Getting from there to here

Sydney to Singapore

(This post, while written at Singapore airport, has been posted later. I didn't feel like paying for internet access!)

The flight so far has been reasonable. My seat was located quite near the toilet, so there were people around regularly. It was an aisle seat though. It could have been worse. My personal inflight entertainment unit wasn't fully working, so I had no access to games. This is not a big deal, as they didn't look all that interesting. I still got to watch my choice of movie/TV so this was good. I watched "Walk The Line". It wasn't too bad. It finished at the same time as one of the other movies ("Brokeback Mountain") and so as the credits appeared on my screen, the aisle next to me filled with people queuing for the loo!

We have been fed twice so far. I had a vague recollection from a past overseas trip (the last time I went overseas was eight years ago) of getting an ice cream on the plane. I am pleased to report they still do this! I have had a bit of sleep, about two hours. I plan to get more on the next leg.

Well, that's it for now, as I will have to get back on the plane soon. The stopover here is very short.

Singapore to London

"Trip from hell" might be a little strong, but not by much.

For most of the flight there was nothing to complain about that was out of the ordinary. Of course, the overhead lockers were packed and so my bag didn't end up above me, so I wasn't able to access it all flight. So much for reapplying deordorant! Of course, I hardly got any sleep. These things are to be expected though.

What one does not expect is to bite down on something hard when eating one's breakfast. Well, you can now add this to your list of things to be wary of. It turns out that a piece of rock made it into my Raisin Bun, and now I have a chipped tooth. Nothing so serious as to require immediate emergency dental treatment, but enough to make me pretty distressed. I reported it to the Qantas staff of course, but nothing much was done apart from them taking the bit of rock and a form being filled out. I guess I'll have to find a dentist to go and see and if anything needs to be done, the bill will have to go to Qantas!

Unfortunately, once we'd landed, things could still get worse. Don't worry, no rubber gloves or anything of thet sort.

Once I got through customs at Heathrow, and bought my ticket for the Heathrow Express I sms'ed Gen to let her know (as she told me too). Although I asked her not to reply in excess (because with my Australian mobile it costs me to receive messages), I did expect a response if it wasn't going to be the case that she'd be waiting for me at Paddington station (as we'd arranged). I got no response.

I got to Paddington station. No Gen. I sms'ed again. No response. I tried calling but it went to voice mail.

After a while she called, and as she was still at home, she gave me two choices: wait for her to come to me (at least half an hour) or I catch the tube alone. She didn't seem to want to let me ask any questions to help me make this decision (like, how many different tubes I would have to catch). Nor did she give me a chance to tell her why I was upset, namely my tooth. There were some raised tones from her, and she threatened to hang up on me. I beat her to it.

Eventually, she called back. Her mobile phone credit got exhausted calling me. It will have cost me a fair bit too! Then some how she ended up being put through to some Chinese people. She admitted during this call that she'd been asleep until she got my first SMS. They were out late at a party last night. Grrr! Anyway, in the end, I told her to meet me here. Thus giving me the time to jot down some notes for this blog entry. She still didn't know about the chipped tooth.

I was pretty pissed off with Gen for for having slept in. After all the things I've done for her, and specifically, with all the things in my luggage that were for her, she should have been a tad more keen to up to meet me this morning.

Then it took quite a bit longer than half an hour for her to get to Paddington Station to meet me. It was closer to an hour. When she arrived, I got an earful when I indicated that I was annoyed by her sleeping in. It was all about how they had come home early, but then the party came back to their place too, and kept them awake until 2am. Blah blah blah!

On the plus side, I did eventually get to Gen's place. Though it took quite a bit longer than I thought it would.