Silk Road Days 1 - 2

We left Melbourne today, flying with Singapore Airlines. A few weeks ago we got offered an upgrade to the Suites on the A380, which we gladly accepted. Best decision of the year! We were the only passengers in the Suites and so were totally spoiled. You know it's a tough life when your biggest decision is to drink either the Krug or the Dom Perignon. We even had our own separate bedroom to nap in. What a life. We had a four hour stopover in Singapore and landed in Beijing at 7am on Sunday. Met some others from our group at the airport (Beijing airport is HUGE) and have settled in at the Westin Beijing. It's bloody cold - it was -3C when we arrived.

Heading Home

We were picked up at our hotel at 9am, to be driven to the airport. Our flight was at 10.30am. The drive to the airport took nine minutes. We had a lot of time to spare. So we drank coffee and sat around.

After we arrived back in Christchurch, we had four hours to kill before our flight. Since our bags were checked through Queenstown we didn't even have to check in again. We had lunch at a restaurant/bar type place and played a game of pool. I lost.

Then we went and sat in the Air New Zealand lounge and I read my book, the boy read the paper and played on the internet. We had a short four hour flight home and landed just before 5.30pm.

After we got off the plane we had to go past the sniffer dogs. For some reason the dog took an interest in the boy's bag. Very weird. We collected our luggage and then got sent to have our bags checked. The customs officer said the dog was a drug sniffer dog which really freaked me out. Obviously we had no drugs but why did the dog take an interest?

Anyway after lots of questions, they unpacked some of our bags and did a drug swab test, which came back negative. So we were allowed to go. I knew we had done nothing wrong but it was quite scary!

We made it home safely and the Huffle was very happy to see us.

Day twenty nine

Arrive home in Melbourne! Tired but happy.

Day twenty eight

This morning in Singapore we decided to go shopping again and get my lovely new handbag. She has been named Kate.
Isn't she lovely? We had a late checkout from our lovely hotel so we got to hang around our suite until 6pm. Then we got driven to the airport by another man with a nice shiny car (this one was a mercedes benz) and hung out at the airport for a couple of hours until our flight left.

We had intended to claim back our GST from our shopping in Singapore but we checked in our bags before finding out that we needed to show what we had bought in order to make the claim. Suffice to say, we did not claim back the GST. Oh well, lucky it wasn't a LOT of money.

The flight back to Melbourne is about 7 and a half hours which isn't too bad. As it's overnight we just slept most of the way.

Day twenty six

We spent all day today flying, flying, flying and arrived in Singapore at almost midnight. Luckily a nice man with a big shiny car picked us up at the airport and took us to our cushy hotel, the Ritz Carlton. Even better, they upgraded us to a suite!

Day twenty five

Early afternoon flight from Vancouver to Singapore. 19 hours in the air!

Flying... flying... flying...

Day twenty one

This morning we flew back to Vancouver (in business class thankyou very much). For a three hour flight we only arrived one hour after leaving. Happily, our hotel let us check in early and they gave us a nicer room than the one we had booked. Anybody going to Vancouver, the Listel Hotel on Robson St is great!

So we left our bags and stuff and wandered down Robson St for a bit. We looked for some decent coffee but just like in the States, the evil empire is everywhere and we were disappointed in our quest for coffee. We did find a decent cafe and had some reasonable eggs benedict so that was a plus. We just moseyed around the shops, and ended up having dinner at the restaurant in our hotel, which was excellent.

Day sixteen

This morning we left Lake Louise and travelled to Calgary (about a 3 hour drive, give or take). Our driver picked us up on time but there was some confusion about payment. I had already paid the travel agent back in Australia but he seemed to think we would be paying cash for the trip. Anyway about an hour away from Calgary he pulled over to the side of the road and rang his boss to clear up the confusion. I spoke to his boss and he was extremely rude to me. He said the pick up had "been booked on the internet somehow" and he hadn't received any payment and that I had to pay by credit card now. Mind you, he wouldn't even tell me how much I had to pay. So after much arguing I just gave him my credit card number and we continued on to Calgary.

By the way, Calgary is an ugly city and I don't ever want to go back. It seemed to have no soul or character at all. So we got on the plane to Winnipeg and checked into our hotel. Tomorrow morning we fly to Churchill to see POLAR BEARS!

Day eleven

We didn't realise that flying from Seattle to Vancouver wasn't really necessary. We just assumed that if you go to another country you need to go in a plane (that is always the case in Australia). Apparently we could have gone on the train which would have been more scenic. Oh well. We flew in a Dash-8 Series 300 which the boy was excited about.

We stayed over night in Vancouver and tomorrow we get on the Rocky Mountaineer for two days.

By the way, it rained the whole time in Vancouver while we were there.

Departure Day

We are leaving this morning. Our flight leaves at 10.15am from Melbourne, we spend 7 hours and 45 minutes in the air before arriving in Singapore at 4pm, then depart Singapore at 5.5pm for San Francisco. Amazingly, after spending 17 hours and 25 minutes in the air, we will still manage to arrive in San Francisco today at 8.15pm.

Oh, Oh, Oh

It's SIX weeks til we leave. That's right folks, this time in six weeks we'll be on the plane in BUSINESS CLASS sipping champagne (no, I don't care how early it is) and winging our way to San Francisco, via Singapore. Oh yeah.

Itinerary Part 5

After we leave Churchill, we fly back to Winnipeg for the night before heading back to Vancouver the next day. We'll be staying in Vancouver (at the Listel Hotel again) for another 5 days before getting back on the plane and heading home. As we are flying Singapore Airlines we have to go via Singapore, so we're stopping there for 2 nights and staying at the very glamorous Ritz Carlton Hotel. Total pampering and luxury for 2 days. Then we come home.

4 weeks and 1 day of awesome fun. We are both so excited. I'm getting the new camera this weekend and we are both going to buy puffy jackets for the cold bits.

I'd better do some research about things to do in Vancouver.

Itinerary Part 1

Our first stop will be San Francisco. I'm very excited, I've never been there before and it looks gorgeous. We'll be staying at the Argonaut Hotel, on the recommendation of a friend. I hope it's nice. We are not sure what we'll do in San Francisco but we have five days to look around and see a few things. The Boy is keen to do a helicopter flight over the Bay area so we might do that at some point.

But just as excitingly, most of our flights are business class! And we are flying with Singapore Airlines so that's all good. They are excellent!