Melissa's Flight Attendant Blog

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Well, silly me forgot to bid on my top bid month, and so my standing bid kicked in - Hong Kong and Perth. So now as we approach October, I will have done 5 Hong Kongs in the space of 3 months. And I'm sick of it to be honest. Not really the destination as such, I'd gladly come here again for a holiday, but more so with the flight pattern, how little flexibility you get, you can't really enjoy dinner or the glorious light show of billboards and neon signs because you have to get ready for pick up.

I was the quintessential Dubai trolley dolly - for the first 4 layovers, I did nothing but shop. Sad I know, normally I don't like shopping for clothes and stuff, but Muji and Uniqlo were both within walking distance, and we get neither in Dubai nor Oz.

The 5th layover though, I forced myself to get out and about. Went to Ngong Ping 360, the cable car that takes you to Lantau Island, which is just basically one side of the island with HK's famous outdoor Buddha, and a monastery nearby, with the rest of the island full of souvenir shops and restaurants. Lantau Island is basically what Sentosa Island is to Singapore, except you can't toboggan down a steep hill nor play volleyball on the beach. The views from the cable car were amazing though, and whilst I spent a maximum of 2.5 hours on the island I did get a few decent photos.

Nice views from the cable car

Sufferers of vertigo beware

The monastery. Only vegetarian food allowed to be consumed on the premises, which I found interesting

The almightly buddha, believed to be the largest outdoor buddha in the world

Obligatory tourist shot in cable car with poor Photo-shopping. I want my $88 HKD back dammit.

Meanwhile in other news, my dad is currently in Dubai! So excited, and with Ramadan over as well it should be a blast. I'm a little worried about him getting home as I could only book a waitlist ticket with a full aircraft, but we'll see how things go. I am also on reserve during this period, so no doubt there will be minimal postings on here as I will more likely than not be pulled out for red-eye turnarounds to Amman, Karachi, Bombay, and what not. Thank goodness I also have leave during October.

Labels: Layovers

Posted by Melissa at 2:27 am

6 comments

To ordinary folk this may look like a right old mess, and on days off it certainly is, but in fact this is organised in such a way that I can pack, as well as shower, have hair, makeup and uniform ready, should I get the call from Screw Scheduling, which can give notice of between 20 min to 1 hr before pick up. And to those who doubt, I have actually had the 20 min notice before, for the Nairobi turnaround, and I was struggling, let me tell you.

So that's my standby suitcase ready to go. I guess I should point out that if it were a scheduled layover, I would normally wait until the very last minute, with an hour until pick up, before I even start to pack. This is mainly due to me needing the makeup bag and hairbrush to get ready, but also because I need the time to decide what I'm packing, and there could also be a change of duty which messes up plans very quickly. I'm also currently suffering from mild insomnia, and have found packing for standby a constructive way to pass the time, thus explaining why everything is in nice neat piles. Tis a rarity I tell you.

Stalls just outside the Old Synagogue in Josefov, which in my opinion had probably the most unique souveniers in all of Prague. No Bohemian Crystal to be seen at all.

Now I should mention at this point, that the cruise we went on included a trip to the island, whale watching and dolphin feeding. The trip from the Brisbane jetty to Tangalooma was fine, however when we started on the whale watching trip we hit open water and it was quite rocky. Mohommed had mentioned before that he got seasick, but as it turned out I was the one curled up on the bottom deck in the fetal position feeling like crap. So the following pics are what I could get from inside the cabin, which is a pretty good effort considering.

There were quite a few whales spotted, as well as a dugong, sea turtle and dolphins. Shame I couldn't enjoy it that much.

Back on ground (thank goodness), for all the non-aussies, this is a Kookaburra. Their call being quite prominent around sunset.

And at the end of a long day, we had a very cold (outside temperature was apparently 10 degrees Celcius) swim with the dolphins. Mohommed chickened out though, choosing to stay on the jetty eating a hot dog.

So more posts to follow soon, in the meantime check out this interview on Airboy's site for his ITV series :-) Never really thought I would be interesting enough to be interviewed, nonetheless the design of the site alone is worth clicking the link. Enjoy!