Cholesterol

Obviously part of the whole experience of going way is sampling the local 'cuisine'. Now my recent trip to the States to watch a couple of baseball games could hardly be called an epicurean's delight, but that was almost part of the appeal. Snobs out there might remark that I did eat 'a load of crap' on my trip, and I'd agree it wouldn't be my choice for a long term diet.

So this is what I ate:

Saturday

• Poppy seed bagel with lox and cream cheese from Ess-a-Bagel in NYC. This was bit of a disappointment as I forgot to ask for tomatoes and scallions. The bagel in it's own right was pretty good.


• 1/2 Pound 'The Works' Burger and fries from Fuddruckers. Fuddruckers bills itself as the 'World's Greatest Hamburgers', and to be fair the burger I had was mighty fine. 'The Works' bit means it come with bacon, cheese and mushrooms, what I particularly liked was the fact that they have a 'toppings bar' where you can add your own tomato, lettuce, pickle, onions, peppers etc. etc. The fries were of the chunky variety and were pretty good.


• Barbecue Pork sandwich from Boog's BBQ at Oriole Park. This was a bit on the cold side, but was still tasty.


• A 'Super Dog'. This really hit the spot after a couple of beers at the baseball. Probably not as good as the 'dogs at Dodger stadium, but better than those at Shea stadium.

Sunday

• Bacon, Egg and Cheese muffin type thing from Five Guys at Reagan National Airport. Five Guys do good burgers and I didn't fancy a monster sized pastry thing from Cinnebon, so I plumped for the Five Guys version of an Bacon and Egg McMuffin. It was O.K. but on reflection I should've probably gone for a burger.

• Strawberries and Blueberries -- I decided I needed some fruit. The strawberries tasted a bit weird almost as if they were fermenting. I put it down to the 'atmosphere' there packed in.

• A couple of Kosher Hotdogs at Yankee Stadium. Pretty damn tasty for a humble hotdog.

• A knish. This is a sort of Jewish/Eastern European potatoey dumpling/pie type thing. It was not as bad as my description suggests!

• A Chicken Burrito with a side order of Tortilla Chips and Guacamole from Chipotle. There's a bit of Mexican food snobbery when it comes to the virtues of Chipotle. People in the U.S. deride it as not being an authentic Taqueria or they complain that they use 'cilantro lime rice' in their burritos etc. etc. It may not be 'authentic', but I don't think that's what it sets out to be. Regardless, the food was good, plentiful and pretty cheap -- and a damn sight better than you can get in the U.K. I'm sure.

Monday

• All I had to eat before my flight was a banana and a monster sized Blueberry Muffin from Starbucks.

I can't be bothered to talk about the food I ate on the flights I took. Needless to say it was pretty generic stuff and just seemed very 'cheap'.

Planes, Trains but not Automobiles!

So my weekend of going to the U.S. to watch a couple of baseball games also turned into a minor study of different types of 'transportation'!

First up we had the 8 hour flight across the Atlantic. I'd managed to get a bulkhead seat when I did online check-in, so I had plenty of legroom and no seat in front to recline back in to me. Also I lucked out by not having a baby using the bassinet thingy. In fact I'm not sure there were any babies on the flight at all, which was pretty surprising given how busy it was (20 people 'left behind' according to one of the cabin crew). I think the only thing of any vague interest that happened on the flight was when an Indian woman fainted in the toilet. Her husband/son had helped her to the toilet and kind of left her to do her 'business'. When he came back to check on her she sort of fell out the toilet in a state of partial undress. There then followed a bit of mild panic from various passengers and she was laid out in the aisle and eventually came around. The crew were pretty calm and almost blase about it, so I guess it's not that rare an occurrence.

We landed a few minutes ahead of schedule at Newark Airport. The queue for immigration was nonexistent and I didn't even get any 'tricky' questions from the Immigration Officer. Once I was through immigration I breezed through the baggage reclaim area (hand luggage only), past customs and out in to the arrival hall. From there I had a short wait before the Marriott hotel shuttle picked me up and took me the half a mile or so to the hotel.

After a short nights sleep I was out of the hotel by 6am. Once again it was the shuttle back to the airport. However, I wasn't about to catch a flight, but instead I got on a coach to take me to Manhattan. When Cliff and I did this trip last year the coach journey took about 45 minutes, so I'd factored that in to my 'planning'. What I hadn't thought about was that at 6am on a Saturday morning there really wasn't much traffic about. As a result it must've taken about 25 minutes to get from the airport to Grand Central Station. After having a tasty bagel for breakfast there wasn't a great deal to do apart from get from Manhattan to La Guardia Airport. I had a choice -- I could get a cab, or save a bit cash and take a combination of Subway and Bus. I went for the Subway and Bus combo. I took the Subway 'uptown' to 125th Street and then caught the M60 bus to the airport.

Once again I had allowed too much time for the trip, and I found my self in the US Airways terminal at about 8.30am. My flight wasn't until 11am! So I had a fair chunk of time to kill. I wandered around the other terminals, browsed in Borders and then finally cleared security and headed for the US Airways Club -- the 'lounge' that my Singapore Airlines Elite Gold status gets me access to. I wish I hadn't bothered. There were plenty of seats, but that's really all it had going for it. I read for a bit and then it was time for me to find my gate and catch my flight to Washington D.C. At first I inadvertently joined the queue for a flight going to Pittsburgh, but thankfully realised my mistake and found the queue for the flight to D.C. Boarding was bit chaotic, with people with boarding passes for later flights trying to get on (maybe that's what I should've tried).

It was another full flight, and after a short time waiting in the 'queue' of planes to take off, we got airborne and headed South. The actual flight time was an almost embarrassing 35 minutes. I thought that this being a domestic US flight there would be no inflight 'service' but they did serve drinks and pretzels. I don't know how the flight attendants managed to get to everyone in the time they time between climbing after take-off and approaching Washington.

I was out of the airport terminal at Reagan National Airport in no time at all and made my way to the Metro station a short walk from the terminal building. I had a bit of a frustrating wait for a train as there was some engineering works and trains in both directions were sharing the same track. Once a train did turn up it was only a handful of stops before I arrived at the station closest to my hotel. I walked to my hotel stopping off to buy some T-Shirts from City Sports and to get a beast of a hamburger from Fuddruckers.

I dumped my stuff at my hotel and walked the mile or so to Union Station to catch an Amtrak train to Baltimore (the train actually went all the way up to Boston). I timed it pretty well and didn't have to wait long before the train was ready to go. The journey to Baltimore took about 40 minutes. Once at Baltimore's Penn Station I caught the Light Rail train to Oriole Park at Camden Yards, the really cool home of the Baltimore Orioles.

The trip back to Washington after the game was again a combination of Light Rail and Amtrak. However this time I got the Light Rail train to Baltimore Airport and picked up the Amtrak train from there (it meant I could stay longer at the Baseball). I had a bit of a snooze on the train, but fortunately the train terminated in Washington, so there was no danger of me falling asleep and waking up in little old Redneck, South Carolina.

I was up bright and early on Sunday morning. I paid a visit to Starbucks to kick start my system before embarking on my first mission of the day. That mission was to get to FedEx Kinkos and check-in for my return flight back to Heathrow. Fortunately FedEx Kinkos was just around the corner, so I got online and checked-in with no problem and once again snagged a bulkhead seat with plenty of legroom. I also took the opportunity to check-in for my flight back to New York.

I walked to the Metro station and got the train back to the airport -- fortunately no engineering works today. The airport was pretty quiet. I grabbed a bite to eat and then it wasn't long before my flight was called for boarding.

We arrived back at La Guardia airport a little ahead of a schedule and again I was able to whizz through the airport. Being as I had such success previously I went for the Bus and Subway option to get from La Guardia to Midtown Manhattan. This time it wasn't as smooth as the bus seemed to stop every 500 metres to let people off and on. Nevermind -- I got to 125th Street in the end and took the Subway downtown to Grand Central Station. I made my way to the Grand Hyatt as this is where I planned to dump my bags whilst I went to the Yankees game. Things didn't go particularly well with the 'bell hop' guy wanted to know what room I'd stayed in and started going on about 9/11 etc. I blagged it and eventually he relented and stored my bag for me. So much for his security spiel.

The subway back uptown to Yankee Stadium was absolutely rammed -- on a par with the MTR in Hong Kong at rush hour.

After being nicely roasted in the sun at the game I went downtown to South St Seaport to do a spot of shopping. I then had a leisurely stroll, via a Starbucks, through Chinatown, SoHo and TriBeCa. My feet were starting to complain a bit by now so I jumped on the Subway at Astor Place and took the train back to Grand Central Station. I picked my bag up from the hotel, had a tasty burrito from Chipotle and got the coach back to Newark Airport. The coach journey was made better as I sipped surreptitiously from a couple of cans of Coors Lite.

At the airport I had a longer than expected wait for the hotel shuttle, but this did give me the opportunity to eavesdrop on a pilot wittering on about how he'd changed 'majors' at college so he could get in to flying, and how he now earned less than his previous job but that the conditions were much better. I was a bit concerned when he started talking about his life insurance policy!

At the hotel it was a case of shower, pack and then sleep.

I was out of the hotel by 6.00am and walked straight onto a shuttle bus which left straight away. The airport was pretty quiet, and despite having already checked in I still had to go to the check-in desk so that BA could check my passport and take the little green departure card thing.

There is bugger all to do at the terminal that BA uses at Newark (Cliff and I learnt this last year), so I took the 'airtrain' to Terminal C to 'have a look around' -- this didn't take long. I got the 'airtrain' back to the BA terminal, cleared security and then waited to board the flight.

The flight back wasn't totally full. I had hoped that the seat next to me would be free, but in the end someone did sit down in it. It's a pity that they smelt a little bit as though their clothes either needed a wash or a good 'airing'! It wasn't an overpowering or 'dirty' smell, but every now and then I'd catch a hint of something stale or musty. Again the flight was pretty routine, and this time there weren't any fainting Indians to liven things up.

R U Ready?

It's always a little bit stressful in the run up to a 'foreign adventure', and the preparations for this weekend's trip Stateside are no different! I'm not sure it helps that I keep getting emails sent to me reminding me when my flight is, what there is to do at Heathrow airport and that I have actually got some hotels booked in New York (well Newark really) and Washington D.C.!

For a couple of reasons I'm trying to do my 'weekend away' with hand luggage only. Firstly, I don't want to have to drag too much stuff around as I have to get from Newark to La Guardia Airport which isn't that straight forward and involves a few different types of transport. But the most significant reason is that I've been spooked by some horror stories involving mega-long waits for luggage when returning to Heathrow Terminal 4. I've experienced first hand the zoo that the baggage reclaim area can be, and I'm sure it will be at it's most chaotic on a Bank Holiday Monday evening when loads of people are returning from their short breaks.

The hand luggage 'challenge' isn't as straightforward as it should be especially with the current restrictions imposed by BAA and the TSA on liquids etc. I've got my little clear plastic bag rammed full of travel sized toiletries and I'm also counting on the hotels I'm staying at to have decent shower gel and shampoo.

Anyhow I've done the online check-in thing and I think I've managed to snag some decent seats -- not quite an exit row, but the bulkhead. I'm counting on the fact that people with babies will either travel on earlier flights, on Saturday, or not at all. Therefore the fact that I'm in the bassinet 'row' shouldn't be a problem (fingers crossed).

Time to double check I've remembered every thing........

Homeward Bound

So after a good (but short) nights sleep I was up and out early on my last day in Singapore. As part of my room rate breakfast was included. Breakfast buffets are always an interesting spectacle, especially in Asia. You can marvel at how much people try and cram on to their plates and also what totally 'inappropriate' food combinations people make. I think on this occasion I did pretty well as I had a plate which had scrambled eggs, teriyaki salmon and dim sum on it. This was accompanied by a couple of mini Danish pastries (on their own plate) and a decent sized bowl of fruit -- they do say that breakfast is the most importan tmeal of the day!

I walked off my breakfast binge with a quick hike from the Pan Pacific to the Orchard Road MRT station, I then caught the train back to City Hall.

I left my hotel and headed to the airport for my flight home at about 10.30am.

Once at Changi I killed a bit of time in the SATS 'Premier' Lounge which was totally rubbish and the only benefit was that there was free booze (a bit early for me) and some food (but I was pretty stuffed). Not a patch on the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow. Unfortunately mere 'Elite Golds' aren't allowed to use the real Singapore Airlines business class lounge in Singapore.

I timed my move to the gate area a bit late and literally walked through security and straight on to the plane. I expected other people to be sat next to me in the exit row, but the seats were free for the time being. Unfortunately they didn't stay that way as some Australian bloke moved from a few rows behind me and sat next to me. He then tried to monopolise the armrest -- I wasn't completely happy, but fortunately the elbow dueling over the armrest ended in some kind of equitable truce.

The rest of the flight was largely as dull as normal. We did have an announcement asking if there were any doctors etc. onboard when we were somewhere over Afghanistan. I had visions of us having to make an emergency landing at some hell hole airport in that neck of the wood. Thankfully it didn't come to that. I wasn't surprised that one of the passengers needed medical assistance since there seemed to be a higher than average number of overweight old duffers onboard!

Heathrow seemed suspiciously quiet when we got off the plane. We did have a mega trek to get to immigration. I bypassed the long queue by using the IRIS 'lane'. This is the first time it's actually paid off, as normally I'd still have to wait ages for my bags to appear on the luggage reclaim belt -- but not this time. My bag was actually on the carousel when I got into the baggage hall! I was out of the airport about 15 minutes after the plane parked at the gate, surely some kind of record?

All that was remained was the blast up the M40 home.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

After a winter of wearing shoes and socks my feet have taken a right battering over the last couple of days. They are not a pretty sight having been abused by a combination of Birkenstocks and flip flops.

Sunday can be summarised as follows:

• Swim at Delta Swimming Complex
• Food
• Shopping
• Food
• Shopping
• Food
• Shopping
• Etc., etc. you get the drift.....

I figured that the swim and walking up and down Orchard Road justified the eating!

I finished the day with a few Tigers at the Long Bar at Raffles, a tasty Thai meal and then a couple of pints at Brewerkz. Life can definitely be sweet.

I'm in Singapore

So what do you do when you turn 33? Well if you're me you jump on a plane and head to Singapore for the weekend. This is a win-win situation on a number of levels -- I get to use the Virgin Clubhouse at Heathrow for the first time, I earn a bundle of airmiles, I get to have a weekend of tasty food and I do bit of shopping.

The 'Clubhouse' experience was very cool -- I had about 4 glasses of champagne and a rather tasty 'Clubhouse' burger. My flight over to Singapore was uneventful but as long as ever. The earlier champagne consumption came back to haunt me a bit as I had a bit of a hangover type headache going on (well it wasn't just the champagne, I think the Tiger beer and red wine might have also had a hand in it).

We arrived early in to Changi airport and I was in a cab and on my way to the Pan Pacific hotel in no time at all. I checked in to the hotel and wondered why there were loads of tall, athletic girls in the lobby. It turns out there is a badminton tournamont going on and a few of the teams are staying in my hotel -- bonus!

I showered and then hit the 'mean' streets/shopping malls of Singapore. My credit card hasn't had too much of a battering yet, but it's only a matter of time! I was very restrained on the food front -- I had a curry puff and a popiah for lunch/afternoon snacks. I was saving myself for Satays later!!

The satays were good, but probably not the best I've ever had from Lau Pa Sat. Also I was sat pretty close to one of the stalls so had to put up with barbecue smoke wafting in my direction and some atrocious Malay radio station. Nevermind, the jug of Tiger still went down pretty well!

After Satays it was the, almost traditional, sweaty walk to Brewerkz for a couple of refreshing beers. I also had the added 'pleasure' of watching a couple of EPL games -- shame one of them was West Ham v. Bolton. Brewerkz was still 'buzzing' after the earlier derby match (and I'm not talking about Bedok v. Kallang). Far too many United fans. It'll be interesting to see how amny people are out supporting Chelsea or Arsenal tonight.

I have to start somewhere.....

What's all this Blog stuff all about? Well now I've gone and got my very own one -- pretty exciting stuff. I can almost feel the 'white heat' of technology.