Gets a few perks. They can jump a queue, get us into the Qantas lounge given we are travelling as a family (thank-you!), avoids stairs in lookout towers by using lift to all floors, seat on the bus, and friendly chats by air hostess. Okay, so you need to have grey hair and use a walking stick.
Apparently the title of this post is a complaint… Or so Kym tells me. Maybe it is, but to me it is more of a “I can’t believe I’m going to get into a plane for that length of time”, sigh.
Here we are again in a lounge waiting to board, Kym is downloading magazines and I am will check out an ebook.
The holiday has been fantastic. We’ve been a little short on posts due to wifi limitations… So expect some more posts, and photos to be uploaded on the other side of the pond and over the weekend!
Easter Island from the air
That is all it takes to cross the Andes from Mendoza to Santiago.
We took an Andesmar bus, one of the more respected private bus companies in Argentina. There are hundreds! They are a very efficient, we easily bought our tickets online in Australia and were lucky enough to score front row seats on the top deck. I was pretty excited… But when the bus turned up at Mendoza station, our front window was covered with that horrible holey stickers that are used for advertising on Adelaide buses. There should be a law against this. You can see the impact on the photos through the front window for yourself.
Fortunately many great photos were taken from the side window.
Entertainment was provided with a number of action films, including Robocop and Three Days to Kill. Oddly the sound was in English with Spanish subtitles. Food was provided a glass of coke with sandwich and some fine biscuits with tea/or coffee.
All up for less than $40 each, the value is pretty good. Especially given the roomy seats which are wider than economy class on plane and more legroom!
My only complaints are
1) The anxiety you feel when you get told the bus will leave from one of the gates 16-22 and the bus not being listed on the departures board. To be fair, it turned up with 10 minutes to go. It was loaded up and left before 10:40 not too bad for a 10:30 scheduled start.
2) The strange process of being lined up like naughty children in front of desks at Chilean customs. We became the audience as some poor travellers were admonished for trying to smuggle in too much wine…
Our Wednesday was longer due to flying across the international date line. The flight was okay… uneventful – just the way I like it.
Watched a few movies: Chef, Still life, The normal heart, and VEEP (b grade american humour, but enjoyable given the location). There was a bit of turbulence a few hours in during the meal service.
Flying over so , much sea it is a delight to see land. But when you finally see the continent… The mountains are really something to behold. Coming into land in Santiago was amazing from the perspective of seeing the mountains appear… and then, go on, and on, and on. It was truly a beautiful sight – no picture can do it justice.
We spent three hours in the airport in Santiago. While the chairs were uncomfortable, there was a haze surrounding the airport, which was unfortunate as your could just see the outline of mountains hugging the area. The flight from Santiago to Buenos Aires was incredible – just for the views of flying over the Andes. We were on a Boeing 787 (Dreamliner- new), which was quite spacious for a plane, with a lot storage overhead. Once you take off the plan begins it climb up and turns to head over the Andes. Quite soon everyone is required to be in their seat for potential turbulence. The plane climbs to 41,000 feet, and the views are amazing. Unfortunately no photos were taken due to the proximity of both of us and the photo devices, the view of the snow capped mountains seem to go on and on, and are a marvel to behold. You are just going to have to wait until the bus ride – something to look forward too, sort-of.
One flight down…. and two to go. These are the segments I enjoy. Once we are on the plane… we are only 3-4 movies, half a book, magazines (thank-you SA public libraries), and a couple of meals before land again.
Today will be a day of sitting, short walks, planes, and new destinations.
Advising…. no one present, originally uploaded by Helen K.
This was the last amusing sign we spotted in China. I realise I’ve commented on a lot of odd signs in China, but I really do think they are great. To me they represent their use of the English language (difficult at the best of times). I was sadden to read in a guide book here, that with the Olympics in Beijing last year, and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010, there is a group of people checking signage to ensure signs are appropriate, and no or little occurrences of “Chinglish” in sight.
Signs like this are rare (Airport in Shanghai)… and therefore need to be shared with everyone. I was disappointed no one was there advising.
While it would of been cheaper and faster to catch a taxi to the airport in Shanghai… we caught the taxi to the Maglev station (very fast high speed train). Ah, that is what holiday experiences are all about.
We bought a ticket for the “ordinary section”, given the ride was only 7 minutes. Kym mentioned to me prior it was 15 minutes long and the top speed was 400km per hour. However, that speed is only done between 9am and 10:30am…. I feel cheated as it only did 302km per hour. Not even enough time to get comfortable on the train!
Bund sightseeing tunnel tour…, originally uploaded by Helen K.
Yes we did this…. in all the guidebooks they inform you that it isn’t worth it, but you really have to experience it in order to complain about it. The trip is three minutes in length and gets you to Pudong. During the journey (it is only 3 minutes long) they read out random words, such as earth, fire, stars… it was all very strange.
Here we are playing with Photobooth on our Hackintosh. The camera ain’t too bad. There is on an endless loop of a chinese cartoon about swine flu which extolls the virtues of blowing your nose into paper to keep the swine flu that comes from America away. Plane leaves in 30 minutes it’ll take about 3hours to get Tokyo. We are looking forward to the change in pace!
Updates on red thumbs and wet backs coming tonight.
