travelling allrite

I could get used to business class. What a fantastic flight! Flying 10 hours with a toddler wasn't anywhere near as bad as expected. In fact, it was a wonderful experience. Now, this hotel is another matter. The room is so overdecorated that it's cheesy. Gold trimmings everywhere in our room. Gold leaves, gold fish (fish done up in gold, not gold fish), gold knobs on the cupboards, gold swirls on the wallpaper. The "traditional Spanish design" is a bit garish for my tastes, but the locals probably love it. We have river glimpses with good views towards the Bund and the science fiction skyline of Pudong. There is a computer in the room, the two televisions have external AV inputs so Alex can watch recordings of "In the Night Garden..." but my blog and photo sites are blocked. And the toilet stinks. The cot is a bit of a safety hazard. As we drove into Shanghai in the taxi from the airport we marveled at the amazing light show of buildings and other ...

Arrived in Shanghai after a fantastic flight. Will post more later, but right now I'm frustrated by what I guess is the Great Firewall of China. Google still seems to work, as does Gmail, but Blogger is currently unavailable, as is Picasa web where I store my photos. My phone says that China Telecom will only let it communicate in unencrypted mode and for some reason the GPS on my Panasonic TZ10 camera doesn't work in China. Yes, that was in the fine print, but why? Will post a proper update probably tomorrow, but the photos might have to wait a while.

The bags are mostly packed, the dog is with the mother-in-law, the taxi has been booked and in a few hours we should be off to Shanghai. All that is missing is sleep: for me, that is. Have to get up before 6am. I do like to get to the airport early, especially as this will be my first opportunity to experience an airline lounge. Will Alex let me have any sleep? Waiting for him to wake up in the night... The hardest part of packing was digital. Making backups of precious content. Extracting recordings of children's television shows from the PlayStation 3 and converting them to a format suitable for a portable player. Preparing music. Packing all the wires and gadgets ready for the trip, doubling up for Alex. B is usually happy with the inflight entertainment or hotel television stations. I wanted to spend the night before departure in a hotel close to the airport or the railway line there, but the options were too expensive, too troublesome in their own right. As usual I hav...

Today's Sydney Morning Herald contained a map showing the Thai Red-Shirt area of Bangkok. The northern border followed Ratchaprasong Road, along which are the big shopping malls of Siam Square... and our hotel. It turns out that our hotel, the Novotel Bangkok Siam Square, had been closed from the 27 of April and would be closed until at least May 24. We didn't know. There was no notification, no message on their website. But they were kind enough to accept our cancellation and refund our money. I felt sad for the employees of the hotel, and of the other hotels and shops in the area. Many have been laid off, the businesses closed, not through any fault of their own. I fear for the people of Thailand. Siam Square in happier times Update: Google map displaying the protest area and violence.

We've finally made up our minds and changed our destination from Bangkok and Shanghai. It was the most expensive choice and probably the most challenging of the alternate destinations, but the flights worked out a bit better and it was difficult to pass up the opportunity for an Expo experience. The change assumes that we get our Chinese visas, which are also pricey. I've regretfully given up our first class tickets from Hong Kong to Osaka and our Qantas 747. Instead we have a full day of Qantas business class on an A330 direct to Shanghai. Alex will still get to fly on a 747 to Osaka, just in economy instead (it would have been 3:40 hours in First or 10 hours in Business. First looked so much more inviting... *sigh*). Oh well, first time for either.

I had yet another day trip down to Canberra yesterday, flying on Qantas 737-400's there and back again. The aircraft are looking rather tired these days and I think the "new" upholstery doesn't help. Still, they do the task for now. Our flight was delayed due to some galley maintenance. Once fixed, it was back off to the third runway and up into clear blue skies. This trip I decided to video take-offs and landings rather than take so many photos. I'm testing out my new Panasonic TZ10 camera with built in GPS, but unfortunately this feature only seems to be certified for the A380 and I had to switch it off. I need to work out how to get the aspect ratio correct on YouTube before I can post up the video. Despite the beautiful skies, there were still a few bumps and dumps, especially on descent into Canberra. I was seated in row 20 on the flight down and 25 on the way back. That's right at the rear of the aircraft. I was a bit nervous about how I would rea...

So far there still no resolution to the Thai crisis, so we are seriously looking at changing our routing for the upcoming trip. We have narrowed the choices down to Shanghai, Seoul or Taipei. Shanghai offers the World Expo and a side trip to the gardens of Suzhou. But we need visas and there will be crowds and "queues" (such as the locals queue) and all the other stresses associated with China. Plus good hotels are expensive. Shanghai's Pudong skyline Seoul and Taipei appear to have fewer attractions, but should be safer with a toddler. Never been to Taipei. When I flew over it from Hong Kong I recall the city looking like a hell beneath the clouds! Seoul's Dongdaemun Gate Looks like our plans for a relaxing start to the trip have been dashed, as all three cities are very active. I would personally be happy replacing Bangkok with Singapore, as all there is to do is eat tropical food and Alex would still get to fly either a Qantas 747 or A380, but we visited ...