Author archive
24 October 2025
Arriving and transit in Bejing With one sleeping pill, I slept soundly for about 4h30. With about 3h remaining till the breakfast service, I reluctantly popped another half a pill which gave me another 2h. Magic! We landed in Beijing Capital about 1h before the scheduled arrival time of 0530. It was quite cool as […]
23 October 2025
Trip summary This trip started with the idea of visiting my favourite country in all my travels, Syria. A friend, Dennis, had talked about having me over to visit him in his hometown of Teochew (Chaozhou) in China, and I managed to combine this into the trip. The cherry on top was a redemption ticket […]
3 August 2025
Flight cancellation Today, I’m supposed to finish my whole trip with a flight at 1150 back to Auckland with Latam Airlines booked with a commercial confirmed ticket (rather than a staff standby ticket at about the same price). Knowing that the airline is somewhat unreliable on the route, with the aircraft coming all the way […]
1 August 2025
Even though we landed in Sydney in the land down under on time at 0750, the previous aircraft at the gate hadn’t pushed back, so we had to wait a little before we could park and disembark. For my two-night stay in Sydney, I’m staying with a friend, Henry. He kindly picked me up from […]
31 July 2025
Killing a day Tonight, I have a flight to Sydney at 2130, brought forward a few months ago from 2335. I had cancelled the hotel room for tonight, which I was going to use as late check-out but with the earlier flight time, I would only use it for maybe 4h max. To my surprise, […]
30 July 2025
A bit of a fright I had a bit of a fright this morning with my flight departure time to Kuala Lumpur which I had thought was at 1320. I had thought of going to the airport at 0945 to have brunch at the lounge but didn’t think I could last till then without […]
25 July 2025
No jetlag Three nights after landing from Europe, I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any jetlag. That’s quite unheard of, for me, especially flying towards the east. I’ve had not trouble falling asleep and have been OK to wake with the alarm at 0715 each morning. And my nature calls were nearly on […]
22 July 2025
Arriving in Bangkok The 1630 departure from Istanbul wasn’t conducive for sleep on the 9h10 flight. That’s despite the 0415 wake-up and half a sleeping pill. Somehow, I must have rested enough during the 5h30 between the dinner and breakfast, as it didn’t seem to drag on. I did get peckish in between the meals […]
21 July 2025
Leaving Chisinau Today I fly from Chisinau to Istanbul and from there, will somehow and hopefully make it to Kuala Lumpur on one of several standby options. I woke at 0415 and left my room about 30 mins later to check out from the hotel. I managed to get a car on the Yandex app, […]
20 July 2025
Today is about enjoying the atmosphere (which I already was), seeing life in a different country, living my day-to-day in a different environment and escaping the New Zealand winter. I spent the morning at the gym then ate a sandwich seated in the pedestrian mall which I had missed yesterday. After a rest in the […]