This title just had to be in Dutch. It's a line of a Dutch hit and roughly translates as '32 years, truely a little bit strange'. The song goes on to explain what exactly the strange thing was, but for me the '32 years' was the strange subject.
Yesterday was my 32nd birthday, which was spent in a plane flying from London to Singapore and onwards to Sydney. So it was actually my shortest birthday ever! I don't know how many hours of that day were missing exactly, but it sure did not consist of 24 hours. It didn't really feel like a birthday either, until I got to check my messages when I landed in Singapore: lots of congratulations: thanks everybody!
As my last 48 hours were almost all spent in airports, let's start with a little review: The Singaporean airport 'Changi' has landed #1 on the list of best airports in the world: there's lots of seating space (even in reclining beds), outside areas, lots of (clean and spacious) toilets. The routing is easy, and if you don't want to shop, you can easily find a not so busy space to chill out. Skip ahead if you want, because the rest of this airport review contains a bit of 'frustration offloading'.
Schiphol comes 2nd, as it is very clearly organized, and you can also find nice places to sit, although the airport is quite spread out.
Heathrow was more of an annoying experience. I landed in the new Terminal 5, which is apparently focused on evaluating its performance. There's whole displays dedicated to showing graphs and measurements of wait times, ratings, etc. I even got interviewed by an old lady about how much I spent, where I came from, if I could find all the shops and restaurants I wanted, how I rated them. etc. etc. However, what she didn't ask about, and also what the displays don't show: how easy is it to find your way around? Could you locate the nearest rubbish bin when you had to throw garbage away?
That's the sad part of the new terminal: everything is aimed at commerce, and nobody has thought about the traveller. In the main terminal area (where all the shops are) the actual gate number where your plane is leaving is not displayed until the gate actually opens. I found this very strange so I asked at an information desk: that was quite lucky, because the gate was 20minutes away (by train!). The idea behind the displays is probably to keep the people in the shopping area as long as possible.
As for the displays: the font size of the list of gates and check in desks on the other display is so small that you can only read them when you are right in front of them (except for the exact same size display that displays the 'ratings and evaluations' graphically, which is visible from miles away).
When I finally arrived at the gate where I was told to be (by the customer service agent) my flight was not on the display there, although flights departing later were: this confused me: did I mishear the gate number he mentioned? Should I take the 20minute train back to find out? There was no service agent in visible range in this new terminal: only a shop assistant. I asked him and he was very helpful: he told me that the Sydney flight normally departs right from where I was, and that it should soon show up, which it eventually did. It later became clear that there was a service desk 50m away, only it was behind the elevator and the desk sign was parallel to the path instead of perpendicular to it: so you can only see it when you are actually in front of the service desk.
Final bitching point about Heathrow was the lack of rubbish bins near the gate: none in sight. Again the shop assistant once the one that helped me and threw my rubbish in his own private rubbish bin behind the cashier... all in all Heathrow has a lot to learn.
Enough bitching for now... I won't get started about Sydney airport, because I actually did something fun today. The 14hr stop turned out not to be so bad after all: I went to the beach. First off: the train from the airport to Circular Quay:
Wow! Seven years later and actually nothing has changed in Sydney's Tourist central. One of my fellow travellers tipped me to go to Manly beach, a 25 minute ferry ride away, through Sydney's beautiful bays. The beaches themselves were also quite nice. I compared swimming short prices, but in the end I just walked around on the beach: I've got too much luggage already and also didn't have a towel.
Great weather, nice breeze, great surf (the largest temptation), and great to be out in the fresh air and sun again after 24hours in a plane. The trip back to Sydney was also nice and offered great views of its skyline.
At the moment I am typing this in the Airport terminal, about 40 minutes before the final flight to New Zealand starts boarding. I am really quite tired and looking forward to sleeping in a normal bed again tonight. Tomorrow I will be the 'receiving committee' for the rest of the family.
They should now be in transit from Hong Kong to Sydney, where they'll sleep tonight. See you tomorrow!
PS: on popular request a 'follow by e-mail' button was added to both blogs. This should make it easier to receive updates.
Yesterday was my 32nd birthday, which was spent in a plane flying from London to Singapore and onwards to Sydney. So it was actually my shortest birthday ever! I don't know how many hours of that day were missing exactly, but it sure did not consist of 24 hours. It didn't really feel like a birthday either, until I got to check my messages when I landed in Singapore: lots of congratulations: thanks everybody!
As my last 48 hours were almost all spent in airports, let's start with a little review: The Singaporean airport 'Changi' has landed #1 on the list of best airports in the world: there's lots of seating space (even in reclining beds), outside areas, lots of (clean and spacious) toilets. The routing is easy, and if you don't want to shop, you can easily find a not so busy space to chill out. Skip ahead if you want, because the rest of this airport review contains a bit of 'frustration offloading'.
Schiphol comes 2nd, as it is very clearly organized, and you can also find nice places to sit, although the airport is quite spread out.
Heathrow was more of an annoying experience. I landed in the new Terminal 5, which is apparently focused on evaluating its performance. There's whole displays dedicated to showing graphs and measurements of wait times, ratings, etc. I even got interviewed by an old lady about how much I spent, where I came from, if I could find all the shops and restaurants I wanted, how I rated them. etc. etc. However, what she didn't ask about, and also what the displays don't show: how easy is it to find your way around? Could you locate the nearest rubbish bin when you had to throw garbage away?
That's the sad part of the new terminal: everything is aimed at commerce, and nobody has thought about the traveller. In the main terminal area (where all the shops are) the actual gate number where your plane is leaving is not displayed until the gate actually opens. I found this very strange so I asked at an information desk: that was quite lucky, because the gate was 20minutes away (by train!). The idea behind the displays is probably to keep the people in the shopping area as long as possible.
As for the displays: the font size of the list of gates and check in desks on the other display is so small that you can only read them when you are right in front of them (except for the exact same size display that displays the 'ratings and evaluations' graphically, which is visible from miles away).
When I finally arrived at the gate where I was told to be (by the customer service agent) my flight was not on the display there, although flights departing later were: this confused me: did I mishear the gate number he mentioned? Should I take the 20minute train back to find out? There was no service agent in visible range in this new terminal: only a shop assistant. I asked him and he was very helpful: he told me that the Sydney flight normally departs right from where I was, and that it should soon show up, which it eventually did. It later became clear that there was a service desk 50m away, only it was behind the elevator and the desk sign was parallel to the path instead of perpendicular to it: so you can only see it when you are actually in front of the service desk.
Final bitching point about Heathrow was the lack of rubbish bins near the gate: none in sight. Again the shop assistant once the one that helped me and threw my rubbish in his own private rubbish bin behind the cashier... all in all Heathrow has a lot to learn.
Enough bitching for now... I won't get started about Sydney airport, because I actually did something fun today. The 14hr stop turned out not to be so bad after all: I went to the beach. First off: the train from the airport to Circular Quay:
Wow! Seven years later and actually nothing has changed in Sydney's Tourist central. One of my fellow travellers tipped me to go to Manly beach, a 25 minute ferry ride away, through Sydney's beautiful bays. The beaches themselves were also quite nice. I compared swimming short prices, but in the end I just walked around on the beach: I've got too much luggage already and also didn't have a towel.
Great weather, nice breeze, great surf (the largest temptation), and great to be out in the fresh air and sun again after 24hours in a plane. The trip back to Sydney was also nice and offered great views of its skyline.
At the moment I am typing this in the Airport terminal, about 40 minutes before the final flight to New Zealand starts boarding. I am really quite tired and looking forward to sleeping in a normal bed again tonight. Tomorrow I will be the 'receiving committee' for the rest of the family.
They should now be in transit from Hong Kong to Sydney, where they'll sleep tonight. See you tomorrow!
PS: on popular request a 'follow by e-mail' button was added to both blogs. This should make it easier to receive updates.
More pictures please ;)
ReplyDeleteNice plan Coen! Try to follow it; especially the USA part of the trip ;-)
ReplyDelete