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Overnight in Hong Kong

Chad CAR Middle East Mongolia, Hong Kong, hotels, Restaurants No Responses »

Nov 182015

After landing at 7pm, conquering the bus gate and long immigration lines I got the MTR and just over 20 minutes later was at Kowloon station. From there, it’s a short walk through the shopping mall to my hotel of choice in Hong Kong – The W. Hong Kong is one of those cities that has a ton of great hotel options, and everyone seems to have their own favourite. The W wins for me for convenience to the airport, being connected to the mall and the MTR, and the overall great service I’ve received each stay. The biggest downside, which to be fair is the downside of most nice Hong Kong hotels, is that there’s just no way to get it on the cheap.

Check-in was pretty efficient, friendly, upgrade to a slightly larger room, but unfortunately when I got to it…it absolutely reeked like someone had been smoking in it. The response from the front desk? We are really full and really busy, can we give you a call back in 30 minutes? Seriously, what is it with my bad luck on this trip. I told them it wasn’t acceptable, and only had to wait 15 minutes for a new room. Ugh. Fortunately, that one was much better and since it was already 9pm I headed to a place next to the mall for a quick dinner.

Choice for dinner was Madame S’ate, which had a nice outside patio as well as an enclosed space. Given the humidity was oppressive and it was about 28C even at night, I definitely opted for the air conditioned indoors. Place was still quite lively that late, and opted for what was a delicious wagyu steak, lyonnaise onion and cheese tartine. Washed it down with a craft beer from the local Young Master brewery, which was also pretty good:

Back to the W a bit before 11, where the elevator floor made sure to welcome me back:

The W gives a bonus welcome amenity to SPG Platinum members, which is a complimentary drink in the hotel bar…I assume to encourage you to stay and spend more money. Decided to have a second beer and people watch, which is always a fun pastime in Hong Kong:

Slept well, and unfortunately when I woke up it was absolutely pouring outside. Decided to delay sightseeing for a bit, and enjoy some Starbucks for breakfast…given its convenient location right in the mall under the hotel. I think this must be the first time they’ve ever spelled my name right at Starbucks!

It was still pouring after breakfast, so I did a bit of walking around in the mall for some light exercise while waiting for it to taper down. Back to my room a bit before 11, and the rain was finally starting to lighten up a little bit. View from my room:

Took a long walk through the mall to the MTR to grab some lunch a bit, and walked right past the mall’s enclosed ice rink. I think I need one of these myself given how I skate:

Not bad for an in-mall rink…it would be pretty awesome to get the chance to play some hockey here at some point!

The rain had finally let up, so I took the MTR one stop to Hong Kong station, to walk around and grab some lunch. The light mist and humidity were a foul combo, combined with the fact that the walk to the restaurant was pretty steep uphill:

To the point that after the relatively short 10-15 minute walk I got there and was absolutely drenched in sweat. Gross. Went to the washroom to clean up before ordering, and was met with this poster in the washroom:

Uhhh….thanks POTUS! The restaurant was The Roundhouse, billed as an authentic Texas BBQ and home to 25 different craft beers on tap. I have to say, the tap list was seriously impressive, containing lots of great American, Danish, and European craft beers as well as a few scary local Chinese options. Oh, and there was the BBQ…the beef shortrib sandwich was absolutely amazing:

Had a couple of beers, and went to wash my hands afterwards, and next to Mr Obama was this poster:

By this time the steady rain had started again, so it was back to the hotel to clean up and shower before heading to the airport for my flight back home. At least the downhill walk was a lot less sweaty, but a lot more moist do to the rain:

Despite the rain, quite a bit of shopping going on:

I didn’t end up getting to do nearly as much exploring as I had wanted to this trip, but by this point sleep was winning out and the rain was making things uncooperative. I guess in all my travels, I’ve been extremely lucky with weather overall so can’t complain I had a bit of a washout in a city I’ve already visited several times. There’s always the next visit. Quick shower and check-out, and it was time to MTR to the airport and begin the long trek home!

Salalah to Doha, Qatar on OmanAir and Qatar, overnight in Doha

Business Class, Chad CAR Middle East Mongolia, First Class, Flights, hotels, Oman, Qatar No Responses »

Oct 282015

Short ride to the airport, and there was no wait at the check-in area. For some reason, my seat had been changed from a window seat to an aisle seat (the configuration on Oman Air’s A330s is 1 window, 2 seats together in the middle, the 1 window), but that was quickly fixed by the friendly agent. Immigration and security also had absolutely no wait, so it was quickly through and to the lounge.

When I had originally booked this ticket, I was planning to go from Salalah to Turkmenistan (via Yemen) so had a Salalah-Muscat-Dubai ticket. I debated just throwing away the last segment when plans changed, but figured that was kind of risky. So, in a moment of foodborne-illness induced delirium a few days prior in the Ethiopian lounge in Addis Ababa, I changed it to a Salalah-Muscat one way in business (instead of economy) for about $100 more. I figured I would be happier, it could be done on line, and…less risk of something going wrong and them trying to put me on a Salalah-Dubai direct flight. Plus…it was a widebody and would have international business seats. This is me rationalizing…

…and this is the SALALAH Oman Air business lounge. Keep in mind this isn’t even their hub, but the lounge was large, spacious, and had great snacks out. This pic is from the mid point of the lounge towards the buffet. Behind me are recliner chairs.

I’d already had breakfast, so settled for Coke Light and some pre-pitted dates. Delicious.

After relaxing in the lounge for a bit, I took the short walk to the gate. On the way, there was a random traditional Omani tent just set up in the middle of the terminal. I wonder if napping here would be permitted…

Got to the gate, and they were already boarding 40 minutes prior to departure, so straight on the plane it was.

Oman Air flight 904
Salalah, Oman (SLL) to Muscat, Oman (MCT)
Depart 10:45, Arrive 12:30, Flight Time: 1:45
Airbus A330-300, Registration A4O-DD, Manufactured 2009, Seat 14A

First impression of Oman Air’s international business class:

Nice spacious seats with huge storage bins for the window seats:

Centre seats…still very roomy, but not much storage:

Interesting cultural aspect to the flight. Omani guy seated in the row next to me with a woman who was obviously a relative of some sort. But, every so often he would wave his hand around, and the woman across the aisle would leap up to tend to him. First time it happened during boarding…when he needed his seatbelt fastened:

Welcome aboard lemon/limeade drink:

Interesting cartoon safety video:

She looks rather enthusiastic about that life vest…

After the pre-departure lemon/limeade, and before the door closed, the also came around with delicious Arabic coffee:

After takeoff, a choice of chicken patties or fish was offered. The chicken was pretty tasty, but even better was the amazing mousse with mango sauce. It was delicious! Pretty impressive meal for a short flight, but surprisingly no bread offered. I did ask (not that I really wanted any) but the flight was also dry. I didn’t think Oman Air was a dry airline, but maybe on morning or domestic routes? The crew wasn’t overly confident in English, so I didn’t push the questioning.

From what this interaction appeared to be, he needed his napkin placed on his lap…and his companion hopped right up to do it:

Landed on time in Muscat, and had about five hours until my next flight. We arrived at the domestic arrivals, which meant taking a bus to baggage claim, and then straight outside. There was someone asking for transfers, so I joined the group. They were confused why I didn’t have a boarding pass, and when they found out I was transfering to someone other than Oman Air they were extremely confused. Apparently in Muscat they only expect you transfering to Oman Air. Upon checking my Qatar boarding pass on my phone, they decided they would bus me over to the international terminal with everyone else, and leave it to be sorted there.

Fortunately, upon arrival at the international terminal, there was not only a transfer counter, but a special line for business class. Qatar markets its regional flights as first class, and when they saw that boarding pass they leapt up to help quickly. Only problem was, again, they only really knew how to deal with Oman Air transfers. About 20 phone calls were made, and they finally found someone who knew how to issue a Qatar Airlines boarding pass. Only problem was…it was going to take at least 30 minutes. They escorted me through security, and told me to go to the Oman Air lounge to wait.

Get to the Oman Air lounge and…no, you may not use this lounge. Uh, ok. They sent me off to the Plaza Premium lounge, which turned out to be the right lounge. I asked the agent when I get stamped out of Oman, and she was stunned I hadn’t been. She made a call to airport immigration, and seems someone had escorted me right past exit immigration without getting me stamped out. The solution? Since I was already outside immigration, and security, they send an airport employee to carry my passport to the immigration folks to get me stamped out…and hopefully come back to the lounge with it. Fortunately, this worked out just fine and all was good in the end.

Despite a good snack on the plane, I was a little hungry, and the lounge had some great hummous and mezze:

Blogged for a little bit, got a little hungrier, so more snacks, including Fosters…Omani for beer!

Soon it was time to walk just across the hall to our gate, where the 4 people in business class had a bus all to ourselves. The airport apparently has a huge shortage of jetbridges, as we didn’t get one in either direction. Nice thing about only four people in the front was that we each had a row all to ourselves.

Qatar Airlines flight 1127
Muscat, Oman (MCT) to Doha, Qatar (DOH)
Depart 17:45, Arrive 18:25, Flight Time: 1:40
Airbus A320, Registration A7-ADA, Manufactured 2001, Seat 3F

So, what’s to eat? Despite a short flight, we got a full menu:

Plus a rather substantial snack:

Beverages…today the champagne on offer was Krug…yum!

Pre-departure towels were offered…warm or cold, your choice. Given the 100F temps, I went cold…

Arabic coffee was offered, but no champagne on the ground in Oman “for tax reasons.” Plus the dates were packaged…kinda…cheap looking

The champagne situation was quickly rectified after takeoff:

The shish tahouk main…quite tasty, although rather small:

Upon landing, again first class passengers got their own bus to the terminal. The luxury first class bus:

It was clearly rush hour at the airport, and the lines for transfer security was enormous. Had to pass by scary interrogation bear again, and then downstairs to immigration. Fortunately, Qatar has business class lines at immigration, so I quickly got my visa (100 rials please) and was soon outside and in my taxi.

Pretty short ride to my hotel for the night, the W Doha. I’ve said it before on this blog, but the W Doha in my opinion is probably the best SPG property in the world. Some time soon, I want to take a few day trip to Doha just to hang out there and be pampered. I was chatting with the manager on duty at reception, and he informed me I’d been upgraded to a “residence apartment” for the stay. This was a new one in my several stays there, and I was curious to see what it involved.

The residences are a separate tower, and accessed through what feels like a secret door from the lobby area with their own elevators. Once inside my apartment, there was a huge living area:

…a very nice kitchen complete with Nespresso machine:

…and even a washer and drier as well as refrigerator. Basically everything you could want for an extended stay.

Not to mention, the bedroom was extremely spacious as well:

I felt kind of bad I had such a short night. It was way too early to go to bed, but also had to be up super early the next morning. I decided four hours or so of sleep would have to do, and decided to go over to the mall a couple blocks away just to walk around and people watch. I’d been sitting around airports all day, so stretching the legs would feel good. Got to the mall, and decided instead of walking to rent some skates and go skating. Managed about an hour on crummy rental skates, but it was still lots of fun. Nothing says ice skating like Qatar!

Got back to the room, and still wasn’t really all that tired. At check-in the told me about a new service they were trying out which was a WhatsApp concierge. They gave me a number to message with anything I wanted, and they would take care of it. I decided to try and ask them to bring me a half bottle of one of the red wines on the room service menu, and it arrived within 15 minutes. Pretty impressive. Also needed the code for the internet, and they responded with that quickly as well.

All in all, the service was outstanding at this hotel again, and combined with the location and overall facilities it remains probably my favourite Starwood property anywhere in the world! Finally got to bed in time to get just under five hours of sleep. It’s off to Japan in the morning!

Asmara to Doha on Qatar Airways, 20 hours in Doha

Attractions, Business Class, East Africa 2015, Flights, hotels, Qatar, Restaurants No Responses »

May 152015

After a solid 3-4 hour nap I woke up just before midnight, showered, and headed down to the front desk of the Asmara Palace to check out. The travel company had already paid the bill so all I had to do was sign the bill and be on my way. The hotel offered a shuttle to the airport, and it was just me and one other passenger, and soon we were off.

When we got there, the hotel doorman/concierge made a point of walking me to the check-in desk, which was absolute chaos. With Turkish and Qatar leaving within 15 minutes of each other, it was a mad scrum, with no signage anywhere. There was one desk marked business class, but it had a couple dozen people clustered around it who were most certainly not flying business. I (politely) pushed my way to the front, and was checked in all the way to Helsinki in about 10 minutes. Immigration was very quick with no questions asked, except by the driver/concierge: “perhaps you have a tip for me?” Um, no, didn’t ask for or need your help, and you insisted on following me. Grrr!

Security was somewhat silly…regular x-ray machines, and then they insisted on going through each piece of handcarry individually. Usually developing country practices in place, a quick 10-15 second check of your bag (open it up, quick look, close it up) if you were western looking, but if you looked local they basically tore it apart and flung everything out of the bag. Ugh!

Upstairs was the waiting area, which was just one big room for 300+ passengers. Just enough seats for everyone, as well as a small cafe and a couple of small shops. No lounge, of course. I decided to kill the 90 minutes until flight time (hopefully only 60 til boarding) people watching, which was reasonably interesting. Several Australian guys getting rather happy on local beer after local beer, a few exhausted looking development worker and missionary types, and lots of people looking fairly nervous like they’d never been on a plane before…you know, the usual developing country travel crowd.

At about 1:50 the plane arrived and unloaded quickly, and by about 2:30 we’d taken our bus to the plane (no special bus for business class this time) and boarded. Pushed back about 35 minutes behind schedule, which the captain said we’d likely make up in the air.

Qatar Airways flight 1444
Asmara, Eritrea (ASM) to Doha, Qatar (DOH)
Depart 02:00, Arrive 05:20, Flight Time 3:20
Airbus A320, Registration A7-ADE, Manufactured 2003, Seat 2D

Unfortunately, upon boarding we were greeting with the old style A320 seats, which since I’d already been expecting them wasn’t so bad. They’re still better than domestic U.S. first class seats since they have a couple inches of extra legroom, and they’re heaps better than European business class since they’re in a 2×2 configuration. Interestingly, my seatmate was the same guy I’d sat next to on the flight into Asmara two days prior who works in the same field as me, and we knew many of the same people. Champagne (white or rosé), juice, or water was offered before takeoff, along with a hot OR cold towel service. Quite nice! My seatmate was asleep before the plane even left the ground, but I decided to stay awake.

My plan was to get four hours of sleep before heading to the airport, stay awake for the awkward 2.5 hour redeye, and then get another 4-5 hours upon arrival in Doha since it was Friday morning anyways, and everything would be closed for prayers in the morning. It sounded good in theory…it remained to be seen if it would work in practice.

Nice meal service for a short redeye, and only myself and one of the other 12 passengers decided to partake:

Pre-meal bubbles and nuts…today’s offering was Veuve Cliquot Rosé:

The prawns and salmon starter, which was super tasty, along with more bread than any one person needs:

The chicken main which was good, but nothing super special. Most surprising was the mashed potatoes…something which usually doesn’t interest me enough to partake, but which was super good. Must have been the ridiculous amounts of butter:

….cheese course one of two. Yes, it was that good, and everyone else was sleeping, soooo…. Had it along with a couple of glasses of a fairly nice tempranillo, and just as I finished the sun was coming up outside. It was about 4:15 am and we had about 45 minutes of flight time remaining:

Then, horror of horrors…there was no dessert left! It seems the passengers on the inbound had consumed all of them, and there were none at all remaining. Seriously Qatar? You don’t cater enough for each passenger in each direction? …and I can’t believe the crew served two each to every passenger on the outbound. Boo hiss! I need my Ladurée. Oh well, my pants thank you at least.

Parked at a bus gate (of course) and took the business class bus to the terminal. Short walk towards immigration (where I spied the creepy giant teddy bear again), and immigration was a breeze. Agent spoke nearly no English, but was anxious to try and chat. “W Hotel! Party! Hot girls!” So, I responded with the only appropriate thing: “na’am…shukran habibi!” (yes, thanks my friend!) It’s amazing how many situations that basic phrase comes in useful in!

Easy to find a cab to the hotel and my taxi driver Mohammad from Pakistan was rocking out to Pitbull for the entire drive. Just what I wanted to hear at 6am…and 50 Qatari Rial later I was at the W. They’d been waiting for me, and asked when I’d like to check out. I’d asked for the 4pm SPG Platinum late check out, and that was no problem…how much later would I like? Can I do 6pm? “What time is your flight? 1am? Oh, how about 8pm, is that ok?” Wow, very nice job…so I had a dayroom for 14 hours. There’s a reason this is one of my favourite SPG properties in the world.

Plus, they upgraded me to a huge “W Suite”

Closed the blinds, cranked down the AC which got nice and frigid, and after a shower was in bed just before 7am…and promptly passed out hard until noon. Was very glad to see that my plan actually worked out! Got up, showered again, and walked the four blocks to the City Centre Mall in the 44C (111F) heat…but at least unlike Massawa it was a dry heat and actually felt nice. Got there at 12:30 and everything was still closed for prayer time…I had to wait 30 minutes to get caffeine. NOOOOO! Did laps of the mall for 30 minutes to get the legs moving, and then finally…coffee!

Uh, Jason, Andrez, sounds totally the same…right?

Walked around a bit after coffee, and found where they hide the skeletons: 😉

What’s not to love about a mall with an ice rink? Reminds me of Kettler Capitals Iceplex where I play…except the rink is supposed to be on the roof, not in the basement! Really wanted to skate, but with a torn rotator cuff decided to be smart and not risk getting hurt by cheap rental skates and out of control children:

I couldn’t resist Chili’s for lunch…I’m betting this margarita had no tequila in it, but honestly I was so tired it was hard to tell!

After lunch caught an uber to the Islamic Museum and wandered around for a couple of hours. I think this is one of the most interesting museusms in the world to me, and actually manages to hold my attention for over two hours which is saying quite a lot for a museum! After wandering caught another uber back to the mall, grabbed another coffee, and then walked back to the hotel:

Swinging chair in the corner of my room where I relaxed, blogged a big, and killed the last hour or so before heading to the airport for my onward flight. There was a sandstorm blowing in, and I hoped there wouldn’t be serious delays…

Tokyo to Seoul in Asiana business, overnight in Seoul

Airports, Business Class, Flights, hotels, Restaurants, South Korea, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Dec 062014

After a nice relaxing breakfast, it was time to catch the hotel shuttle back to Narita. Got there a bit early, so mainlined some Starbucks while I waited and very slowly came back to life. Soon Asiana check-in was open, and the line next to me provided “Happy Mom Service.” This is a thing? Seriously?

At check-in I got the bad news that Asiana had eliminated first class service on regional routes, and I’d been downgraded to business. GRRR. Not to worry though, it was still the same plane so I’d get a first class seat with business class service. No first class lounge, however. Yuck. The great thing at check-in, however, is that the agent was willing to check my bag of scuba gear all the way to DC so I didn’t have to pick it up for three days….and I was back in the land of carry-on only. Thank God!

Through immigration, where you must remember that transporting crabs is not permitted!

Explored the United Club lounge, had one beer because…well…automatic beer machine…before retreating in fear to the ANA lounge. It unfortunately, wasn’t much better. I’d never been in either of these lounges before, having always used the ANA First (now suites) lounge on my previous trips through Narita. The ANA lounge was fairly ok, but neither lounge was anything to get there at all early for.

I decided to head to the gate on time, and of course, boarding was thus delayed for 20 minutes. Just my luck. Our plane had arrived slightly late from Seoul, but was nice to get a good pic of her:

Right around the time we were scheduled to leave we finally boarded.

Asiana Flight 101
Tokyo/Narita, Japan (NRT) to Seoul/Incheon, Korea (ICN)
Depart 12:30, Arrive 15:10, Flight Time 2:40
Boeing 747-400, Registration HL7423, Manufactured 1997, Seat 3A

Boarded and the crew extremely graciously brought menus rather quickly:

I chose the Korean option, however, I noticed the crew being rather uncomfortable with the last passengers. I called the FA over and asked if I could switch to the western meal, and she gave a big smile and said of course. When I don’t really have a preference I like to make the crew’s life easier, and it was nice to help them avoid an uncomfortable situation a bit.

It was a good choice, and rather tasty:

My help provided me with several timely champagne refills, which helped the flight go by quite quickly. I’d saved my Air New Zealand socks just for the occasion:

The crew actually closed the curtains between first and business class during the flight, so other than the fact that the food and wine were slightly below what they would have been in first…and the lounge issue…it felt more or less like first anyways with the seat and service, so it wasn’t too much of a let down.

Immigration was pretty quick, and with no luggage checked I was outside waiting for the Korean Airlines Limo. Took a few minutes to buy a ticket and find the right route, and after about 15-20 minutes a bus came. I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get to my hotel, but I seemed to remember it was a bit over an hour. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on the fact it was rush hour, and it took nearly two hours to get there. Ugh. At least the bus was empty so I had two seats to myself.

It was a bit after 6pm when I finally got to my hotel, the W Walkerhill. I knew this wasn’t in the best location, however, I knew it would be relaxing and my first choice (the Westin) wasn’t available the night I needed. I got lucky, however, and received what was for me a rare W upgrade to a Cool Corner Room. The check-in agent was really helpful, helped me figure out all my transportation questions for using the hotel bus plus subway to get to dinner, which was really awesome. Strange furnishings outside the room should have warned me things were going to get weird:

I’ll save the room details for later. I headed out to meet some friends for a light dinner and drinks in Gangnam. Bright lights! Heeeeeeey sexy lady!

After dinner and a few drinks, these dancing soju bottles looked about as goofy as I felt:

]

I’d had just enough to drink, and made the mistake when asked what our next stop should be of saying “I want a traditional late night experience.” Then I made the mistake of saying I would “eat anything.” Off to the fish market we went…where I was introduced to sannakji…or live octopus. It gets chopped up while alive, and you eat it while the tentacles are still thrashing from electrical impulses:

What they DON’T tell you, however, is that the little suction cups still work, and attach to your throat on the way down in an attempt to hang on. Fortunately I avoided choking despite the amount of soju we’d consumed, and managed to make it back to my hotel…where the oddness of the room somehow seemed not quite as weird.

The Austin Powers bed. Unfortunately, it didn’t rotate:

Living area, and walkway to the walk-in closet, door, and washroom:

Walk-in closet:

Strange uber-modern washroom:

…you can’t give me a goofy red robe and slippers that match the decor and expect me NOT to put them on:

The octopus had finally settled down for a bit, so settled down to get some sleep before what would be an unfortunately very early flight the next morning.

Overnight visit to Istanbul

Attractions, hotels, Restaurants, Tajikistan Moscow Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey No Responses »

Dec 122013

I’ll be up front here: I’m not going to do Istanbul justice. I’m not going to even pretend to. I landed at 9a, having been up since 1a Istanbul time, and I was pretty tired. My main goal was to rest up in between stops, maybe see a few things, and have some good Turkish food. I did alright all things considered!

Finally out of the hotel around 11:30 after I got checked in and re-caffeinated, and it was off to the old town. The hotel suggested I walk about 10-15 minutes to the nearest tram stop, and then take the tram all the way. Awesome call, because it allowed for seeing some of the city along the way.

Got to the old town, wandered a bit, and soon was coming up to the Blue Mosque. Outside, is an obelisk:

The outside of the Blue Mosque:

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