy who, if I remember overhearing in my half-sleep correctly, flies this route very frequently and whose dad used to work for SQ. He had a fancy-looking flight logbook that he asked the FA to give to the pilot to sign, and the pilot (who was Australian) came back and personally delivered it to him.

After the A345's long takeoff roll and liftoff, we were plunged into a darkness we wouldn't emerge from until a few minutes before landing in Singapore. There was no point in opening or closing the windows, since you couldn't see anything either way.

Since this is my first trip report, you'll have to excuse my poor documentation of the meals. They were wonderful, except for my main course, and I only have myself to blame. About 30 minutes into the flight, the FA brought appetizers, which consisted of salmon and melon, crab cake, and one other thing. Next was my entree. I had Booked the Cook, and I chose the sushi. There was relatively little fish and lots of rice (underneath, not attached to each piece), and it was sashimi—which is my favorite food on earth, but I'd rather have some inspired sushi rolls than a few thin slices of sashimi. Desert was vanilla ice cream with raspberry.

Right after dinner, I went to sleep and didn't wake up until 2 hours until landing. The A345 doesn't have the new lie-flat business class beds, but they were still comfortable enough to let me sleep for 12 hours! And it felt great, since I hadn't gotten sleep in a long time at that point. Breakfast service had already started when I woke up. I ordered the BBQ duck entree, and they thought they might have run out, but they found another one for me. It was delicious. I forgot to take a picture of it, though. I promise I'll get better about that.

On the descent, I could see the lights of Indonesia (which, unbeknownst to me at the time, I'd have a closer encounter with the same day) and then the skyline of Singapore, which was relatively unilluminated at 5:30 AM. We had a soft landing into SIN and pulled up to the gate soon thereafter. I waited for everybody else in the cabin to exit the plane and then asked the FA for some extra US Diet Cokes, since Asian Coca-Cola Light doesn't taste as good to me. She got me a couple ^, and I headed to the SKL.

In Singapore

I got breakfast at the lounge and then took bus 36 into the city. I hopped off somewhere along Orchard Rd and walked around a bit, then headed to the Crawford Hawker Center. It was delicious! I tried some 水饺汤 (dumplings in soup), 鸡饭 (chicken rice), and 猪肉饺子. I really missed the tasty, quick, and cheap Chinese food that I always had during my stays in China over the past couple of years. After Crawford, I went to Raffles Place and walked over the bridge, past the Parliament building and the Supreme Court, and to the Esplanade.

After this, I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do next, but I had this crazy idea to go to Indonesia. It's only a 45-minute ferry ride away, and it'd be a cool experience. So, I went to a cafe to look up the Wikitravel page, and then rode the MRT to HarbourFront Centre and caught the Penguin ferry to Batam Center.

On the ferry, I happened to sit next to an American couple who had been in Indonesia for 8 years and who currently lived in Bandung. The man was doing tsunami relief work, spending 20 days a month in Aceh, and the woman worked at an international school. They gave me lots of helpful tips and made up for my total lack of preparation for this sidetrip into Indonesia!

My trip there began inauspiciously when my taxi driver took me to the wrong place and then started telling me how boring this place was and how I should go to Nagoya (the name of a business district, not the Japanese city) instead, but it was pretty obvious he was lying, and so I just paid him the agreed upon fare (30,000) and got out. I crossed the street and some children whose parents ran the sort of stalls that sell soft drinks and other snacks immediately came up to me and started saying "hello." I talked with them for a while (and some girls around my age came, too, and practiced their English with me). I wasn't really sure where I was, since the taxi had taken me who-knows-where (but only about 5 minutes away from the ferry terminal), but I knew that I'd be safe if I were hanging out with these families at the markets. I suppose I could have immediately hopped in a taxi going back to the ferry terminal when my original taxi cheated me, but this way turned out more fun.

Anyway, after about 25 minutes of talking with these people, some police showed up and asked me where I was going and what I was doing. I was initially pretty worried, since I thought they might try to extract a bribe or something and I mistook their lack of colloquial English for hostility (anything in broken English can seem angry when it's spoken by an Indonesian police officer , but it ended up that they just honestly thought I was lost (which I was) and wanted to help. They ended up driving me back to the ferry terminal and telling me how much they loved Michael Jordan. I could have wandered out into town again after that, but I had to get a bunch of presents, so I just went to the adjacent mall and shopped for the rest of the time.

I took the 8 PM ferry back to Singapore and then took the MRT to the airport. After a quick SKL shower, I fell asleep on the Singapore lounge couch for six hours. Thankfully I was able to suspend my sense of dignity, since it must have looked pretty ridiculous to see me sleeping on the couch. I certainly wasn't the only person, though. It was kind of like a slumber party, in fact, only without truth and dare.

My next flight, to Bangkok, is at 10:40 AM this morning, so I'm just hanging out in the lounge until boarding begins.

jjj8

Part 3: SIN-BKK

This was my first experience boarding a plane at SIN. I realized as I was walking to the gate that I hadn't passed through security yet! Of course, once I got to the gate, I passed through a small security checkpoint. There was no line, and despite all of the notices urging me to separate my liquids, they didn't care. (I thought Singaporeans were sticklers for the rules! I guess not for stupid rules.) Almost immediately after I sat down at the gate, boarding began.


Thursday, December 20
SQ972
SIN-BKK
Aircraft: Boeing 777
Seat: 12K
Scheduled Departure Time: 10:40 AM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 12:05 PM


My seat was OK. It was certainly better than UA's domestic F, but much worse than the TG intra-Asia C flight that I would take the next day. I could see that the small F section in front of us was only a slight bit better than C, too.

I had Booked the Cook for this flight and chosen the chicken curry. The meal was served in the rounded rectangular plastic trays, which wasn't too elegant. And the chicken curry itself was disappointing. The meat was poor quality, and there were some slices of zucchini in the rice that were completely soggy and tasted absolutely disgusting. Also, there was no dessert. (I asked about dessert, and they said that the fruit plate constituted the dessert.) My drink was only refilled pre-departure; service was very disappointing after takeoff. I had to get the FA's attention to order a Singapore Sling (which, to be fair, was delicious). The KrisWorld IFE still had not loaded the movie I most wanted to see, SuperBad, and there was an annoying 2-second delay after I pressed a button before it was reflected on the screen.

In all, it was a pretty disappointing SQ experience that could have been made a lot better with a few changes. don't know what SQ C fares are like for SQ SIN-BKK, but I can't imagine that I would ever pay for business (much less first) except if it was as part of a ticket that included a transpac sector.

jjj8

Part 4: BKK-TPE

After landing in BKK, I stopped at the TG Royal Silk Lounge in the C terminal for a quick snack and then headed to immigration. Each line was at least 50 people long, and it took at least an hour to pass through. (Doesn't TG give out fast-passes to C customers? Shouldn't SQ?) I finally hopped in a taxi to the Grand Palace.

I won't go into my time in Bangkok other than to say it wasn't my favorite city. I am sure that if I had seen the right places, I would have liked it better. But to me, it seemed to have all of the bad things that China has—pollution, traffic congestion, disdain and cheating of foreigners, etc. But in China, not only do I speak the language, but every annoyance also reassures me that there are still opportunities for improvement, and I'd love to do business in China and be a part of that improvement.

I took a taxi back to BKK at around 8 PM, planning on spending the night at the airport. I knew the TG lounge closed at 1 AM, but I had planned on checking in and sleeping somewhere in the terminal. I had visited the transit counter right after I disembarked from my flight earlier in the day, and they told me that while they couldn't print my boarding pass, the check-in counters at Departures could. I needed my boarding pass to get into the terminal so that I could stop in the lounge for a late-night snack and then sleep somewhere safe. So, around 9 PM I went to the business class check-in and was promptly refused. They could only process same-day check-ins, and I would have to wait until 5 AM the next day to get my boarding pass. When I asked, they said there was nothing they could do to get me past security and immigration. I asked if there was anything at all they could do, and they just kept explaining the situation in circles. (Why can't I check in? Because your flight is tomorrow. Is there anything I can do to get past immigration? No, you need a boarding pass, and you can't get that until tomorrow. Is there anything you can do for me? No, you need a boarding pass.) This reminded me a lot of the customer service I experienced in China, and it is extremely frustrating. Even the supervisor at the business class check-in counter just said there was no way that I could check in the night before my flight.

I tried to go to the ticketing counter to buy a refundable ticket for a flight that night just to get past immigration, but I was told that if you refund a Thai "refundable ticket," you lose 2000 Baht (about $65) of the ticket value. So, I went back to the business class check-in. By this time, I had talked to about 4 different check-in agents, and all of them had refused me. Finally, I found one who suggested I go to the "flight manager" at desk J21. I went, and I was told he was on break for another 30 minutes. After another long wait, he came back, and was able to check me in in about 5 minutes. I glided through immigration and headed straight for the TG lounge where I napped until 1 AM. Then I found a place on the floor in some remote part of the terminal and fell asleep, using my dirty laundry bag as a pillow. I was so tired that I didn't even have to take Ambien.

This experience with TG was also extremely disappointing. Only a few of the check-in agents knew I was on award travel, so their apathy can't be attributed to their knowing I wasn't a paying customer. I would hope that TG management would be absolutely embarrassed that I was bounced around customer service hell for 3 hours.

I woke up around 5 AM shivering from the cold air in the terminal and headed to the TG lounge for a shower at 5:15 AM. After the shower, I slept for another few hours until right when my flight began boarding.


Friday, December 21
TG634
BKK-TPE
Aircraft: Boeing 777
Seat: 12A
Scheduled Departure Time: 7:25 AM
Scheduled Arrival Time: 11:55 AM


Once on board, the experience was pretty good. The seats were transpac-quality. I think they were the same basic hardware, with a few modifications, as my SQ LAX-SIN flight. I got a good two hours of sleep and had a decent, if oily, lunch of pork noodles and shrimp shumai. The flight landed at TPE's third-world-country terminal 1, which was reminiscent of airport terminals in small Chinese cities.

My only previous intra-Asia business class experiences were with UA (from NRT-HKG and ICN-NRT), so I am not speaking from a lot of experience here. But I was thoroughly disappointed with the service and product I received. Unless I have tens of millions of dollars in the bank, I wouldn't ever pay for intra-Asia C. And I probably will do everything I can to ever avoid flying TG again, since the lack of customer service exhibited by what should it its best check-in agents, at the C counter, was so frustrating.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the TPE SQ SKL waiting for my flight to ICN. I had an awesome time in TPE. I'll post more about it in my next installment.

jjj8

As I said in my previous post, I'd write more about my time in Taipei since I loved the city so much.

I spent the second half of 2006 in Beijing and went back to China for 6 weeks this summer, so I have a decent grasp of Mandarin. The version of Mandarin spoken in Taipei is very clean, similar (at least to my ear) to that spoken by well-educated Chinese people and people in the Northeast (who are known for having clean accents). Even the taxi drivers spoke without a strong accent, which certainly can't be said about Beijing cabbies.

Anyway, after landing in TPE, I breezed through immigration and caught a "Free Go" airport bus (飞狗机场巴士) to the city for NT$140 (about $4.50 USD). I got off the bus somewhere near a subway stop and took the subway to Ximending (西门町), which is a trendy shopping area that was described to me as such: "If it's Japanese and cool, Ximending sells it." It certainly lived up to that description. I got to check out my favorite store of all time, which I had previously only seen in Hong Kong: Muji. It's a Japanese company that sells all sorts of cool stationery and organizers, kind of like The Container Store but more stylish. Next, I went to the 24-hour bookstore eslite (成品), which also had lots of cool little gadgets. After that, on my way to meet a friend in the PageOne bookstore in Taipei 101, I stopped by the Crocs store near the New York New York shopping center to buy a pair of their amazing sandals. They might look dorky, but whatever.

The friend I met in Taipei 101 had been in the city for a couple of weeks, and he showed me around a bit. We went to the Shilin night market, which was pretty happening. I ended up staying the night in a inexpensive and charming hostel near Taipei Main Station (台北车站) called Taiwanmex for NT$300 ($10 USD). Not bad! ^

The next morning, I caught a bus back to the airport and hung out in the lounges for a couple of hours catching up on my email. My Asiana business class boarding pass granted me access to EVA Air's lounge, so I checked that out first. The interior was a bit shabby, but the drink selection was great. The food was certainly intended for Asian palates, which makes a lot of sense (and I was one of 2-3 non-Asians in the entire lounge). I had heard great things about the SQ SKL in TPE, so I decided to go check it out. Its food and beverage selection was much smaller (especially their beer selection), but still decent. I spent the rest of time time in the SKL since it emptied out right after I arrived, and it was nice and quiet.

I made it to the gate right as they called for business class passengers to board, and with only 3 of us total (in an A321 with 12 C seats), it went quickly.

Part 5: TPE-ICN


Saturday, December 22
OZ712
TPE-ICN
Aircraft: Airbus 321
Seat: 3A
Departure Time: 4:15 PM
Arrival Time: 7:25 PM


I don't have any exact numbers, but our takeoff roll seemed extremely long for an A320-class, and our ascent seemed extremely steep. But we obviously made it up in the sky safely in the end.

Obviously, a flight on an A321 isn't going to match up to anything on a B777 or A345. The seat pitch in C is a disapopinting 36 inches, which is about the same as Economy Plus on United. There's no power port for my laptop and no individual video screens. But the service and meal were both excellent.

Dinner was a halibut salad and steak with mushroom sauce, and they gave me some A-1 Steak Sauce to put on it. (As an aside, I live about 5 minutes away from Kraft headquarters, which makes A-1, and I drive by it a lot when I'm home. It's always fun to see "Glenview, IL" on food labels halfway across the globe. Same thing at McDonalds in China—the hand dryers are made in Illinois, and they're the exact same ones that I'd find at the McD's right near my house.) There was some fruit on my plate that I had never seen before, so I asked about it. The FA didn't know the English or Chinese name for it, but she went and found out for me. Then she asked me if it was delicious, and even though I didn't like it that much, I didn't want to hurt her feelings. So, I told her that it was indeed delicious, and she brought me some another whole plate of it. ^

After we landed in ICN, I zoomed through immigrations and went looking for a place to leave my suitcase. Unfortunately, the left luggage place closed at 10 PM and didn't open until around 6 AM, and that wouldn't work for me since I'd need to grab my suitcase before I fell asleep. So, I decided to just go into Seoul with my luggage.

More on Seoul in the next installment. Until then, I want to make a big, shameless plug for a website I made that you all will certainly find interesting. It's called FlyerStats.com, and it lets you put in routings like ORD-SFO-PEK-HKG-SIN-EWR-ORD and see the flight path on Google Maps, and it also calculates RDMs and cents-per-mile numbers for itineraries (kind of like Great Circle Mapper but way better). As an example of the site, here's the flight path for this trip: http://flyerstats.com/itineraries/8-...CN-KIX-SFO-ORD Try it out -- add your own itineraries and tell me what you think!

jjj8

(placeholder for ICN-KIX-SFO-ORD)

BIMMERKID2

I see your going to be in Seoul soon.. I'm there. .I have been on a student Exchange.. I leave seoul on the 27th to see taipei for 4 days.. then i fly to the us...
all in C... I could show you maybe a couple interesting things in Seoul if you wish? ^

jjj8

Posted pt. 1, ORD-LAX-SIN (it's the second post in this thread, or click here http://flyertalk.com/forum/showthrea...99#post8904499 )

I'm in the process of uploading the photos, and I'll link them as soon as I can.

lucky9876coins

Awesome report so far, can't wait for more. Very well written!^

Happy to hear you got great sleep on the SQ flight. I usually get my best sleep on planes, which is why I love mega-longhauls.

cstead

This is the longest in years that I've gone without a crazy Asia trip...man how I miss it! Best of luck, and I can't wait to read more^

jjj8

Thanks! I'm glad you all are enjoying it. I just landed in BKK and am typing this from the Thai lounge. I spent a few minutes annotating my first post with photos, but it was just taking too long. So, you will have to manually follow along with the photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sqs/set...7603500666774/

Heading into Bangkok now...

jjj8

Posted parts 3 and 4 (SIN-BKK and BKK-TPE). In the TPE SQ SKL now, waiting for my TPE-ICN flight.

air_male

Great report - enjoyed the novel! What kind of award did you book that allows so many stopovers or was it multiple or combinations of award and revenue?