Articles from this Category
12 October 2004
Arriving at Singapore, Kim helped his parents into a taxi to get to their hotel, Perak Lodge. We have a two night stopover in Singapore which Kim and I will spend at my step-dad’s place. Mum and step-dad had come to pick us up at the airport. But being a large airport, we had a […]
12 October 2004
Today we embark on a family adventure with Kim’s parents, starting in Beirut and finishing in Cairo. The largely-overland journey would take us through Syria and Jordan. We left home around 1015 for Auckland airport. After a slow check-in we boarded at a remote gate. A baggage container tipped over during the loading process and […]
24 June 2004
After crossing the International Date Line and skipping a day, we landed in Auckland after 0500 on 24 June 2004. We picked up a relocation vehicle from Avis to drive home. It was a very special deal for NZD19 including airport surcharge and we had to return it to the city office near our home […]
22 June 2004
Above: Probably the Grand Canyon before descending into Los Angeles. We landed in Los Angeles around 1930. Again, we had a 2h transit but this time we didn’t have to collect our bags, clear immigration and run upstairs to check-in. We only had to tolerate an immigration clearance in a makeshift transit area. A much […]
14 June 2004
Milan to London We woke at 0700 and took breakfast at the hotel. Described as a “lavish” breakfast, it wasn’t really. Italians aren’t big on breakfast so the fact that they had some ham and cheese in addition to pastries and biscuits made it lavish I suppose. At check-out, we made a last attempt to […]
5 June 2004
Again, I didn’t sleep a wink on the flight from Los Angeles to London. After landing around 1100, we had to wait about 45 mins for a Gulf Air A330 to vacate our allocated gate. That was the last thing we needed after about 24h in a plane. We collected our rental car from Avis. […]
4 June 2004
I didn’t sleep a wink on the flight to Los Angeles. Before landing at 1440, the crew on board, knowing that we have a tight standby-connection onwards to London, shifted us to the front of economy class so we could disembark quickly. We cleared arrival formalities including the relatively new fingerprinting and photographing requirements fairly […]
4 June 2004
Today we travel from Auckland fly to London in order to spend time with my sister who is terminally ill, then have a short European holiday in some places that are new to me. We’re flying standby on staff tickets on this route which is an experience I term as “double jeopardy”. We will on […]
27 October 2003
We landed at Auckland about 20 mins ahead of schedule at 2300. The timing of our flight is a rather unusual one as most flights from Los Angeles depart at night and arrive at 0500 or 0600. I love the timing of our flight as we would go to bed tonight and not worry about […]
26 October 2003
This morning, it was Pat and Fiona’s turn to go to Santa Monica for a little outing. As for us, we were flying back to Auckland departing at 1335. We set of from the hotel by their complimentary shuttle about 1030. On the bus we met some Air New Zealand ground staff from New Zealand. […]