Leaving home for hometown Today, I make my way back to hometown, Kuching, for Chinese New Year.  Rather than go back through the usual route of Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, I travel through Bali and Jakarta to use the relatively new service on AirAsia from Jakarta to Kuching. I fly Air New Zealand on a […]

Back in Auckland, we started our drive home around 1630.  Many people haven’t started back at work yet and the motorway was thankfully free-flowing.

Today, we fly down to Christchurch for dinner with my cousins before doing a road trip to Lake Benmore tomorrow for camping with friends for the third time. With a midday flight, there was no rush leaving home to get to the park-and-ride, and we even had some time in the lounge before boarding. It’s […]

We landed into Auckland at 0100.  I noticed that the cabin lights had been left on for the landing and the earlier take-off from Brisbane.  It was actually super-bright in the front and rear galley areas by the doors. Enquiring with friends that knew Qantas crew, this is supposedly their requirement.  That’s something new for […]

Above:  Only snacks served on a 5h55 international flight; unusual for Qantas. Flying to Auckland Today, I finish my trip with a flight back to Auckland via Brisbane on a Qantas redemption ticket.  I was very lucky go get a redemption ticket as I wouldn’t like to have chanced a long weekly B737 flight on […]

Above:  Kuwait Airways spacious Boeing 777 with 9-across configuration. Leaving Guangzhou My Kuwait Airways flight to Kuwait departs at 0440 so it was a pleasant surprise that check-in opened at 0100.  I joined the queue 20 mins before opening and was surprised by the number of people already there, each typically having two large suitcases […]

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 […]

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 […]