Text 10083, 118 rader
Skriven 2007-01-06 22:29:30 av Glen Jamieson
Ärende: East European travel
============================
As the erudite and literate Mr Loo has finished his truly interesting
food and wine travel account, perhaps readers would like to read of my
own travels, at a much lower level of sophistication?

East European journey, 2006 (1)

31/08/06, Thursday,  Adelaide to Amsterdam

Qantas flight QF 082 was running late, so I was given a voucher for a
meal at any of the Adelaide Airport restaurants, to the value of $18.
As I expected I would eventually get a meal on the plain, I only had a
sushi at Chu's.  I also phoned the South-East Asian hotel in Singapore
to advise them I would be 2 hours late arriving.

Going through the Duty Free store, a sales lady drew my attention to
some specials, one of them being 1 litre of Captain Morgan OP rum for
$20.   If I liked, I could pay for it at that time and collect it on
my way back to Adelaide, so I did, being optimistic that it would
still be there in a month's time.

QF 082 ADL SIN 1500 2010 A330/300 29J (As MLoo would record it)

Flight duration 6h 20m.  Delayed lunch was "Green leaf salad, Honey
and soy chicken with turmeric rice and choy sum".  The latter was a
bit dry - perhaps because of the earlier delay - but with a good sauce
flavour.  The creamy mango yoghurt was OK.  The wine, South Australian
Wirra Wirra Scrubby Rise Sauvignon Blanc was good, and the next
bottle, of their Shiraz, was excellent.

The Entertainment Centre was slow to respond, but did work, and I was
able to watch the NZ movie, "The World's Fastest Indian", which I had
been wanting to see for some time.  Later, at some time during the
hours of darkness, dinner was served. The "Hokkien Noodles" with green
mush vegetables and raw julienned carrot and white stuff was awful, so
as advised by MLoo, I continued to enjoy the Australian wine.

Finally arrived at Singapore at 20.10, and changed Aus$100 to S$117.30,
paid $4 and left my heavy luggage in the airport "Left Luggage" facility
and caught the MRT to Bugis station, finally arriving at the hotel by
2200, to be told with a smile that I had been expected an hour earlier.
In spite of being booked out otherwise, they had kept my room for me, so
I paid my $77 cash in advance and slept.

01/09/06  Friday,  Singapore

Heading out into the throng of the Bugis market in Waterloo, Albert
and Queen streets, I bought a pair of good sandals and a large siopao
filled with slices of boiled egg, pork, onion gravy ($1.20) for
breakfast on the run.  Then, returning to the hotel I checked out, but
left my backpack behind the hotel counter before taking the MRT to
Novena to see an English engineer I had previously worked with in
Sumatra.  After catching up on his activities in the region I took the
MRT to Little India to buy a 512kb memory card for my camera, from the
shop where I had bought the camera early last year.

Down in the basement of the Sim Lim building I bought a seafood laksa,
including 2 prawns, egg, strongly flavoured cockles, squid, etc, for
$4.  While eating it at a table with a couple of local ladies, they
prevailed on me to try a taste of their large, vegetable filled spring
rolls, of a type I hadn't tried before - each one offering me the
other's food.  Very nice it was, too.

I checked out the waterfront area, where people left from to go to the
resort island of Sentosa but found it full of young kids off for a day
of "fun", so returned to the Asian Civilisation Museum to see what had
changed since I had been there previously.  Near the entrance I was
accosted by a Buddhist monk, collecting for a charity.

At the Wilks Hibiscus Ice Cream bar I had a rather nice durian ice
cream, then travelled back to Bugis, where to my joy I found the fruit
stalls had opened, with a glut of fine, Malaysian durians.  I joined
the other addicts and bought a pack of separated fillets for $2,
consumed there and then, before washing my hands in the water provided
by the vendors.

Returning to the hotel I collected my backpack and took the MRT back
to the airport, then the Skytrain to Terminal 1 to get the rest of my
luggage and check in.  Lots of walking back and forth the full length
of Terminal 1.  When checking the prices of goods in the Singapore
Duty Free I read a sign that no liquids were allowed on any flights to
UK, USA or India, or on any US airlines.  This was later modified to
allow liquid goods (booze and perfumes) bought in the Singapore Duty
Free to be carried.  (Trust the Singaporeans to make money out of that
situation!)  Feeling peckish, I bought a nice Nasi Padang dish - rice,
rendang daging, tempeh, sambal, ikan bilis, for $7 at one of the
terminal shops.  A bottle of 330ml of Carlsberg (who seem to have the
airport beer concession) beer cost $6.50, so I only had one.

KL 838 SIN AMS 2310 0510 747/400 17B

This was an old, poorly maintained plane, run (according to the flight
magazine) by Air France - KLM.  The do-it-yourself assembly headphones
worked, but the sound system was stuck on one track of muzak.  No
control of sound channels and not even the  reading light worked.  The
in-flight movie shown on the distant ceiling screen had subtitles, but
as they were in Dutch, they didn't help me much.  The pre-something
meal wine was a South African Chenin Blanc 2005, a semi-sweet, nasty
wine, served with a tasteless, oily, puffed rice snack.   Later, at
about 0100, a sort of dinner, comprising a slightly pickled zucchini
salad with a small piece of chicken, bland fried rice and scrambled
egg, followed by a wedge of aluminium-wrapped Picon cream cheese was
served.  The only redeeming feature of this meal was that a better
wine - Do¤a Dominga 2005 Vina Dasa Silva Colchagua Valley Cab Sav
Merlot - was served.  This I followed with a nice Castel Syrah Vindu
Pays d'orc.   Sometime during the night I was woken to receive a
bucket of some flavourless instant noodles.  I ate some of that before
stomach pains made me stop.  Later, breakfast was served, but neither
I nor anyone else I saw, ate any.  At this time I noticed a bit of
dried durian I had spilled on my shirt in Singapore, so I picked it
off and ate it, to give me a better mouth taste.  Eventually we
arrived at Amsterdam, Gate G.  I then had to walk the full length of
the airport to Gate B23 to catch the next flight.


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 * Origin: Braintap BBS Adelaide Australia (3:800/449)