February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007 September 2007 October 2007 November 2007 December 2007 January 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 December 2008 January 2009 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009  Name: Melissa About : Went from studying Forensic Biology and Toxicology at Murdoch to moving to Dubai working as a Flight Attendant. Hope to make this an online journal of all the wonderful and numerous places I fly too for all my friends back home to read. Location: Al Nadha II, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Countries Visited (not including Turnarounds): Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brasil, Canada, China, Germany, Ghana, France, Great Britain, Greece, India, Italy, Japan, Korea (South), Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philipines, Russia, Singapore, Seychelles, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Vatican City Likes: Dining Out, Ice Skating, Lomography, Being a Tourist, Learning Japanese Previous Jobs : Thai Waitress, Student, VP of Student Union, Banquet Waitress http://tampaxtowers.blogspot.com/atom.xml tampaxtowers[at]gmail[dot]com My Flickr My Amazon Wishlist Airline Crew.net Airline Uniforms Airline Meals Seatguru - Most Comfy Seats On Any Airline Trip Advisor Onion Map - 3D Maps of Top Tourist Places Airtoons pprune.org - Pilot's rumour network Kronicles of Kris The Adventures of Alle Malice Joel's trek across Asia/Europe in a Hilux Adrian's World Phil's Wine Site Adventure Girl - where have you gone? Tray Table Airboy Kenny Sia LJC's blog Lifehacker I Can Has Cheezburger Skin by Falter BlogSkins 
|
Latest Updates
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
I was fortunate during my reserve month that at times Scheduling would assign me duties with decent notice, as opposed to being put on home standby and rushing to a flight. One of these was Osaka, quite a popular flight amongst crew, and one which had me baffled as to who would want to call sick for such a nice flight.Since I'd been twice before, I didn't want to follow the rest of the Economy crew to Kyoto, and many others didn't want to do much else except see Osaka Castle. One of the other FG1's just wanted to stay in her room and have room service! After much internet research, I decided on a museum out in Ikeda, which is 20 minutes by subway, and I was not disappointed. So I present to you all photos from the MOMOFUKU ANDO INSTANT RAMEN MUSEUM!  Sign at Ikeda Station telling me where to go. Confusing doesn't even begin to describe it.   Statue outside of Momofuku Ando, the King of pot noodles.   The research shack that Momofuku Ando invented the world's first instant ramen.  Noodle press. Pretty cool IMO.
The Instant Noodle Tunnel, which is even more insane than the photos show
Evolution of Instant Ramen sales. Thought the little models were cute.
'Space Ram', the instant noodles that travelled on the space shuttle Discovery with one of the Japanese astronauts. Flavors are Soy Sauce, Miso, Curry and Pork. The coolest part of the whole museum was "My Own Noodle Factory" where for 300 Yen you can have your own custom noodles to take back home.
Mmmmm, flavors!
Going through the machine
Noodles to hang around the neck for the journey home. Sadly I couldn't inflate mine :-(
I had so much fun there, even though the museum was mainly gear towards school kids. They even provide audio tour packs in English which was a huge help. A great way to spend a few hours in Osaka, and definately better than holing up in the hotel room eating room service. Labels: Layovers 7 commentsWednesday, June 10, 2009
And onto the last of the pics taken in Stockholm... Nobel Museum. Apparently housed in the old Stock Exchange Building, has some interesting tidbits about notable laureates...    Tyska kyrkan, aka German Church  Streets of Sodermalm    Vasa ship at the Vasamuseet  Re-creation of the wood carvings on he side of the Vasa  Kungliga Dramatiska Teatern, also known as the Royal Dramatic Theatre    And I couldn't go to Stockholm without seeing the largest Ikea in the world  View from Katarinahissen
Swedish Eurovision entry, shown in an Irish pub :-) Labels: Eurovision, Holidays 10 commentsThursday, May 28, 2009
So it took me until halfway through the week to actually visit the Royal Palace, and on the day I actually made it to Gamla Stan it was coincidentally the birthday of HRH Prince Carl Philip, Duke of Värmland (who's a total stud BTW) and they pulled out all the pomp and ceremony. Whilst I couldn't actually elbow my way through the throngs of tourists eager to take a peek at the Royals, I did get some nice shot of the changing of the guard...         Even more pics to follow :-) Labels: Holidays 3 commentsWednesday, May 20, 2009
Well guys, I've just spent the last week on leave, which was much needed, especially after my bed ridden days in Perth. And to take full advantage of recession-cheap hotel rates and to be closer to my goal of seeing every single country before I die, decided to spend my holiday in Stockholm.We're fortunate enough to be entitled to purchase J/C tickets on Lufthansa, which we're not permitted to do on our own, so I decided to spoil myself this time and travel in Business Class for once. It was interesting to see how the competition serves the premium cabins - The flight from DXB to FRA and vice versa was nice, with decent flatbed seats, but the In Flight Entertainment system was pretty lacking. The A/V was on demand but once it started you couldn't pause the movie or show to pop off to the loo though. Food wise it was a choice between hot or cold - scrambled eggs with sausages or granola. Nothing like the 3 hot breakfast options (with cheese option) we usually serve for a morning service. I can only imagine how little the Y/C pax would get, I remember flying PRG to FRA and only managed to get a tomato juice. Guys down the back probably only got a sandwich during a 6 hr service. Anyway, on to photos! And I can assure you that I have an absolute truck load of them!  Arlanda Express, the train that takes you from Arlanda Airport to Stockholm Central. Not that exciting, until you learn that the interior is designed by..... OMFG 70's tennis legend Björn Borg!   Hot Chocolate from Chokladfabriken. Amaaaaazing!   Stadsbibliotek, the interior is just gorgeous! You just want to sit there for 5 hours and read books, but sadly my Swedish isn't the best...  Östermalms Saluhall, awesome marketplace. You can get all sorts of meat here, even reindeer meat!  Sankt Jacobs kyrka  Stockholm Royal Palace, where all the pomp and ceremony occurs. Royal family actually live in Drottningholm Palace  Grand Hotel, famous because it is where the Nobel Laureates stay when they're in town for the prize giving ceremony.   Swedish are into their boats...   Modern Museum, which was pretty cool, apart from the inability to take photos :-( Best piece was the Ketchup Sandwich, which had about 30 panes of glass with Heinz Ketchup squished in between, then smeared all over the floor. 8 or so bottles scattered in the mess. It was awesome!  National Museum of Stockholm  Acne Jeans, whilst famous for its Scandinavian fashion and super-hot shoes, the store is most well known for being the location of the heist in Normalmstorg that coined the term 'Stockholm Syndrome'. Apparently members of staff have had the bank robbers visit the store to see how much it had changed!  Kulturhuset  View over Norrmalm More pics to follow! Labels: Eurovision, Holidays 7 commentsThursday, May 14, 2009
Greetings from Scandinavia guys! And it's my favourite time of the year again... a time more exciting than Christmas and Birthdays and Easter (and Eid?) put together. It's Eurovision time!So while I'm here lapping up all the Schlanger atmosphere I can handle, here's my favourite so far... from Greece. And from Albania, whilst the song doesn't entirely suck, the video is unintentionally funny. If you can afford to send the girl over to Moscow, surely you can afford to make a preview video with more than the visualiser in Windows Media Player. Labels: Eurovision 2 commentsSunday, May 10, 2009
What was supposed to be a nice visit home during my reserve period turned into a right mess. The trip that I was operating gets into Perth at around 2am, so with a very packed day ahead of me I bolted up to my room, showered and nodded off.I woke up the next morning at around 10 or so, and I was feeling less than average, but no where near as horrendous as I did a couple of hours later. Tried to get into the city for some shopping, running of errands and catch ups, but after potentially infecting 2 of them and nearly fainting at one point decided it was best to go back to the hotel and call our international hotline for medical assistance. After a very long wait I managed to see a doctor, who reassured me I didn't have Swine Flu, merely an Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (aka the common cold) and as a result would be grounded until further notice. Now I know what you're thinking. Even though I'm sick, at least I'll have my family around. Well one of the reasons I swapped onto this flight was to see my dad before he went into surgery to fix his nose that was infamously broken on my bidet in October. Now with me sick and all it's not worth risking him getting sick and delaying the surgery again. In addtion to that, it really looks bad from the company's point of view to call sick at an outstation as it is, let alone from your home destination. This was the first time I had called sick overseas and I've always said to myself to avoid doing so in Perth, but to deadhead instead. Unfortunately I was stuck in Perth, insanely bored, no family to see and very depressed. Didn't take the laptop, no books to read. Couldn't leave the hotel. A horrible, horrible layover. I was checked again 2 days later, and the doctor said I was fit to fly, so I deadheaded back to Dubai. I still need to send over some forms to my manager, but now I'm on leave and right now the priority is to relax and take it easy for the next week. And to maybe post a bit more on the blog ;-) Labels: Homesick, Layovers, Work 9 commentsSaturday, May 02, 2009
So I have the internet all set up here finally which is a huge relief. I have my reserve duty this month and the last thing any crew needs is to be left on home standby with no internet, no tv and nothing to keep one's sanity in check for 8 hours. And as promised, ages ago, here are the photos from the rest of the Toronto trip. Poutine, which my friend Andrew (who spent some time in Edmonton for a bit) recommended I try. They sell this stuff everywhere, from your standard Burger King style take away outlets, to gastro pubs where they chuck in Duck confit and use organic potato chips or whatever they can get away with. As you can see I went for the cheapo variety and I was not impressed. Actually I spent the flight back to Dubai drinking everything I could that would eliminate the foul taste from my mouth, without much success. I was later told by one of the Canadian crew that it was more a late night meal better accompanied with beer type of delicacy, which explained a lot.   Bata Shoe Museum. More interesting than it looks and sounds.  Native American Moccasins A proper NASA Astronaut Boot. Very very cool.  Frank Gehry-designed National Museum of Canada  Old Town Hall, with an ice skating rink nearby  New Town Hall? Cannot remember to be honest, poutine van in front was distracting me.   View from atop CN Tower. I took photos from the glass floor, but to be honest they're not that good, and I found it quite disappointing. Maybe I've been spending too much time in the air.  Any Cannucks eager to help me with this one? Labels: Layovers 0 comments |
My own creations next to a Sio cup. One was pork and the other beef. Haven't eaten them yet, kinda scared to open them to be honest. 
