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Two more nights in Auckland

hotels, New Zealand, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Dec 042014

Fortunately, due to my late arrival the night before, I managed to sleep in a bit the next morning. After a bit of Starbucks to attempt to wake up my brain, I went for a bit of a stroll around Auckland. I was considering a haircut, but decided asking for a “little off the top” might be interpreted the wrong way at this place:

I was just in relaxation mode and wandered around the city just seeing what I might see. Found a delicious lasagna for lunch, and a new beer which Untappd informed me was the 500th unique beer I’ve tried. Hah!

It’s Christmas in Auckland!

After an afternoon of walking, and as the sun was setting, I found a place right by the cruise ship terminal serving craft beer samplers. Major props to them for a super creative holder!

It was getting really cold out at this point, and the wind was kicking up. Temp dropped to maybe 15C with a wind, and it was time to find some food and get in teh warms. I was craving Thai food after being away form home so long, and one of the highest recommended restaurants in Auckland on TripAdvisor was Thai, so I decided to go for it. Plus, it gave me another chance to figure out the busses. The inner loop bus served me well, and soon I was at Blue Elephant Thai, where the footprints on the ground led you down the alley to find it:

Delicious chicken satay starter:

Tasty penang duck curry…ordered mainly because I’ve never seen anyone offer duck before. It was quite tasty, but not really a traditional penang curry. Regardless, it was tasty.

I somehow resisted the mango and sticky rice for desert, because for the past week I’d been thinking of the delicious gelato I’d had previously at Giapo. Headed back there after thai for a little dessert before bed, and once again wasn’t disappointed. One of the flavours was “Hokey Pokey” which they described as the “national flavour of New Zealand.” It was vanilla ice cream with honeycomb toffee in it, and in true Giapo fashion they topped it off with some caramel piping, crumbled chocolate cookies, and some more honeycomb crisps. Absolutely amazing.

It was a reasonable walk from Giapo back to my hotel, and as I approached the hotel there were police everywhere, and swarms of people. Clearly something was up. The closer I got, the thicker the police and people got:

Noting all the Chinese flag, and that most of the people looked Chinese, I asked one of the police what was up. “We have a VIP guest.” Based on the level of security, my DC-radar told me it could only be a head of state, and most likely President Xi was about to show up at my hotel.

The strange thing was, the police could have cared less about my keycard, and anyone could walk into the hotel without showing ID. I’m not sure what the point of hundreds of police was if they weren’t checking people going into the hotel, but there you have it.

When I got up to my room, checked the news online, and confirmed that President Xi was indeed arriving in Auckland that evening and it appeared likely he was staying in my hotel. That would explain the unexpected upgrade…most likely he didn’t want to be in a corner room with so many exposed windows.

Crashed the minute my head hit the pillow…it was going to be an early morning flight to Tokyo!

Two nights in Auckland

hotels, New Zealand, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Nov 252014

Immigration was a piece of cake, and headed outside to look for the bus into the city. First impression: it’s COLD in Auckland. Granted, they were going through a bit of a cold snap, but coming from Brisbane where it was 30-33 degrees to Auckland where the high was 10 degrees and windy…I pretty much froze. Bus was really easy to figure out, the agent selling tickets was very helpful explaining the stops, etc, and about 45 minutes later we were at the last stop which was near my hotel.

I’d booked the Hilton Auckland with points for the one night I was there. I wasn’t thrilled with the location all the way down on the harbour, but for nice and free I wasn’t going to complain. When I had to shuffle things around due to the Fiji and Solomon Islands trade war, I ended up with a second night in Auckland. There was a problem, however. 90% of hotels were completely sold out (including the Hilton) and the other 10% were only selling rooms at last-minute prices of $400+. Ouch.

When I checked in, I mentioned my predicament to the agent (I still didn’t have a room for the second night at this point) and she said she’d see what she could do. About 15 minutes after I got to my room. She’d spoken to the GM, and they did have one room free for the second night. Since I was a Hilton Diamond member, the GM was willing to make me an offer. I’d pay full price for a standard room (ouch) but would get a room which had “just become available due to a change in plans from a VIP guest in town for a concert.” It was the largest suite in the hotel, and he assured me I would be thrilled with it. I bit the bullet. It avoided moving my bags, and I couldn’t resist.

Later that day, I found out the VIP in town was none other than Mariah Carey. Hah, I wonder if it was her room I was getting, or someone else’s.

By this point it was early evening, and since the hotel didn’t have an executive lounge, they gave me two vouchers good for drinks at the lobby bar. It was a nice social environment, and I got to try Mac’s Black beer. Rather tasty stuff! After my recent Brisbane public transport successes, I bought a transport card for Auckland and headed out to brave the busses. I was headed to SPQR for dinner, which I’d been to many years prior in my first visit to Auckland. It was tasty as I’d remembered, although also a bit more pretentious than I remembered from the previous visit. My waiter was an Italian, and the table next to me was Italian tourists, and he seemed far more interested in chatting with them than paying any attention to me. When I asked for a wine recommendation he instantly recommended the most expensive by-the-glass on the menu, which was definitely tasty, but always leaves a bad impression that they’re recommending based on price.

Decided to walk the 2.5 km back to my hotel since it was a nice evening:

Great view looking back at the city from in front of the Hilton:

Slept nearly 10 hours which felt absolutely wonderful, and then headed out to find caffeine. Starbucks. Predictable caffeine. Just one small problem…it was drizzling.

Great, so now in addiction to being windy and cold, it’s wet. About 500m into the walk, the skies opened up…and then I was saved. A company was handing out FREE umbrellas as advertisement! Can’t be a cheap promotion, but it was awesome!

Two nights in Vanuatu and diving with Big Blue

hotels, Restaurants, Scuba, South Pacific Tour 2014, Vanuatu 1 Response »

Nov 192014

By the time I finally got to my hotel, it was after 8pm already, and I was tired from a long day. Managed to resist ordering room service, and fortunately there was a “sports bar” across the street that TripAdvisor said served reasonable pizzas. They also had their own craft beer, which was surprisingly good:

The upside of having two nights in Vanuatu is it meant another country I’d get the opportunity to dive in…however, that meant getting up early. Based on online reviews I paid a little extra for a “panorama view room” and it was well worth it in the morning to have a 270 degree+ view of the harbour. The Grand Hotel and Casino was well-located, and a good choice. Comfortable, cool, and clean, my three basic requirements as well as a decent location:

…and THIS is how you get ants:

Since I had the whole day and wasn’t flying until later the following day, I had the whole day to go diving. I chose Big Blue since they appeared to be the largest operator in Port Vila, and were willing to do a hotel pick-up. They changed the plan the day before, and said they’d send a boat to pick me up at the jetty next to my hotel. Cool! It was about 15 minutes late, but hey, island time!

First two dives were wreck dives, the first being the deepest dive I’ve ever done going straight down to 140 feet before gradually swimming up the wreck:

It’s dark down at 140 feet…

Daytrip to Funafuti for lunch on Air Fiji…maybe!

Airports, Fiji, Flights, hotels, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014, Tuvalu 1 Response »

Nov 172014

Up nice and early once again, for what was becoming the all-too-familiar routine of flying to Suva in order to catch the flight to Funafuti. No drama with the taxi, and left my bags in the room at the Sheraton since it was just going to be a day trip.

Got to Nadi, and chatted with the counter agent. Yes, he had my reservation, and yes, I was on the 8:45 flight to Funafuti. However, he was “unable” to see what time they had scheduled the second return flight for, so I had no idea how many hours I’d get to spend in Tuvalu. Anyways, I’d come all this distance, I was going to get there!

Fiji Airways Flight 7
Nadi, Fiji (NAN) to Suva, Fiji (SUV)
Depart 7:30, Arrive 8:00, Flight Time 30 minutes
Aerospatiale ATR 42-500, Registration DQ-PSB Manufactured 1997, Seat 6F

Another packed flight to Suva, but right on time, and actually arrived a few minutes before schedule. No checked bags, so went straight out into arrivals and found the Air Fiji check-in desk to check in for the continuation to Funafuti.

Well…that’s funny…why is there nobody at the check in counter 45 minutes before the flight?

After a few minutes, an agent came out, and said…”oh, didn’t anybody call you? The flight has been delayed until 4pm today.” Um no, wait, surely there must be a misunderstanding. I’m on the first flight this morning, and I’ll be taking the later flight back. “Oh there is only one flight today. They combined both flights onto a bigger ATR-72 and it will be going at 4pm this afternoon.”

YOU. MUST. BE. KIDDING.

After all the times I called, all the assurances I’d received, nobody bothered to contact me and tell me the plans had changed. On top of assurances there would be two flights, on top of things seeming fine at check-in in Nadi, they had made this decision the night before. So many opportunities to let me know. But no, they had to fly me back to Suva first, and then tell me. Amazing. Well, it looked like I would have a 60 minute turnaround in Funafuti anyways, and the airport is so small that there was a good chance I could get my passport stamp, leave the airport for 15 minutes and see a bit of the town, then turn right around.

The other good news, is the ATR-72 would then come back and do the last Suva-Nadi flight late at night, so I could even get back to Nadi around midnight. Ugh. I guess it’s worth it.

Well, while you wait eight hours for your flight, may we provide you the Suva Special Delayed Passenger meal of chocolate cake and Diet Coke?

After an hour of sitting and eating cake, decided to head up to the counter. With an 8 hour delay I figured they might spring for a hotel or something for me to rest at for a few hours. Got to the counter, where a group of Chinese tourists were entertaining themselves by stepping on the scale and seeing who weight more than their baggage. They were hugely entertained by this for some reason.

Got to the counter to ask about a hotel. “Oh, there is some more news. The ATR pilots will not be rested enough, so will not be flying back to Nadi tonight. But don’t worry, whenever you land we will arrange a shared bus back to Nadi.” Um, what time are we expected back in Suva? “Around 11pm, maybe 11:30.” Isn’t it three hours back to Nadi? “Maybe 10 minutes less at that hour. So you’re telling me I get to wait here another 7 hours, you won’t pay for a hotel, then I get to fly to Tuvalu for a 15 minute stop, come back here, take the bus, and if I’m lucky I’ll be in bed by 3:30am when I just got up at 5am.

As I looked down to ponder my fate, the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen scurried by. I’d place it at around 4.5-5 cm in length. It summed up my feelings towards Fiji Airways perfectly at this point:

Needless to say, I cut my losses. The Fiji-Tuvalu ticket alone was nearly $1000 (there are no through fares available) and it just felt like a waste. Purchased in advance it’s about $650, and who knows if I start planning another attempt a year out maybe I can even get it with miles.

I decided to say to hell with it, and head back to Nadi after being promised despite two Nadi-Suva roundtrips I would get a full refund.

Fiji Airways Flight 10
Suva, Fiji (SUV) to Nadi, Fiji (NAN)
Depart 10:50, Arrive 11:20, Flight Time 30 minutes
Aerospatiale ATR 42-500, Registration DQ-PSB Manufactured 1997, Seat 11F

I paged through the Fiji Airways magazine. The President of Fiji Link had a very nice article about how their new ATR would improve things including reliability. PSYCH! JUST KIDDING. Shaenaz will be getting a letter from me, telling me her staff are crazy friendly and do their best to help despite being given nothing to work with. They also need a huge course in communication. Maybe I’ll offer some consulting services in exchange for a trip to Tuvalu…

Back to Nadi, where I went straight to the Fiji Airways ticketing office, and after about 30 minutes they had processed a full refund. Of course, there’s no sign of it on my credit card yet, but I have a refund number and a promise. I mean, Fiji Airways always keeps its promises so I have absolutely no doubt things will be just peachy…

Decided to cab it straight from the airport to Denarau Port, and grab lunch. At least I had a relaxing afternoon, and weather was great:

Lunch was followed up by pool time, and another gorgeous Fiji sunset. One note to anyone booking SPG stays in Fiji: the views of sunset from the Westin are meh, but the Sheraton’s pool area has amazing sunsets:

Another unexpected bonus was another dinner in Fiji. The incredibly friendly waitress at Chime Bar at the Sheraton shared with me a great Fijian restaurant at the Port, so I headed to Nandina Fijian to give it a try for dinner. How can a restaurant with a drink called the “Baby Maker’ be bad? It’s almost as promising as the “Naughty and Pregnant” I had in St Kitts this summer.

Starter of Kokoda, a kind of FIjian ceviche of raw fish in coconut broth. It was absolutely amazing:

Since I’ve bored everyone with a thousand sunsets, here’s a moonrise during dinner:

Main course of octopus in a coconut curry broth. Absolutely amazing, with huge amounts of octopus:

Trio of deserts, bananas in fijian rum, a chocolate cake, and vanilla ice cream. How could you go wrong!

Up early the next morning to catch the flight to Vanuatu. Wait, Vanuatu? Why am I going to Vanuatu? I’ve already been there…I’m supposed to be going to the Solomon Islands.

Stay tuned for Chapter Three in the continuing saga of AIR MESS aka AIR MAYBE aka Air Pacific aka Air Pathetic aka Fiji Airways!

Walking to the check-out area, one last Fiji beach shot. The beach chapel at the Sheraton:

Off to Nadi Airport!

Two bonus nights in Nadi

Fiji, hotels, Restaurants, Scuba, South Pacific Tour 2014 2 Responses »

Nov 152014

In order to boost my stay count with Starwood, I used my iPhone to book the two unexpected nights in Fiji one at the Westin and the second back at the Sheraton again. The properties are right next door to each other, so figured I would compare them. Caught a taxi to the Westin, where the bellman was nice enough to drive me over to the Sheraton to retrieve my bag of scuba gear I’d left there, and then checked in.

They were rather reluctant to upgrade, and offered an ocean-view or such standard room at first…but only with two double beds. I pushed a little harder, and the agent agreed to go consult her manager. I reminded her it was just one night, and I was staying to compare them to the Sheraton. I thought maybe a bit of friendly competition might help. Well..ended up with a “one time only” upgrade to a royal suite, which I guess isn’t usually available in the standard upgrade pool. Took the buggy to the room with my bags, and the buggy driver mentioned to me that both John Travolta and Mel Gibson had stayed in. SCORE!

Living area:

Overnight on Tarawa, Kiribati

hotels, Kiribati, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 6 Responses »

Nov 122014

My driver from Mary’s Motel showed up, and the car had ice cold air conditioning, which was nice giving the blazing mid-day sun in Kiribati. There is basically one road on Tarawa Atoll, and it runs the length of the atoll. It’s dozens of miles long, but the Atoll is maybe 500 meters wide at its widest point:

Kiribati is also, according to some sources I read online before the trip, the least visited country in the world. I wasn’t expecting anything to see/do, more just to walk around and take in how life goes on here.

My hotel was in Bairiki which is the country’s administrative centre, and you can see it’s a bit of a drive from the airport. It took almost an hour, and during the drive I got a lot of insight into the country from my driver. One cool fact is that the road is under construction (it was badly potholed, etc) and that should significantly improve travel options on the atoll. Was also cool to see several large signs from my employer as one of the key financiers of the new road. Hopefully it helps things!

At Mary’s, I played the usual (by now) South Pacific game of musical rooms until I found one that had reasonably functional air conditioning. Finally settled on this room:

Pretty swanky, no? It was clean, cool, and reasonably comfortable, and came with a few bonus creepy crawlies here and there, and a few lizards that I occasionally saw crawling on the walls. The towel origami made up for it though:

View from the room into the parking lot:

The “beach” just outside the motel:

Here you can see the one road, and just how narrow the atoll is in many places:

Nicer beach on the other side:

The hotel driver offered to take me on a bit of a drive down around the Atoll, and we drove around for about 90 minutes before heading back. Unfortunately my phone was dead at this point, so didn’t manage to get any pictures. It was interesting to see how even in the most populous part of Kiribati life was still so rural and quiet. Many of the locals had pigs tied up in their yard, and the pigs were eating/drinking out of what appeared to be old coconut shells. There just wasn’t much going on, but that appears to be the pace of life in Kiribati.

After resting, I decided to go for a bit of a walk. I walked about an hour down the atoll towards the airport just seeing sites until I got way too hot. The “aministrative centre” of the entire country. Not a very busy place:

Air Kiribati advertisement. They’re currently out of business (I believe) and most of these routes are now being operated by Fiji Airways (God help them – oops – foreshadowing) or Our Airline aka Nauru Airlines:

Sunset just outside Mary’s. Love the vivid orange and red colours:

Overnight in Nauru

Airports, hotels, Nauru, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 6 Responses »

Nov 092014

After clearing immigration I went outside and looked for hotel transport, which was nowhere to be found. I’d emailed them my flight details and they said the hotel transport would be there, but 30 minutes later nothing…and most people from the flight were gone by this point. After 45 minutes, I gave up. There were no taxis at all (supposedly Nauru has a taxi or two in the country, but nobody seemed to know how/where to locate them) so I started asking baggage handlers/etc around the airport if there was a way to call the hotel. One of the flight attendants from my flight had her cell phone, and rang the hotel. They said they’d send their van shortly.

The van arrived around 15 minutes later, about an hour after we landed, and soon we were off to the Menen hotel. It was an old minivan, and the side door of the van didn’t close. Oh life in the tropics!

Got to the hotel, and they seemed completely uninterested in checking me in. The guy at reception was busy watching the small tv in the lobby with his friends, and clearly the Chicago Bulls took priority over helping me. Finally checked in, got my key, and up to my room…where the AC barely worked. As anyone who knows me knows, aircon is a requirement, so I went down to the front desk to check into getting another room. “No” was the simple answer. No you don’t have any other rooms, no you refuse to give me one, or no you can’t be bothered to look?

I was persistent, and eventually he sighed and gave me the key to another room. The AC in this room worked rather a bit better, and it looked like it would work for the night. View from the room:

Spartan, but functional room:

Ocean view from just outside the hotel:

I had considered walking around the island since it was approximately a 20 km walk around the entire country, but it was hot. Really hot. It was almost nearly 4pm by this point so it would be dark way before I’d get around the island. Remember what I said about taxis? Uninterested front desk guy was pretty sure I couldn’t find a taxi to hire for a couple hours to drive me around the island. I kept pressing him. Surely something was possible. I came all this way to see Nauru, and it would be a real shame not to be able to see anything. Finally, he told me “the hotel driver will take you in the van. You can work out details with him.” I decided not to ask, and soon we were off.

Driving out of the hotel on the one road around the island:

Melbourne to Brisbane in Qantas business, overnight in Brisbane

Airports, Australia, Business Class, Flights, hotels, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 2 Responses »

Nov 062014

I’d intentionally booked a midday flight so I could sleep in a bit, so made my way to the airport nice and leisurely. There were some incredibly classy tourists sharing the airport bus with me today:

Check-in…well it was fun! From what I could tell there were absolutely no Qantas agents working behind counters in Melbourne, they had the whole process entirely automated. Checked in at the kiosk which I was used to, but then the kiosk also spit out my bagtags…which it then gave me instructions how to put them on my own bags. Whee, my chance to play airline employee! Then, it was off to the scales in front of the baggage belt, where you scanned your boarding pass, weighed your bags one at a time, and threw them on the belt. In fairness, there were quite a few Qantas employees hovering around being very helpful if you couldn’t figure it out, but I was mainly puzzled just because I’d never seen the whole process so automated!

Next stop, Qantas lounge, for a proper breakfast since all I’d had earlier was coffee. First mission: try the automatic pancake machine! Not bad, not bad at all!

Still a little bit hungry I decided to try the sandwich press too, taking some extra ham and cheese from the buffet to make a nice gooey sandwich. Yum! I wish US airlines could take a page from this playbook…but then again classy US passengers would probably bring doggy bags and treat it as the typical “get my money’s worth” opportunity. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS!

Boarding right on time, and a completely full flight up to Brisbane today.

Qantas flight 616
Melbourne, Australia (MEL) to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)
Depart 12:05, Arrive 13:15, Flight Time 2:10
Boeing 737-800, Registration VH-VYD, Manufactured 2005, Seat 3C

There was a choice of some sort of salad, or a tuna melt. Yes, seriously, a tuna melt on a plane. I had to have it just for the novelty. It was actually pretty good. The tomatoes were marinated in balsamic before grilling and were actually super tasty.

Landed in Brisbane a few minutes ahead of schedule, and took the airport train downtown to the central station. Few block walk to my hotel, the Four Points. Upgraded (I guess you can call it that, they did) to a top floor room with a nice view of the city. One of the more modern Four Points I’ve ever stayed in, and almost felt more like an Aloft. I was in a rush, because I wanted to get to the Lone Tree Koala Sanctuary before it closed at 5pm.

Only option to save time was to take a taxi out there, which was $50. Ouch.

Cool lizard greeting me at the entrance:

Two nights in Melbourne

Attractions, Australia, hotels, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Nov 052014

It was getting pretty late by the time I got to the Sheraton, but check-in was quick. I got a small studio suite as an upgrade, and the staff at the front desk was extremely genuine and welcoming. The room was also very nice, and overall for a Sheraton I was extremely impressed.

It was after 9pm at this point, but I wasn’t quite ready for bed, so I asked the concierge if he could recommend somewhere good and local to get a glass or two of wine and some tapas. He was very passionate about his job, and said there was a great little wine bar and bottle shop just down the street called the Melbourne City Wine Shop. It was excellent, and I had a couple of very good glasses of wine and a small cheese plate and called it a night.

After a good solid sleep got up and went wandering for a coffee. I’d been warned that it was sacrilegious to drinks Starbucks in Melbourne since it had so many delicious local coffeeshops, so I picked the first one that looked good and gave it a good. The coffee exchange was delicious, and I got a fantastic cup of Seven Seeds filter coffee and had “The Hipster” for breakfast. I’ll admit I ordered it for the name, but when I saw it had haloumi cheese too I was sold.

After breakfast I headed out for a good long walk to see the city centre. First stop was Federation Square:

Flinders Street Station:

Darwin to Cairns (via Brisbane) in Qantas business, overnight in Cairns

Airports, Australia, Business Class, Flights, hotels, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Oct 312014

Got to the airport in no time and check-in was quick and easy. No line at all at security, and was in the Qantas lounge less than 10 minutes after arriving at the airport. Darwin airport is tiny with only five gates, so it had a surprisingly large and crowded lounge. The new lounge had just opened about a week before, so it was the perfect time to visit!

Mmmm potato wedges with sweet chili sauce:

Around 11:45, people starting queuing at the bar. No drinks until noon, and everyone wanted to be there the second it opened. It was like vultures descending on a carcass. So, when in Rome…a James Squire One Fifty Lashes…surprisingly decent:

OMG there was a PANCAKE MACHINE! This will come in handy one of these trips…

Boarding right on time, and since the airport had all of five gates it wasn’t too hard to find!

Qantas flight 825
Darwin, Australia (DRW) to Brisbane, Australia (BNE)
Depart 12:45, Arrive 17:10, Flight Time 3:25
Boeing 767-300, Registration VH-OGI, Manufactured 1991, Seat 5K

Looks like an empty flight today! I remember when we used to call the United domestic 767s the “ghetto bird.” Looks like Qantas is taking a page from that playbook…

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