Disclaimer: TPOL was compensated for providing a referral link for Jurlique, my favorite lip balm.
The Cathay Pacific HKG JNB Flight Review is part of the Trip Report: The $77,000 Trip Heard Round the World which covers 5 Continents, 13 Countries, and 17 Cities.
Find the nerdy planning here. Find the picture preview here.
Can you tell me how to get, how to get to South Africa? There’s the painful way, flying coach on Delta on one of the longest flights from ATL-JNB and then there’s the right way HKG-JNB. Crazy to think that this route along with fifteen other segments was included in the AA Explorer Award when today it would cost 50,000 AAdvantage Miles for a one way.
After the fun in Lan Kwai Fong, it was time to sit back and enjoy top-end service highlighted by a lie-flat bed, an extensive IFE selection, and flight attendants that simultaneously leave you alone to relax while catering to your every need. It was time for Cathay Pacific’s 777 service to Johannesburg.
The landing gear cam before takeoffThe amenities kit
The bag had a terrible zipper but inside was the best lip balm, Jurlique which retails for $30.
The Cathay Delight pre take-off drink. I’ll take one of each.The convenient IFE and seat controls. Recline right away.The Superdry in-flight duty free purchase
Find the nerdy planning here. Find the picture preview here.
Anthony Bourdain has his Layover Guide to Hong Kong and I have mine. With all due respect to Bourdain, his layover is actually a stopover as he stays in HKG for 48 hours. I had 6 hours to enjoy Hong Kong and did it in the best way possible: I went straight to Lan Kwai Fong, Hong Kong’s entertainment district.
“There’s more to Hong Kong than LKF,” every local will advise. While this is true, there’s no better place to spend a few hours before your next flight than LKF. Upon arriving to HKG in the good care of another Cathay flight, I could’ve relaxed in the magnificent Arrival Lounge as I did earlier in this round-the-world trip.
Instead, I purchased a round trip ticket on the Airport Express which is cheaper than a one way ticket only if you are returning to the airport the same day. The cost is 180 Hong Kong dollars or $23 USD. From there, I took the Airport Express to Hong Kong Station, walked to Central Station and exited at D2.
The trainOnly a few stops till LKFEn route to LKF, tempted by YOYO massage
There’s something going on in LKF regardless of when you visit. Of course, the best time to visit LKF is during Halloween when it plays host to the greatest block party of all time. Still, even on a Monday evening there were plenty of tourists, expats, and locals having a drink.
LKF By DayLKF by nightHalloweenTwins!Why is there GNC everywhere in the world?
The best part of LKF are the two 7-Elevens which have to be the highest grossing 7-Elevens in the world. They sell beer, liquor, and wine and provide bottle openers. Taking advantage of the nonexistent open container laws, the frugal traveler can enjoy libations without having to pay steep bar prices while staying in the mix of the action.
The Best 7-Eleven
For an expedited version of the 7-Eleven drinking game, I recommend making the loop around LKF over and over. Otherwise, if you do want to spend money, my favorite bar is the one located at the top of the hill to the left of the 7-Eleven. There you will find happy hour and Hoegaarden at a decent price. Skip the tourist trap Hard Rock but stop in at the Canadien bar for a Molson. Avoid overpriced Ebenezeer’s for a snack, though delicious, it is not The Best Kebab in the World.
The HoegaardenJust a tourist in LKFThe KegWhile great for a late night crave, there are much cheaper options for kebab nearby.
After a few drinks and after making a few new friends, don’t forget you have to make it back to the airport, clear immigration, and find your gate. Inebriated, that can be quite the process.
Luckily for me, I had a long flight to Johannesburg on Cathay up next to decompress. Everything was going according to schedule until I stumbled upon LKF express at HKG.
LKF ExpressWith Blue LabelFree samplesYour vision post LKF and LKF ExpressTime to go!
The Aloft Kuala Lumpur Sentral Review is part of the Trip Report: The $77,000 Trip Heard Round the World which covers 5 Continents, 13 Countries, and 17 Cities.
Located right across from the Sentral Train Station, getting to and from the airport is convenient. Situated in a high-rise, the Aloft KL is by far the nicest Aloft I have visited. Furthermore, at 2000 SPG points + 35, the price can’t be beat. The room was double the size of a typical Aloft but everything else was standard Aloft quality.
I’ll take the green one.Brand new Aloft as of December 2013The WXYZ Bar
Citi, Citi, Citi. Is there anything else to talk about? Airline Credit, 4th Night Free, HHonors issues have been topics filed under the category ‘complaining’.
A previous complaint and an ongoing joke with Citi is now being rectified. I know a few have already posted about this but I feel, given my struggles with the card, that I am entitled to say a few words about this latest development. Citi is updating the Citi Prestige and putting the magnetic strip on the back of the card where it rightfully belongs.
Someone in marketing probably thought they were clever by moving it to the front. This resulted in unnecessary awkwardness wherever I tried to use my card. At the grocery store, the cashier would swipe one way, swipe another way till I had to intervene and tell her the same line, “This card is stupid. The strip is on the front.” At restaurants, my card would be ‘declined’ because the server couldn’t get it to swipe. Even I had trouble at gas stations trying to orientate the card the right way before filling up.
Finally after reading my post Citi Prestige: Being Different Is Stupid, Citi has given up on its mission of revolutionizing the way that cards are swiped. It’s going back to the way things were: if you swipe it, it will charge.
I keep a running list of the banks, airlines, and points programs that have wronged me. There’s a permanent spot for Sprint on there because they are the worst company in the world. When I have the energy, I call in to get longstanding problems resolved. These include reversing incorrect fees, getting credit for nights stayed, and general complaining.
As I had written, Citi is on the list because I haven’t received my travel credit for the EgyptAir flight and because I hadn’t received my credit for the 4th night for using the Citi Prestige. Previously, I had chatted with an agent about the 4th night and they said I was ineligible. I was going to call in eventually until I saw this on my statement:
My 4th night had credited making the Hyatt Diamond Challenge a remarkable, discounted success. Did this show up because I eloquently wrote to the representative that she is incompetent and clueless? Or did my statement close and it was automatically triggered? The same situation happened with BOA and Alaska when they said I wasn’t eligible for the $100 statement credit but then it magically appeared.
I’m beginning to rethink my logic about people being smarter than computers. I’m 0/2 when I try chatting and 2/2 when I leave the crediting to the computer. Calling is still my favorite past time because I get to philosophize with the agent about how the situation should be resolved in my favor and why I deserve a courtesy credit for my time being wasted. My new pitch goes like this: “You get paid to deal with customer problems. I don’t get paid to call in, sit on hold, be transferred all over, for something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Who’s going to compensate me for my lost time?”
Having said that, your time is truly valuable. To that end, I recommend keeping a list of the sinners then waiting, waiting for a resolution, skip the chatting, and only calling in because it is absolutely necessary.
Should we just give up? A few days after promising no more MS talk, more great news, Giftcards.com max for Visa gift cards is now $250. So now another option is out the window. I can’t update my MS chronology fast enough to keep up with these changes.
My advice to all ye churners is to hit those mins now. There is no time to waste. I’m not saying this is the death of MS but what would you do if this was the end of the road?
And now a parting tribute to giftcards.com:
Although we’ve come to the end of the road Still I can’t let you go It’s unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you Come to the end of the road Still I can’t let you go It’s unnatural, you belong to me, I belong to you
Fourteen weeks of training is done for the Athens marathon and in order to keep myself honest and motivated, here’s my weekly diary of all things marathon.
Here’s what happened this week:
Another week of being unable to walk landed me in the orthopedist’s office where x-rays were taken.
He says there is nothing wrong with me except for the fact that I can’t walk.
So for months I’ve been dealing with a problem that was brought to my attention by a nice comment on one of my posts: “Your pics are horizontal when they should be vertical. It looks awful.”
They appear the right way on desktop and on Android devices but not on stupid iPhones. I thought I had fixed the problem and even tested it with you the audience. That day it worked but a quick audit of many of my posts has revealed that the problem was not fixed. Not a carrier of an iPhone, I had no idea that the problem persisted.
Indeed, post after post has pictures sittin’ sideways like Paul Wall rather than the proper orientation. The culprit for this misery is the EXIF file that not only steals your personal privacy but also affects the way the image is displayed.
I have not found a plug-in to erase the EXIF file for the thousands of photos that I have uploaded so I will have to go in post by post and re-upload the images. Hopefully, someone reading this will provide a more efficient solution. Otherwise, I care too much about the blog to let the sloppiness stand.
Going forward, I’m using Image Tuner to scale the image and the Image Rotation Fixer plug-in to do the formatting when I upload.
Stupid Apple. Stupid iOS.
Life is crooked with iOS but it’s showing up correct on my desktop.
Find the nerdy planning here. Find the picture preview here.
Guns or butter? Fight or food? This post contemplates what you should do on a trip to one of my favorite cities in the world, Saigon, Vietnam.
As a quick recap, my Trip Reports use the Guns And Butter framework to delineate a clear choice of where you should spend your time while visiting a new destination.
A trip is composed of two factors: Labor And Lazy
Anything on the line (Production Possibilities Frontier for my fellow economists) is an efficient use of your time depending on your tastes and preferences.
Anything inside the line is inefficient as should be avoided.
Anything outside is aspirational but may be impossible to do given the constraints of time and resources.
The opportunity cost (what is given up) for relaxing and being Lazy is gained by being adventurous in the form of Labor and vice versa.
In the present case, the choice is literally between guns and butter. Do I spend my time going to the Cu Chi Tunnels and shooting old Soviet guns or do I wander the streets lost searching for the best phở? The answer to this question depends on your appetite.
Crossing the Street
But before we get into what you should do, I have to discuss safety. The most labor intensive part of your trip will be crossing the chaotic streets of Saigon. Like a game of Frogger, it takes skill and confidence to get from one side to the other. The strategy is simple: walk at a normal pace in a straight line without stopping. The motorbikes will not hit you. If you panic and freeze then you’re putting your life at risk.
Morning CommuteEvening CommuteThe Dare Devil
Cu Chi Tunnels
Museums aren’t my cup of tea but live history is. The Cu Chi Tunnels are located outside of central Saigon and should not be missed. They are an intricate web of underground tunnels that were instrumental in fighting the American in the Vietnam War which is called the American War by the Vietnamese.
Part of the tour includes a presentation where the tour guide describes why it wasn’t difficult to fight the American forces. They had the American combat strategy mastered: The Americans would send their fighter jets and drop bomb after bomb. This would be followed by ground troops. In response, the Vietnamese would hide out in the tunnels trying to withstand the air raids. When the forces came they would engage them in the battlefield and lead them to the tunnels where the husky Americans could not enter. Those that did met their demise by way of medieval booby traps. Despite the Vietnamese’s technological limitations compared to the US, this was an innovative, effective strategy.
The Cu Chi TunnelsNew FriendsOld US HelicopterSoldiersThe StrategyThe Tunnel Entrance12345
After the tour, visitors have the option of shooting old AK-47s and M16s. This is probably worth skipping unless you’ve never done it before.
GunsNot butter
There is also a War Remnants Museum in central Saigon which has a collection of American Might that was shot down during the war. Inside, there are photographs of the devastation from the war.
War Remnants MuseumAmerican HelicopterPossibly a M110 Self-Propelled HowitzerKid does not look to be in a safe spot
Bargaining Market
The bargaining market is where you can find sunglasses, souvenirs, I Love Pho tee shirts, as well as beer and liquor for some day drinking. Don’t pay more than $2 for a tee-shirt and $2 for sunglasses (reference the guide for Bargaining Abroad). The sunglasses salesman will try to convince you that his glasses are better than those on the street. Even if they are, don’t pay more. They will come down on the price!
Liquid Courage Before ShoppingThe MarketBeersSpiritsA must buy
The Pho Tour
The Pho Tour is right in the middle of the Labor/Leisure part of the graph because it is a combination of both. Nothing is more relaxing than a savory bowl of pho but nothing is more exhausting than the after effects of said bowl. Here is a list of the best pho in Saigon.
Pho Pasteur, best pho in SaigonCafe Su Dah necessary stimulantBetter than Starbucks
Party Time
Somehow in Saigon partying is less labor intensive than shopping and site seeing. Here were the best places to party. Note that in the end you will end up at the tourist trap of Apocalypse Now.
Fuse
In Saigon, bars can’t stay open past midnight. The police show up at this time and everyone ‘hides’. The club turns off the music while the police does its inspection. Then the party is back on, sort of.
The StapleMartinis before the police
Lush
This place was nuts. There were bottle after bottle of liquor being drank, crazy light shows, and happy party goers. The Americans who ordered one bottle were put in the back corner near the wait station while the locals who bought a dozen bottles had comfortable booths.
One lonely bottleThe Crazy SceneForeigners in the back
Tourist Row Intersection: De Tham and Bui Vien streets
Every tourist will find his or her way to this corner at some point during the trip. Across from the Wild Buffalo Bar is another with cheap beers and a shady nightclub upstairs. Down the street there are even more bars with even cheaper drinks. It’s Saigon’s baby version of a Khaosan Road.
The SquidNot AppetizingThe tourist streetTourist Trap + Tourist BeerAfter party at Pho Pasteur
The Park Hyatt
After doing all that, it’s worth the points splurge to relax by the pool at the Park Hyatt Saigon.
Care for some trivia? Where is the largest stadium in the world?
If you guessed the Big House in Ann Arbor, Michigan you would be wrong. The largest is the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium in Pyongyang, North Korea with a capacity of 150,000. Second to the Supreme Leader’s place is the home of the Wolverines which has a capacity of 107,601. Any guesses why there’s an extra one? It’s in honor of Fritz Crisler, the director of athletics at the time the stadium surpassed the 100k mark.
If you’re a fan of sport, you definitely must visit the Big House not because it’s home to the greatest team in the history of college football but for the sheer spectacle of seeing a venue pack in more people than the population of many cities.
The must see games are Michigan vs. our little brother, Michigan State and the bitter Buckeyes of Ohio. From the outside the stadium is majestic. It is not uncommon to witness the clouds opening and the sun to shine down on the stadium, a clear indication that God is a fan of the maize and blue. From the inside, it’s either pandemonium or the quietest 100,000 people you’ve never heard. If you’re a neutral visitor looking to fit in, avoid wearing scarlet and gray and say Go Blue! no matter what.
Hail!
The Main EntranceDivine InterventionThe Big House RemodeledThe TraditionThe Triple OT Greatest Game I’ve SeenBig House by NightThe Victors ValiantThe Old Press BoxPre OSUThe RivalryThe Shirt Says It All
