3 June

Today was basically a travel day.

We left Singapore at 1:10AM and arrived in London Heathrow just over 13 hours later. The flight on the Singapore Airlines (SQ) Dreamliner 777-300 was chalk and cheese compared to Air NZ. Air NZ have won lots of awards for being the best airline, but one has to wonder if any of the judges ventured down into Cattle Class.

On Air NZ, a row is composed of 10 skinny seats and two aisles that are a struggle to walk down without hitting aisle seated passengers. SQ solved the problem by having only nine seats in a row, each seat being about an inch or two wider than the Air NZ ones. That left two roomy aisles where people could walk in both directions without having to dodge into a row. The only thing where we saw room for improvement was the number of toilets. There seemed to be a few short for the number of passengers.

Lynette had an almost sleepless night because of a couple in the row in front of us who were determined to put their seats back to the maximum regardless of its effect on those behind. Several thumps on the back of the female's seat didn't improve matters. Lynette was not impressed later in the night to find that they were both lying along the seats sleeping (the 3^rd seat was empty) and therefore there was no need to have their seats back to the maximum.

We arrived on time and the Immigration Services welcomed us to the Land of the Long Wait Queue with almost an hour in a Disney queue. Then the Immigration agent, a lovely Indian gay who had been to NZ, chatted to us for about five minutes as he had been to Auckland.

We queued again to buy our train tickets to Carlisle only to be sold ones to Euston and told to purchase our National Rail tickets there. Another queue in Euston, but the agent was very helpful and sold us a return ticket to Carlisle, telling us that we only need to buy short distance tickets from Northwich to Crewe, and then we can catch the return train and thus save some money.

The train from London to Carlisle was pleasant and took just over three hours. We even stopped in Wigan where my mother escaped from when she was seven. We did a bit of Canal Spotting along the way and saw a number of canals, plenty of narrowboats and a few locks. Unfortunately the train was moving a bit fast for good photos.

A power station on the way 

Made it to Wigan 

A small village along the way

Peter Jackson has been moonlighting in Carlisle

Temperature-wise, it's about the same as a good day in Hikuai. At 8AM Heathrow was a solid 12C and in Carlisle it's probably peaking at 16C, provided you were not in the shade. There's a bit of a breeze blowing. Coming up, you could see that there had been quite a bit of rain, but the hotel receptionist reckons it will be fine for a few days.

We were pleased to check in to the hotel in Carlisle and have a shower. We charged up a few things and now have new mobile numbers.

Lynette's Mobile +44-7508-133-710

Jim's Mobile +44-7508-124-460

2 June

We had a slow start. The blog took quite a time to complete.

We went out onto the street to look for a Nikon shop that we had seen over the last couple of days, but the shops always appeared closed. When Jim inspected it today, he found that there was no Nikon store there, but simply that Nikon had naming rights to the shop front. Jim went inside the Burlington Mall and instead of finding any Nikon shops he found a number of shops selling valve or tube audio amplifiers. The purists reckon these are the best. He popped into one and chatted with the engineer, who turned out to be a ham radio operator.

A bunch of thermionic amplifiers

Across the street in the next mall was a collection of camera and audio shops including several that specialised in Nikon products, so Jim browsed but couldn't find anything that he really had to take home.

The Singapore Air Force were out practising as the South East Asian Games kick off in Singapore on Friday.

SAF Exercising 

Choy met us back at the hotel and we threw our baggage in his car. He took us to the Marina to show us his favourite supermarket and then we had lunch. The supermarket was a cross between Walmart and Countdown. Everything from groceries to electronics goods.

Lunch was a local pork chop soup, with rice. However getting it was an experience. You pulled out a drawer and there was a tablet device like an iPad, on which you scrolled through the menu and placed your order, online. Then you opened up the ends of the table to get your eating utensils. Of course the lunch was delicious.

Choy then drove us to the Aquarium which is in the entertainment complex on the edge of Sentosa Island. In the group of activities was a casino, Universal Studios and a large collection of supporting stalls, shops and restaurants. Access to Sentosa is via car, cable car, monorail and probably boat.

The aquarium was educational and delightful. We paid an extra couple of dollars each to attend the introductory session.

We watched as the skipper of a 13^th century Chinese sailing boat was tasked to take a special consignment to the Sultan of Oman as a wedding present. We all moved into the next room which turned out to be a combination 180 degree cinema, planetarium, motion sickness generator, lightning generator and water distribution system. As the boat got under way, there was some rocking and rolling, but when they ran into the storm, it was all on. There were thumps and bumps as the ship hit the waves, the lightning flashes were realistic, the wind blew your hair and to cap it off, there was a fair amount of water sprayed onto the audience to give them the impression of being on a storm battled boat. Unfortunately the boat hit a rock, everyone was lost and the casket containing the wedding gift sank. We then left the cinema and were immediately faced with an aquarium that held the remains of the sailing boat and the casket lying on the ocean floor. Quite an introduction indeed.

The boat at the bottom of the sea

What do you call a bunch of moray Eels?     Hungry

Fish of all shapes and sizes were in display aquariums and we managed to take a large number of photos. It was a little busier than usual as today was the start of the school holidays. It was mind blowing to see all the kids taking great photos on their iPhones and iPads. Apple has probably more than 60% of the smartphone market here and just everybody has one.

Seahorses

Coral  in various shapes

Coral again

These are like Seahorses but different

Large Jelly Fish 

 On the way out, we came across the Ark. We didn't recognise it at first, but then got the message. It was a full sized cross section and showed how they had got a pair of Giraffes and Hippos into the Ark.

After a snack and drink, Choy drove us to the airport, It was fantastic to be chauffeur driven there and we were truly grateful.

At the airport, we changed into our travelling gear, had another light snack, changed our Singaporean dollars and patiently waited to board the plane just after midnight.

The trip to Singapore has been fantastic. We have met our old friends and have been really well looked after. The only thing that Jim has struggled with is the heat. The last couple of days have been 31+C and today got to 34C. He needs a few more days here to acclimatize. Thanks very much Choy and Yat Keng!

1 June

Breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs was include with the hotel. A good deal.

We walked around the Bugis district again. The tourist information says that this district has more shops than any other district in Singapore. Orchard Road has more expensive shops but less of them. The place was crowded.

The mall could have been in Las Vegas

The advertising has its own style

Some smart advertising

Today was a public holiday because it was one of the major Buddhist holy days. Singapore is quite generous with public holidays for religious purposes. It recognises that its population belongs to four major religious groups, Christians, Buddhists, Hindhus and Moslems and gives each of them two days a year for holy days, so everyone gets eight religious holidays a year.

Everyone was taking the opportunity to be out and about. Lots were visiting their local Buddhist shrines but lots were out shopping too. We even saw, and especially heard, a dragon dance team. They were very loud!

Choy and Yat Keng met us and took us across the street (Purvis St for those who are coming to Singapore) to a small restaurant serving Hainanese chicken rice. It was a traditional Chinese old style restaurant. Fans but no air conditioning, more than ten tables, the owner in his eighties sitting at the till collecting money on the way out and has been in the same family for over 50 years. The food was delicious. Apparently some of the senior members of government often pop into this little restaurant for a meal. It was simple but delicious. With all these food places around in Singapore, there is no way to go hungry.

Next stop on the Choy and Yat Keng tour was Peoples Park in the centre of Chinatown. Yes, that's right, there's a chinatown in a city where the Chinese are the majority. Driving down Mosque St with its ornate mosque, small one way street and backpacker hotels and restaurants brought back great memories. Finding a carpark was a problem because of the holiday.

The Temple holding Buddha's Tooth

Ground floor altar

Once inside the shopping area, it was pretty busy. In the old days there were shops everywhere, but the style of shopping has changed. Now most of the goods are sold from stores or stalls out in the “street” area. Lynette found a shop/stall that had jandals or flip flops for Jim's size 10 feet. Because of the size of his western feet, there wasn't much choice but they were very comfortable to wear m the warm temperatures.

Burning candles

A new Buddhist temple has been built in the square since Jim was last here. It's a famous temple as it holds one of Buddha's teeth and a museum of Buddhism, Being a Buddhist holiday it was very busy. The ground floor appeared to be a place where the commercial side of the temple took part. You could buy a candle to burn. There were a number of donation containers, and it was quite easy to change $10 into coins so that you could cover your bases by dropping a donation into each of the prayer donation containers. You could also buy a small Buddha shrine (Choy says this was $1000) which would be placed in the temple wall.

Donation buckets

Wall of pledges

Jf you are down on your luck and need a free vegetarian meal, then the temple serves this on the ground floor too. There were boxes for collecting clothing so you probably could get something to wear too. We were allowed everywhere, could take photos and did not have to remove our footwear except for the praying floor.

Nepalese Prayer Wheel

We then started on the fourth floor and walked up to the roof. There were beautiful serene gardens and the centre feature enclosed a large Tibetan prayer wheel over ten feet tall and at least six feet in diameter. This was kept turning and had clicked a bell every revolution. It was very peaceful. Five floors up, you got some good views of the city. Building here is so fast that even Choy could not recognise some of the newer buildings. The tallest building is 50 stories and that is a government housing block in the financial area designed to house workers for the financial district. The cost of a larger apartment was $350k when built and the purchaser could not sell it for five years, Now these are selling for over $900k which is a very good return on their investment.

The changing face of Singapore.  A new subway station is coming here

A couple of the floors below held the museum. We were allowed to photograph in most areas except the most holy ones. There was even a wax museum section for the more recent monks who have led the Buddhist religion. Lots of exhibits come from Myanmar or Nepal.

The second floor was the main temple with its religious ceremonies. We had to remove our shoes and were not allowed to take photos. It was just like any other religious ceremony with the worshippers praying aloud or singing from their prayer books. We managed to get a couple of photos looking down onto the worshippers.

Yat Keng washing Buddha

It was a very interesting place to visit and is certainly a “should do” if you happen to be in Singapore and the temple is open. You can easily survive on English as there are English signs everywhere and most of the museum exhibits have an English description alongside of the Kanji.

Next stop on the trip was the Zoo. It's well out of town and borders the city reservoir, which serves as an area for zoo boat rides. You can walk around it in the daytime but we chose to do the River Safari and the Night Safari because we arrived just before 4:30 PM. It's not the cheapest place to be so expect to spend over $60 per tourist head to cover these two.

We chose the River Safari because it holds access to the Pandas. We raced down to the Panda area and managed to see the two Giant Panadas in time before the display closed at 5:30. Lynette was able to tick off another bear and we took many photos in the failing light.

We walked around the remaining exhibits. Many were closed but the aquatic area was open. There are two large aquariums. The first is for the family of Giant South American Otters. These guys grow up to six feet long and are extremely playful when food is involved. You walk though the pool in a glass domed tunnel and can see the otters swimming above you.

The second aquarium housed fresh water fish and manatees. Manatees are extremely large mammals which Jim had seen in Florida. Some of the fish were also very large and appeared to be over six feet long and very solid. A couple were settling their territorial disputes in front of the viewing window.

There were other fresh water exhibits around, including an electric eel and a number of fresh water stingrays, which were about the size of a large wok.

Golden Pheasant

Giant otter

Manatees

Storks were nesting in trees but they were hard to catch in the fading light. We didn't get to see the Amazon animals or snakes and traded them for more time with the pandas. In the commercial area you could buy buns in the shape of a Panda head, complete with chocolate ears and eyes and many other panda items. A four feet high Panda stuffed toy was $338 and they were doing a special where you could get two, each one named after the two zoo exhibits.

The show piece

  

The otter recycling rubbish

We ate in the food stall area. It was so busy that Jim had to wait ten minutes to be able to buy bottles of water. The meal was a Malaysian one, basically a piece of battered fried chicken and a bowl of green coconut rice served on a banana leaf. There were other goodies there but Yat Keng warned us that they were very hot and chili based, so we gave them to her. They must have been really hot as she was sweating solidly when she finished her meal, We could never have handled them and it was nothing like KFC which was also available in the food hall.

The Night Safari started at 7:30 and is a cunning way of showing the zoo off by driving people around in “trams.” We took the night show which was a sound, light and animal show with a running commentary. It lasted 20 minutes. They chose one shy Korean guy to be the sucker for the snake exhibit. He was quite embarrassed.

The stars of the show were some local Asian Otters. These are about the size of a small cat. The raccoon preceded their show by coming out and tipping over a rubbish bin to get his treats. This left half a dozen bits of rubbish on the ground, so to get the recycling message across, they brought out three recycling bins. The otters then came each one and put two items of rubbish into the correct bin. That worked very well except for one otter which decided to take its paper cup away for further cleaning.

Once the show was over, we queued, and queued, for the Night Safari trams in the traditional Disney style queues You didn't realise just how many people were in the zoo, but there had to be more than 10,000. Choy reckons that it is like this every night. People are mainly locals but there are a large number of tourists too. The noise in the queues as astound, almost to 747 levels.

The Night Safari was a slow 40 minute ride around the zoo in the open air trams. A running commentary kept you informed where to look and what the critters were. Photos were allowed but no flashes so you were quite limited and lucky if you captured a good photo. They have an amazing range of critters. The most impressive was the Asian bull elephant with has four feet long ivory tusks. The Asian rhinocero has had its single horn removed, Jim didn't realise that there were Asian bison still around. They are similar to their North American cousins but have larger horns.

After the safari we caught the tail end of a Village Display. What we saw involved fire breathing, but there had been other activities before that.

This is another well worth doing activity and should be on the tourist list. The zoo certainly maximise their animals and Jim has been here previously, early in the morning, to have breakfast and to listen to the dawn chorus of the birds.

Choy and Yat Keng dropped us back at the hotel and unfortunately we won't catch up with Yat Keng again until they come down to NZ, as tomorrow she has to work. Another fantastic day in Singapore.

31 May 2015 - Singapore

On Friday, the day before departure, Jim came down with a good head cold. Lots of Codral and rest seemed to improve things. Saturday he stayed in bed quite a while and then we left for the ferry. We just made the 6:15PM ferry as we were using an old timetable which had departure at 6:30. Still, we had plenty of time up our sleeves as the flight left near midnight.

Air NZ's smart checkin made life very easy. Jim had to smile at the Air NZ lady watching the baggage being checked in. He reckoned she was at least ten years older then him.

The Dreamliner Boeing 777 would not be on Jim's list of preferred airliners. Air NZ has squeezed in the seats so that he had an inch to spare on his knees when sitting upright, however when his seat and the others were reclined, he had to assume a contorted Yoga position in order to sit down. The aisle gap is so small that all passengers sitting in the aisle seats are continually being bumped by traffic in the aisle. It's particularly exciting when you have a cup of hot drink.

The flight was reasonable and we were on time, but it took a while for the baggage to come off.

You certainly know you are in Singapore when you walk to the taxi. 33C and about 95% humidity. Not quite the “knock you over” temperatures of Hong Kong last year.

We knew we had picked a good hotel when the taxi driver didn't know where it was. We arrived about 8AM and were allowed the use of the disabled toilet to sort ourselves out and change. Then we left the baggage at the hotel and had a coffee across the street. We wandered around the Bugi District for a couple of hours. (This area used to be famous for its transvestites.) We went to the Hotel Bencoolen, where we had stayed in 1978, but while it was the same name the building was new. We did find a building that looked like the hotel we stayed in down the street and are quite sure this is where we had stayed.

The old Bencoolen Hotel that we stayed in, in 1978

Our wanderings around town took us to a few malls and market areas. Lynette tried the toilets in one of the malls and was excited to pay 20c for the opportunity to stand over a two footer and hole.

A two footer.

Street vendor selling mushrooms etc

A Chinese temple

One of the many gods that are around.

Back at the hotel, the boys had sorted out the room and taken our baggage up. It's very cosy, just 12' by 12', or in Ian's terms 3.5 metres by 3-5 metres. That gives you a double bed, shower, toilet, wash basin and a few square feet in which to stand up. Ideal for our needs.

31 May

After another shower (yes, you need at least three per day), we sat in the foyer, waiting for Choy and Yat Keng and when they arrived, they looked very similar to when we last met them 13 years ago. Haven't changed much at all. We chatted for a while and then went down the street 100 yards to a french restaurant and met Christina.

Singapore almost deserves its own book. Jim has been coming here since 1980, initially for training and then business. In those days he worked for the world wide Racal company, which was a large multinational electronics company with about 200subsidiary companies. It had many companies and set up a joint venture mobile phone company called Racal Vodafone, which it later sold off. Jim worked for the data communications (networking) company called Racal-Milgo and Choy worked for Racal Singapore, a local company that handled all Racal's products and services. Racal made military radios and was quite strong in the South East Asian market. Christina worked for Racal Singapore as the accountant keeping the beans in line. Yat Keng, Choy's wife has always worked for one of the universities as a lab technician and and is now a lab technologist. Still the same work by the sound of things. After leaving Racal, Choy ended up working for MCI Sprint, a major communications company, and while there over 20 years, the company's name changed a number of times but the function and people remained. Choy was a great electronics engineer who like Jim, moved into Project and then Program Management. He was made redundant at the end of last year and has been enjoying being a kept man as Yet Keng brings in the money.

Singapore is a fantastic country to visit. It's extremely safe, clean and continuously changing. It's also a major hub. When Jim was travelling as the Technical Services Manager for Racal-Milgo, the Florida company, he used to stay here, on and off, for up to a month, and visit the other countries in the region. He always used to smile as the airplanes approached Singapore, they would announce that there were severe penalties for drug trafficing in Singapore and that the minimum sentence was Death. There was never a mention of the maximum sentence. It was quite surprising to hear that today the Police had shot three people and killed one at at security conference, when the car failed to stop. Inside the car they found some drugs, so it looks like the drug policy hasn't worked out.

The older colonial style buildings in some areas of Singapore.

After lunch, Choy drove us around the block to a cafe that just serves desert and their specialty is shaved ice fruit deserts. The fruit used is tropical such as Mango, Honey Dew Melon and even Durian, the favoured Asian fruit. They were plentiful, cooling and very nice. Perhaps it's a good time to discuss eating styles.

In NZ, we eat at particular times of the day and then race around burning up energy at other times. In Singapore it's quite different. People eat smaller meals and more often throughout the day. Jim calls it “continuous grazing” and used to comment on Choy's ten or more mini-meals during the day. Choy says he doesn't eat as much these days but still probably has about seven sit down small meals in a day. Food and drink can be quite cheap. We had Copio (black coffee with about an inch of sweetened condensed milk in the bottom of the cup) for $2 in a larger street cafe, about half the price in NZ. In a hawker centre, where there was lots of competition, an iced version of the same thing was less than a dollar. (The Singapore and NZ Dollars are about equal in value.)

After the desert, we left Christina and went to Choy and Yat Keng's house. Housing in Singapore is very expensive and Choy and Yat Keng have worked hard to get where they are today. Because they could not get married until they had somewhere to live, they were engaged for seven years so that they could get their name on the government housing list for an apartment, and then only after one had become available did they get married. That is a long engagement. It's nowhere near as bad today but now the major thing holding young people back is the deposit required to get the first apartment, so many people get married and still live with one set of  parents.

Choy and Yat Keng's house.

Choy and his Chinese fiddle

Their earlier apartments were quite a way from the city and well up the apartment tower. Parking was always a problem too. Jim can remember Choy having to go to the City offices to buy parking coupons to display in his car window outside his apartment block. Choy had to go and get a new set of coupons every month. That same coupon system is used today, especially for street parking. You buy a stack of coupons and push out the holes that represent the time when you arrive at a parking space, and depending upon the colour of the coupon, you must depart before the coupon expires. The standard time seems to be 90 minutes, and the ticket inspectors work seven days a week. There's also an electronic system for parking in parking buildings and collecting tolls on the roads that hits your cash card regularly. Tolls and parking fees seem quite reasonable in price, but they were everywhere, so you would notice their cost.

Choy and Yat Keng jumped off the apartment ladder about 20 years ago and invested in a house about halfway between the airport and city. It's a spacious (2,700 square feet) multistorey house that's situated on about 1,000 square feet of land area. By comparison, our single storey house is about 1,100 square feet and our half acre land is close to 20,000 square feet. Value-wise, their Singapore property is three to four times the value of ours. They were very smart to invest when they did and live in a very nice house in a quiet street.

Besides being skilled at his job Choy is quite artistic. He has been making Origami items for years, and we have one of his framed ones on our wall dated around 1988. He also plays a Chinese musical instrument like a drum/fiddle with a single string and belongs to an orchestra.

Cars are very expensive in Singapore. There are higher road taxes than NZ, the cost of purchase is much higher, probably two to three times NZ costs but fuel costs are very close. You'll see cars with red number plates. These are weekend only cars. They are only allowed on the roads after 7:30PM during the week, after 10:30AM on Saturday and all day Sunday. Not sure it would catch on in NZ. Despite the higher costs, you see sports cars regularly and we saw new Ferraris and Lamborghinis. (Lambos for short). Choy drives a ten year old Toyota that is is good condition and well decorated with his origami and stickers on the window. Driving here is extremely courteous with people letting others in all the time, definitely not like in NZ.

They then drove us out to see the newly developed Marina area. Development is very noticeable in Singapore. When we first came here, there was bare open land on the way to the airport. Now it's covered in manicured trees and apartment buildings. Buildings are going up and coming down and the skyline looks like an architects playground, where each architect is trying to outdo the previous one.

The marina area used to be the old sea waterfront and Singapore river junction. Jim often walked along here looking at the boats and old style housing. The river was pretty sad. It was black, dirty and you could almost walk across it. You can still recognise some of the buildings, but today the water is so clean that you wouldn't believe the story of walking across the river. They reclaimed a whole area of land, built new buildings and cleaned up the river so much that it is now a sparkling tourist attraction.

We came across a large number of people flying kites. There was plenty of wind but very little space for parking and Jim left his zoom lens behind so Lynette took most of the photos. The kites were large and small and flying very high, over 300 metres. One presumes it was a no-fly area for planes.

Kites

A multikite, kite  Very large

Then we went to the Marina parkland or gardens and met Christina again. The gardens were laid out to represent a number of old style villages that were in Singapore before the development took over. Buildings represented the older kampong or village style of houses and there are lots of displays which are changed regularly.

Yat Keng and Christina

Singapore is a bit of a concrete jungle and you know it when you come to the gardens. The “trees” are concrete pillars, like those used to support a motorway, and there are plastic “branches” coming out. The plants that are growing up the trees are real and the trees are festooned with light bulbs. When it's dark there is a 15 minute sound and light display which is well worth viewing.

Then it was across the Marina to the city side to see the sights from there and have dinner. We were beginning to to flag by this stage as it was well after midnight (NZ time) and we didn't get that much sleep on the plane. Jim's throat was a little tender, mainly from the talking.

We got back to the hotel around 2AM NZ time and had our third shower of the day. It was a fantastic day catching up and seeing what has changed.

The photos were a challenge, coming from two cameras.  We'll improve things as we go along, I, sure

Yat Keng and Choy

Large "trees" in the Marina garden

This is a group of three individual hotels that are topped with a stainless steel like curved boat.  The boat or liner has a restaurant, viewing platform and swimming pool

One of the fountains in the Marina garden s

One of the illuminated trees

Looking across to the new marina complex from the old Collyer Quay

Back in the UK Again In 2015

When we arrived home after the 2014 trip, we were discussing the possibity of going back to the UK again.  Jim stated that the only thing that would drag him there would be a holiday on a canal narrowboat with minimal driving on the roads.  Lynette jumped at the idea.  She asked our friend Sue in Halstead, Essex, if she would like to come on the canal too.  She said yes.  We also decided to stopover in Singapore and Los Angeles to see friends and break up the trip into two twelve hour sessions.

We threw ideas around about where we would go and bought a couple of canal guides and maps.  We looked at the Thames circuit but that was possibly too much in one go, so decided to do the Four Counties Ring with a side tour off to Chester.  It's got enough locks, some aqueducts and a tunnel or two to keep us busy.  It should be a leisurely trip as the only thing that we have to do to a timetable is to be at Market Drayton on a Wednesday so that we can attend the market day.

The basic plan is to fly out of NZ on 30 May 2015, spend a couple of days in Singapore and then land in the UK on 3 June.  Travel from Heathrow to Carlisle by train and then pick up a car to visit the Appleby gypsy horse fair again.  After the fair, Sue will meet up with us in Carlisle and will drive us down to Anderton to pick up the canal boat.  We will cruise around for three weeks and then fly from Heathrow to Los Angeles where we will stay for a couple of days, before landing in NZ in early July.

In September 2014, we had our plans finalised and when we found a hire boat company that had a boat called the Reed Bunting, which is the name of a little bird, we just had to book it.

So keep a watch on this blog from the end of May.

This is the last blog is this series.

We went to the Frankfurt airport and dropped off the rental car, then tracked down Cathay Pacific's checkin to get rid of the bags and get at boarding pass. That went well, once we realised that their self checkin wasn't working.

The flight to Hong Kong wasn't bad, but we didn't get that much sleep as we left at 2PM and arrived around 1 AM, Frankfurt time, or 7 AM Hong Kong time.

Because we had bid for an upgrade on the HKG-ALK sector using our AirDollars, we had no boarding passes. We went out through Customs and took the train to the city. We hopped off the train at the Elements shopping mall, which is the Kowloon stop and then walked to the Austin station to go to Tsim Sha Tsui.

Going out of the air conditioned building was like hitting a brick wall. At 8:30AM the temperature exceeded 30C (33.9C on my watch) and the humidity was well over 90%. The noise was unbelievable too. We walked around some overhead pathways between the two locations and beneath us what the construction of a new section of motorway, underground and skyscrapers.

At Tsim Sha Tsui, the shops weren't open so we found a spot that had a bit of a breeze, but it was still extremely warm with the high temperature and humidity. We managed to stay in town by dodging in and out of air conditioned areas and drinking water and juices until about 12:30 and then having purchased only a new tee shirt for me to change into, and food and drinks, we headed back to the Elements mall to catch the train to the airport. There we found a shower and refreshed ourselves. If we had been sensible, we would have taken a room at the airport, for twelve hours, and missed going to the city in the heat and humidity.

The upgraded flight back to NZ was well worth the AirDollars spent, except for the screaming little sod that was in the row behind us, just out of the Premium Economy section. The meals and service were great and we both managed to get a few hours sleep.

Back in NZ it was 11C and squally rain. The coldest temperature equal with Dublin, for the last six weeks. Lynette had a stack of flower seeds and three packets of treats for the cats, and they were declared to MAF. She ended up with about six packets of seeds to take home as the rest were not identified sufficiently, or banned from entry. Poor cats will miss a holiday treat too.

At home, everything was okay. The cats all turned up and are sticking like glue to us. 80mm of rain in the gauge and the lawns are waterlogged so won't get done for a while. Fishpond is full and the fish have their bags packed in case they can escape.

Thanks to all who viewed this blog and hope you enjoyed it.