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Plane bad behaviour? Nappy changing and other things

In the title of my last post, I hinted at something to do with a nappy (that’s British for diaper in case you are American). Because the post contained pictures of food, I didn’t think it appropriate to elaborate on nappy matters there. But now the time has come. The nappy incident occurred after the first meal service on my SAS flight from Hong Kong to Stockholm. Sitting behind me in a single seat was a man who spent most of the flight sleeping and passing wind unashamedly loudly. Culture difference, maybe? So when a rather pungent smell (to put it politely) wafted through the cabin after the main meal service, I assumed it was connected to his melodious flatulence. But the smell lingered. In the middle seats, there was young couple with a small child, maybe about four years old. Throughout the flight, she had demanded and they had obeyed. What she was demanding I have no idea due to language differences, but I could guess from the tone of what she was saying that there was a seriou
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Changing a nappy on SAS

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Route: Hong Kong - Stockholm Airline: SAS Date of departure: 17th July 2018 Aircraft: Airbus A330-343 Flight duration: 10 hours 43 minutes Flight distance: 8,220 km Route: Stockholm - Oslo Airline: SAS Date of departure: 7th July 2018 Aircraft: Airbus A320 Flight duration: 40 minutes Flight distance: 386 km Total distance flown this trip: 40,342 km SAS sent me a text message in the middle of the night before I flew home to advise me that the incoming flight to Hong Kong was late and that the departure time of my flight would now be 11 am, a delay of 1 hour and 40 minutes. All passengers were still expected to check-in at the normal time. By the time I read the text message, I had got up and showered and was ready to wander over to the airport anyway. So it meant a bit of a longer wait air-side than expected. The business class check-in was quite busy by the time I got to the terminal, so I had to wait about 20 minutes before I got to the check-in desk. My check-in pro
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Auto spell-check nigtmare

A short explanation: while I have been away, I have been writing my blog on an Asus tablet. The default setting on the spell-check is Norwegian Bokmål, but it is supposed to recognise when I am writing in English and switch to a British-English spell-check. Which it hasn't been doing. I have read through the posts before I published them, and have corrected what I have seen, but the corrections haven’t been saved. So a lot of the posts have had rather a lot of spelling errors. One of the funniest ones was the auto-correct to “anti-gay” which I mentioned in a post two days ago. Another one which has been driving me up the wall is that the spell-checker insists I want to type “I” every time I type “in”. So I will be re-checking the posts in the next few days. In the meantime, apologies on behalf of  my spell-checker who thinks it can predict what I am about to write and changes things accordingly ……
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90s interiors and a revisit to the Regal

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Route: Bangkok - Hong Kong Airline: Thai Airways Date of departure: 16th July 2018 Aircraft: A330-300 Flight duration: 2 hours 27 minutes Flight distance: 1,688 km  Total distance flown so far this trip: 31,736 km Once again, a bit put off by reviews of Thai Airway's own lounges at their main base Bangkok, I took advantage of my Star Alliance diamond card and used the Singapore Airlines lounge instead. No regrets here, except that the food they had out was far too good so I sat and tried basically everything. I held off on the white wine until the big hand was on the six and the little hand between the 12 and one. That seemed respectable enough to me. The lounge had no more than 20 people in it at the most, and then suddenly they all disappeared leaving me and a Singaporean who was negotiating a business deal on a mobile with a bad connection. I blame my retreat to the white wine bottle on him. Lunchtime snacks in Singapore Airlines lounge We boarded on time and pus
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Yes to No-votel

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Rather than flying directly on from Bangkok to Hong Kong, which would have made for a late arrival, I broke the journey in Bangkok and booked a room at the only hotel directly linked to the airport, the Novotel. Having gone through  Bangkok Airport at high speed, the question was where was the hotel. I had read online that there is a shuttle bus every 10 minutes, or alternatively the hotel is accessible through a tunnel. It was unfortunately not signed from the arrivals level, but instinct/common sense told me to head down into the bunny warrens below the ground floor. And voila, on arrival at the basement level, the direction to the hotel was suddenly signed. And very easy to find. Basically straight ahead, one left turn past the train station, straight ahead again, up an escalator. 10 minutes at pensioner pace. 15 for those meandering with their faces glued to their mobile phones and blocking everyone else's way in the process. The Novotel, like many airport hotels, is large, a
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Isn't Waldorf a type of salad?

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Question: When is a salad not a salad? Simple answer: When it's a hotel chain, or more correctly a "serviced apartment" chain. I rather like the idea of a serviced apartment when travelling alone. It gives you the freedom to not go out to eat if you can't be bothered, and at the same time allows you to do it. As most serviced apartments aren't serviced every day (every three days in the case of where I was staying), it also takes away the guilt if you sleep in a bit late, as you don't have to worry about housekeeping hammering at your door and yelling "housekeeping!!!!!". Waldorf is a chain of serviced apartments which has locations in New Zealand and Australia, a bit like Quest which I reviewed in an earlier post. They are also in the 4 to 4.5 star range and have similar pricing. I discovered the Waldorf chain last year when I stayed at what I believe is their largest property in Auckland, the Waldorf Studium. This year my plan was originally to
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