Thursday, May 31, 2007

6/1/2007 – 2:00 PM Local Time – Singapore, Singapore

OK, I am officially tired, very tired. I figure I have to figure out how to stay awake until say 9 PM tonight, so that is 6-7 hours. Enough whining, it isn’t that productive! Well, it took 30 hours of travel, but I am here at my first destination (albeit it a short say here). I am here for less than 24 hours before flying out to China. The EVA flight was very nice, as it was on the main flight. They really fed us to much food, and I think that is causing some of my icky feeling right now. I lucked out and was able to watch the end of that movie I mentioned before, as well as Wild Hogs and part of a movie about Richard H?, brain is so fried that I can’t even remember the name or who it was, but it was about a guy that was spying for the Russians… it was a bit slow, but I think it was about to pick up as we had to land. I went ahead and shared a taxi with a guy that I rode all the way from Houston with who worked for Weatherford. Pretty nice guy, I have to send him a picture I took of him in Taipei. The taxi ride was good, if not a bit long for my taste, I was really starting to feel a bit quezzy by the end of the trip to the hotel! So here I am, I got cleaned up, changed my clothes and am sitting here watching some TV. I think I will probably make life simple and go to Outback for dinner since it is right next to the hotel. It is raining now, so I think I am going to stay in, at least for the time being. So, in summary… It is a long way here, but it has been a good trip so far… Until later! BriDog


PS. Some pictures from the hotel of the view (during the rain) for your viewing pleasure... probalby will have better Singapore pictures later in the trip!





6/1/2007 – 6:15 AM Local Time – Taipei, Taiwan ROC

Well, I made it to Taipei, and am awaiting my flight to Singapore in about 1 hour. The flight from Houston to LA was OK, but nothing special. I would have expected more from First Class in the US, but it was not very good at all. The seats were bigger and more leg room, so that was nice, but they didn’t even feed us, which was not a good thing, because like a silly boy, I didn’t eat before getting on the plane, so I was starving on the way over. The transfer to EVA in LA was a little bit of a challenge. We had to get out of the terminal that we were in (which was all United and a little Continental) and then hunt around to find the International Terminal. It was a bit of a challenge, but after about a ten min walk we made it to the terminal. I guess part of a low cost airline is not having a nice terminal, and in LA it was not all that nice! But the plane was great! I would say that it was the new one that I saw on the internet, thus it must have been put in service only 2 weeks earlier. It even smelled new! The crew was nice, the food was pretty good, the blankets were better than any other ones that I have had on an airline. The entertainment was pretty good (even had touch screens!) but was a bit light on entertainment geared to us Yankees. Dinner consisted of a Ham and Gorgonzola cheese starter, followed by a beef tenderloin and fruit for a dessert. It was pretty good. After dinner I got about 5 hours of sleep, so that was pretty good. Woke up and watched Norbit (Eddie Murphy flick) which was cheesy but pretty good, and then I watched Letters from Iwo Jima. It was really good, and made me think about how silly war is… at least in some circumstances. I had a snack of noodles, which were so spicy that they really burnt my mouth,… I guess the flight attendant noticed and took pity on me and got me a nice toasted cheese and ham sandwich, which was good. I played some games, watched about ¾ of a foreign language film called Happy Birthday, I am a little disappointed I didn’t get to finish the film! Maybe it will be on there when I come back. Oh well… I better get ready to go get on the plane, this one is about 4-4.5 hours flight, should be in there by noon, so that will be good. Until then… BriDog


Here is proof I was there... at least some level of proof!


5/30/07 - 3:30 PM Local Time – Tulsa Oklahoma, USA

OK so I didn’t do such a hot job of documenting my travels last time. It is kind of a shame, because looking back on the notes I made, I remembered adventures I had made, fun that I had, and all the other niceties that came with a trip half way around the world. Well, here I am, once again, one the verge of another trip to that part of the world. This time alone. Since I last left you, I have traveled abroad to Europe, on a trip to Aberdeen Scottland and Stavanger Norway. That was a fun trip, again with the above mentioned supervisor, Dan. This time, however, I have decided that I am ready to venture out on my own, make a trip half way around the world by myself. Boy, I don’t know what I have gotten myself into! I think the more you make these flights the easier it becomes. In fact, although I am a bit nervious that my nicest clothes are going to be somewhere in the belly of an aircraft, out of my control for the next, oh 31 hours making me nervious, I am feeling pretty calm. Next step is Houston, only a 1.5 hour flight, so that is not too bad, then it is a hop to LAX before heading on. I am going to endeavor to write more this time, maybe even set up a blog site and post it to myspace to see if anybody looks… hey is anybody looking? But either way, I am already missing home but looking forward to an adventure… Until later… BriDog

The Bonus Post, October 2006 Asia Trip (Only blog I did!)

Well it has been an interesting day or two, or who knows! Let me explain. Somehow I have found myself down south. Way down south… in Australia. I am down here with my supervisor to give some training in Darwin, Northern Territory. Other than the formalities of how I actually ended up going to Asia/Pacific, I thought I would write of the journey itself, and maybe a few observations along the way. My trip started out in Tulsa, although my day had been a whirl-wind of packing and worrying, making sure everything was right… I can’t say that I am usually nervous about such things, but this one seemed a bit different… I made it there in plenty of time, and the flight to Dallas was uneventful. In Dallas, I was stuck with the fact that I was in a middle seat for the 3 ½ hour flight to Los Angles. Probably not a big deal for the normal human, but I am, well for lack of a better term, somewhat super-sized! Anyway, to make a long story short, I waited around until the end, got a exit row at the front of the aircraft, and had a nice, and roomy flight to LA. They showed CBS shows, some previews and such, an episode of How I Met Your Mother, which I quite enjoyed, and a Late Night with David Letterman segment on Dog Toupees. An interesting topic… do you think that dogs know if they are going bald, and do they need a hairpiece? I would guess not… but I am not a pet psychic! Anyway… we got to LA and ate at Chili’s… kind of the last meal in America thing, where I had an old fashioned Chicken Cesar Salad… hmm something wrong with that picture??? We ended up getting into the Qantas Club right before the flight, which was nice for a place to hang out for a few minutes, but it was most definitely highlighted by standing right over the 747-400 long reach plane I was about to spend the next 14 or so hours of my life on. Really it is quite amazing, the shear size of the machine is amazing, to think those things can get off the ground!!! So we boarded… the Qantas Club was my first taste of the business class life, but it was soon evident that the nice part about flying business is the space you are afforded. The seat was very big, with electronic controls. It had lumbar support, massage, and it, with the push of a button lie pretty much flat. They gave you a nice set of headphones to use, as well as a large TV of your own (OK maybe only 10”, but really by any standard that is pretty large!). The seats themselves were pretty comfy, but not the best things since sliced bread. They had menus for us to order dinner or breakfast from, so I chose some breakfast and we started off on our journey. Once we got flying, and they started up the on-demand video, I decided to watch the beginning of Poseidon, which I watched just through the ship getting flipped over by the rouge wave. I am pretty sure I switched to something else, but I soon was a sleep. Oh yeah, they provided a nice kit that had a mask, some socks, assorted toiletries, it was nice, and I used the mask to sleep… unfortunately, I am not sure what happened to it! It kind of smelled like peppermint! So I dozed off, and unfortunately I didn’t get as much sleep as I wanted… I think I got 5 or so hours, maybe a few less. I awoke somewhere over the pacific, south of Hawaii. I decided to watch some of the on-demand TV, and watched 5 episodes of the Office, which at first, I don’t think I liked so much, but with time, I grew to like. In fact, I think I need to rent some so I can see what happens to the group. The system (TV) broke at some point, so we were without for quite a while, but it did come back at some point. At one point, over the pacific, I opened the window to see lights. In fact there were several what looked like cities below. I don’t know where we were, but it was amazing to me to find civilization out in the middle of nowhere. The only real bummer on the flight was that I got hungry. I was supposed to be able to get a sandwich when I wanted, but I was to afraid of stepping over the sleeping person next to me to go find out, and when I did finally get out to go to the toilet, I didn’t even go forward to where I could get one because of the silly stay out signs!!! I am a wimp! About 6 am local time, we ate breakfast, it was pretty good… real china and all… and landed on time here in Sydney. Then I had my first experience with customs. Not bad per sea, but quite an ordeal. First get off and go through one checkpoint, to have them look at a form you filled out on the plane, then onto a second really, really, really long line to go through x-ray and quarantine, where they searched my bags due to the candy I brought for classes. It made it thorough, although I almost left my bag there!!! That would have been really bad!!! Then onto another re-check in for the flight to Darwin (which didn’t take off for more than 11 hours). Anyway, after catching a bus over to the other terminal, we found our way to the Qantas club again, where we caught a quick shower and after doing a bit of work, we hopped a train into the heart of Sydney. The train required a transfer and it was a bit confusing, but we made it downtown. Really a nice town, we stopped off and ate at a cafĂ© on the harbor. Not bad, but strange because they charged an extra 10% on Saturday and Sundays! After about an hour there, we strolled down to the Sydney Opera house. Pretty sweet digs… really it is to hard to put into words what it was like… Pretty amazing. We walked back around the harbor, stopping at the clean energy protest rally they were having.. That was amusing, and then walked down and got a gellato, which was pretty much exactly like having ice cream… We got a bit tired, so we decided to hop a train back and here I am, waiting for my flight. It is 4 pm here on Sat, and it is 11 pm at home on Friday.

Major observations:
1) It is a small world… I ended up being on the same row as a lady who was flying home to Australia, not all that amazing, but this was out of Tulsa! How strange is it to find somebody else going halfway around the world starting where you start! We ended up seeing her here in the Qantas club as she waited for her flight to Brisbane.
2) Australia is not that much different from America. In fact, other than the funny looking money, the driving on the wrong side of the road and strange power plugs, I might just think I am in someplace like San Fransisco. Not that it is a bad thing, but it is interesting how I never thought (although it makes sense, seeing as how we are both English castoffs!!) how similar two worlds as far apart as we are can be. I am enjoying myself here, but I am really looking forward to seeing the difference being in a country where English is not the main language is like!
3) I am pretty tired…

Well, enough about me, I really rambled, but I wanted to capture some of this so I might remember and I can share.

Until later…

OK, So I always said I wanted to but...

I never have taken the time to actually blog... well I have decided to change that, so at least for this trip, I am going to blog... it maybe boring, it maybe interesting, it probably will be poor English, but after seeing what I started the last time I went to Asia, I wish I had continued. So that being said, I now present the Not So Great Adventures of BriDog... and as a major bonus, I am including the work that I did after my last 14 hour flight (that time to Australia) as a starting point, then straight into my current adventures!