Leaving Sydney
Wow, so far so fun! Departure from Sydney was uneventful. Through the Star Alliance partnerships the waiting at Sydney Airport was spent in the Air New Zealand Club lounge. Subtle lighting .. nice. But party pies? Really! No seriously, party pies.
On board China Air Flight 174 things got better. Despite the crew being largely emotionless, very disciplined and VERY efficient the flight itself was excellent. The scheduled 9pm flight left 5 minutes early. I quickly understood why the food on the ground was so lame because almost immediately after departure (while I was still playing with the buttons on the remote & trying on my fluffy crimson scuffs) the start of the 6-course dinner began! OK, they weren't huge courses (thank goodness) but provided great variety (but served and cleaned up by robot-like staff).
These lie-flat seats are really great - they're wide so you can sleep on your side and slowly roll over - and wearing my (kindly supplied) ear plugs and night mask, I must have looked a sight, but no matter - 7 hours sleep is 7 hours sleep.
And what do you do after a 6 course meal and 7 hours sleep? Well, eat, of course. Luckily for my already-growing waistline breakfast is only 3 courses - but, hey, it was only 4:30am local time, in time for our 5:50am landing. My seating partner was quite a distance from me in these fancy seats so we only chatted en route to the terminal after disembarkation - he's an ex-pat heading to the outskirts of China close to the border of North Korea. He wasn't that excited about the thought of spending another month at his "office" given the current politics in the region.
Beijing Airport
So, there we are - first off the plane, being transferred to the terminal in VIP mini-buses. Great. 6:00am - great. 5-hour stop-over - maybe not so great. But at least I can get my boarding pass for the next sector & head to the Club Lounge - maybe time to have a shower, catch up on emails & Facebook, maybe grab some more party pies (ugh!).
But no. The first international transfer counter I went to was closed so I just followed the crowd. It's a pretty big airport but quickly found another international transfer counter with lots of people in the line. I started chatting to the couple in the line in front of me. They are German but now living in Brussels - be works for NATO and had been in Sydney for a conference and he and his wife were keen to get back to Brussels. They told me that this queue was only for people who already have their boarding passes and pointed me to a Chinese uniformed official who told me that I had to walk 200 mtrs to another international transfer terminal counter to get my boarding pass. It's now 6:30am when I reach the counter and great news awaits me - Austrian Air is not issuing boarding passes until 8:30am. So for 2 hours there's no tea, no coffee, no internet, no Club Lounge - nothing. So I sat and sat and sat - for 2 hours.
So 2 hours of Russian Revolver and Angry Birds later I finally get my boarding passes for the next two sectors, both with Austrian Air. Then back the international transfer section that was so busy before - but now it's deserted; in fact the entire incoming immigration section is closed - and locked!! So would be most interested in a single foreigner wandering around looking confused? Airport security! And it's China! Anyway after sing questioned and being asked for passport for ID he calls out to someone else who asks for my passport and who leads me back to the desolate international transfer desk where the first guy is now sitting waiting for me, and the first thing he asks for is my passport - again, as if he's never seen me before. But he's not smiling so I hold my tongue (strange but true). I then go through hand luggage security where they ask, not for my boarding pass, but for my passport - again. Then I have to not only get my iPad out of my camera bag before it's x-rayed but also my camera! Oh, and my camera flash !! And i had to take my jacket off. So they finish up x-raying an empty camera bag plus 4 plastic trays full of everything else - and I still set the detectors off so I received a body frisk (who's a lucky boy, then?).
But I finally get to the Club Lounge and entire about wi-fi. Can you guess what happens next? You're not allowed to get wi-fi u tip you scan your passport into a machine that can then track the web sites that you visit using the wi-fi and record it against your passport details. Tricky, huh? Plus they block access to Facebook. What an episode whilst never leaving the airport. By the way the Club Lounge food was cold pastries and cold coffee.
Austrian Air flight 064
Another 10-hour flight, on a smaller plane. Same type of lie-flat seats but these are narrower so can only lie on your back - bad news; but it's a daylight flight so a quick nap is the to. The upside of the narrow seats - they have a built-in massager that gives you a 5-minute back massage at the the touch of a button ...... and I touched the button often. Lunch was 5 courses which included one of the best beef fillets I've ever eaten. Actually there was a 6th course of fruit and cheese but I gave it a miss and watched Skyfall instead. The headsets on this flight have built-in noise reduction so cabin noise is all but removed.
I'm safely in the Business Class Lounge in Vienna airport where, believe it or not, more party pies!
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