First Class Air Travel

After 10 days, 2 cities in 2 continents, more than 20,000 miles and 48 hours on board an airplane at 33,000 ft above sea level, home is the best place to arrive at. 

The longer the trip the sweeter the home coming. Ten days trip is just too long - a record for me traveling without any of my children. Five days would be ideal. 

But THIS certainly made traveling much easier...

Cabin of a 747 1st class

Fringe benefits got to be one of the greatest perks in life. Just being Mrs. K enables me to enjoy this entitlement which I would never be able to afford (or the Chinese in me would never let me consider paying for such extravagance). So while I can I'll make the most of it and enjoy every minute of this windfall as I don't know how long this will last. Until now, I still haven't quite get over or taken this for granted but I think I can get use to this lifestyle so I have to get on Air Asia once in a while to get grounded!  

I know unless we are some hot shot celebrities, heads of state or CEOs (which are also fringe benefiters), most of us would not get to see this part of the plane which is usually situated right at the front (in the case of a jumbo 747, at the tip of its nose). Since I am here I took the liberty of bringing you along on this tour of the first class. For long haul flight, this can't get any better unless maybe on the 1st class in a A380.

Airline food is not something to rave about but when they are served like in a michelin star restaurant and...

with Dom Perignon and wines to wash down, they get to taste pretty good.

This was the sweet lovely air stewardess assigned to 'take care' of me. Told you I could get use to this life style...

This is a food blog so let me bring out the food...

The Malaysian signature dish, chicken and beef satay for appetizer. Tasty but dry.  

The gravy for the satay is very good, comparable to the Kajang satay sauce. 

A cold appetizer of grilled lobster, smoked trout, smoked salmon with pink seafood cocktail sauce. 

Cream of broccoli soup served with herbed croutons. This was good.

Steamed seabass in oriental sauce which was K's choice and the best part of this dish, he proclaimed, was the rice. The fish was overdone as most food on board are (is it because they are precooked and then the reheating before serving that cause them to be dry?)

I knew I should have ordered the ravioli (I didn't because I am not that great a fan of goat cheese) as soon as I saw my ostrich dish coming. It tasted as well as it looked, dry, dry, dry and it took a lot of  Dom to wash that piece down.

Mango cheese cake with ice cream

This saved the day for me. 'My' stewardess dressed this up extra special for me to take pictures as she saw me shooting away at the food.

That was only one leg of my long journey. I learned as the trip progressed that stews and pasta are better bets for main dishes on board and don't skipped the appetizers and desserts as they are mostly good.

The best part of being in the 1st class in a long haul flight has to be the sleeping arrangement. 

Each individual seat converts into a bed. 

When dinner was served and done, 'my' stewardess came round with the linen to make the bed.

Like magic, the cabin lights get dimmed, day becomes night and it is time to zzz...

If not in the mood to sleep, turn on the screen and you have a endless choice of music and movies to keep you occupied for hours. 

For me (got to be one of the worst travelers ever) who finds it so hard to fall asleep on board an airplane, this device is a godsend.

I went through most of the English and Chinese movies by the end of the trip. 

The first leg of the journey to Cape Town took 15 hours with a stop in Johannesburg and it was fun. 

The homecoming leg stretched 28 hours with 3 stops at various airports and that was a nightmare (even without a single delay), don't think I'll be doing that again, ever. 

It started from Buenos Aires on the 23rd (which is 11 hours behind our time and half way round the world). By the time I touched down in KK airport today the 25th, I was a wreck and a total mess.   

Let me sort out my jet-lagged mind and body first and I'll get to the rest of the amazing trip. 

Have to get myself to bed now so as to break the Buenos Aires rhythm but I know I am going to dream of the Tango.... 

Adios.

Where To?

Amsterdam, Venice (Macao?), Auckland...?

After the Seri Mengasih food fair, I was totally stressed out and was grumbling to hubby about my urgent need to take a break - to be precise - 'I need a holiday!!' was all that transpired. 

Like an angel (wings and all), he managed to arrange a 10 days holiday (for me but work for himself) to far-away-lands beginning today!!! (destinations to be kept secret, lest the paparazzi get wind of it... :-p). Thank you so much, my love.

I am so excited and totally unprepared. What to bring, wear and and and??? I have been frantically surfing the internet for places of interest and most of all, for places to eat!

It has been more than 2 years since we took a holiday just the two of us. That was to Tuscany, so dreamily romantic as we stayed in a villa and was served unbelievable home cooked food at the terrace with Andrea Bocelli crooning at the background (honestly thought we were in a movie!). 

I almost strangled him (good thing I didn't!) when he accidentally erased all of our pictures from the computer (that was before Flickr). Trips to Tuscany (Italy), Jiuzhaigou (Szechuan), Johannesburg (South Africa) all wiped out. I told him I need to revisit all those destination to recapture the images. This could very well be the first installment... stay tuned. :-D

Jo

So sorry didn't have time to answer to all the lovely comments in the previous Oslo post. Thank you all for dropping in. Very much appreciated. 

Stopover @ KL

We were planning a trip to Taipei for this short school holiday.

Found out three days before the journey that there were some hitches in getting our special fare. As the children were all packed and ready for the trip we had to look for alternatives and fast too. Did a big turnaround and headed closer to home, Singapore. Leanne had not been to Singapore before and the last time Bryan went, he was about 5. So they were sold and very excited.

Managed to secure seats to KL and with Bryan's recommendation we decided to take the Aeroline bus from KL to Singapore. More excitement for Leanne who seems to have forgotten all about the building 101 in Taipei that she wanted so badly to visit. Within two days, air travel, land travel and the necessary accommodation were all duly booked and confirmed through the Internet. What would we do without the Internet?

Stayed a night in KL and ate our way thru until we boarded the bus bound for Singapore the next day...

1) Dinner at Cafe 2369,

First time Keshia ordered a cup of tea, must have been the cold weather. Raining when we arrived.

Sambal french beans, a little oily but packed with mouthwatering flavours.

Butter chicken. Very similar to butter prawns with the curry leaves and egg yolk shreds. Yumz.

Deep fried sotong (squid) with salted egg yolk. Good but it would have been better if the salted egg yolk had been incorporated into the batter instead of loosely scattered over the fried squid.

Signature dish. Fresh prawns and fish head noodles. Very tasty said K.

2) Supper at SS2 stalls...

Fish head soup for Heather

Clay pot chicken rice for Keshia.

Fried abalone mushroom..

and fried pork balls for everyone.

Refreshing apple and carrots juice.


ABC to sweeten the palate.

3) Breakfast the next morning at Raju, Jalan Gasing...

Started with a wadai

or two for some

Followed by a thosai

added some fried fish roe and chicken

and drenched it in coconut chutney and curry sauce.

Best breakfast ever! Sitting under shades provided by lovely big trees made it ever better.

A PSP at breakfast table, the most anti-social device ever invented.

Note: For those who do not know what a PSP stands for, it is 'play station portable'. I just found out too.

Jo