Thursday, July 19, 2007
Sunday 17th June 2007 - Filipino hospitality :- unrivalled!
Mandaluyong street. Singapore airport
Sunday 17th June 2007
3am, we’re up and saying our final goodbyes to people we only met 24 hours previously but feel we’ve known for years. The hospitality we received was second to none and genuine and we truly appreciated it. At Ninoy Aquino International Airport we sit and wait for our flight details to appear on the board and when they do we begin queuing. However, Filipinos and other Asian races are not very good at a peculiarly British institution and so pockets of people start appearing in random places near the check-in. We check with the couple in front of us that they are queuing for the London flight to which they agree. However an Airport worker starts to organise everybody into a line for the Singapore flight and he informs us that this area of the “queue” is for Taiwan flight. So we go to the back of a rapidly lengthening queue! Then the check-in desks put up a new sign for E-Ticket holders to check-in. Result for us as we have e-tickets. So we queue and another check-in desk worker comes to see our ticket. “This not e-ticket sir” “Yes it is, I booked it on the internet and it says Electronic Ticket Booking.” “yes sir but you do not have a printed e-ticket” Give me strength, I am about to have an argument with him when Lu intervenes in Tagalog. We now go straight to the check-in desk an get booked on the flight with the seats we had already pre-booked 5 months ago. He is very helpful and helps carry our bags and fusses around until we are sorted. She has never told me what she said to him!
When we board the Singapore Airlines 767 we take our seats and the flight to Singapore begins without incident. On arrival at Singapore, Changi we have 50 minutes to disembark and connect with the 747 flight to London, which should just give me enough time to nip in to the Duty or Tax free shopping area and buy some drink. As we approach the embarkation lounge for our flight they have already loaded most passengers and we are some of the last to arrive! Well at least we have less time to sit in the cabin. We are lucky to find that there is an empty seat beside us so it gives Lu a little more room to stretch out and sleep. This flight is almost full so we were really fortunate. The food was again, really good. We were served a lunch with plenty of wine and Lu had another Singapore Gin Sling which the flight attendant managed to spill on my white shirt! But she went and got a cloth and some soda water and after a few minutes dabbing all the rather fetching pink colour had been removed! So handy tip, keep soda crystals at home for nasty coloured wet stains. I think I watched 3 or 4 films during the flight and after about 4hours from having had lunch we were served with dinner, more wine and then some more wine. I was unable to sleep on this flight but Lu seemed to have no problem, she seems to be able to go to sleep at the drop of a hat! Some things just aren’t fair.
The flight arrives only a few minutes late at Heathrow which is pretty impressive when you hear of so many flights being late and delayed. I would most definitely recommend Singapore Airlines to any one who is taking a flight on a route which they cover. http://www.singaporeair.com/ The Flight Attendants are attentive, polite and courteous all the time, with nothing seemingly too trivial for them to attend to. The food is outstanding and prepared (I think they mean designed, because I can’t imagine one chef producing all the meals for one airline) by an Internationally renowned chef who I’ve never heard of! All the meals are offered with a choice of dishes, usually a fish, choice of 2 meat and some vegetarian but you are required to specify vegetarian when you book the flight. The meals are served with proper steel cutlery and drinks are served in glasses not the nasty plastic things offered on charter flights. All seats in economy are the second largest size available from airlines so you do have a little more leg room and seat width than normal. I especially liked the head rest which had little bendy wings on the edges which you could turn in so holding your head a little more snugly whilst you rested. Well we are back in chilly old England having missed all the good weather you had while we were gone and as usual it doesn’t feel good to be back! I only half mean that really as a destination like the Philippines is a real assault on one’s senses and sensibilities. So the familiarity of home is reassuring but does also highlight the differences in the way of life experienced in both countries, the infrastructure of our towns and cities and the high standard of living we generally enjoy. However the unfailing cheerfulness, hospitality and desire to make your stay happy, of Filipinos is inspiring and sometimes a little overpowering. I have also found that a Filipino will say yes to almost every request you make of them because they find it most difficult to say no. I think this is in some way because they think it reflects badly on them personally and they will not be thought of well. But to a westerner it means that you are sometimes disappointed because an arrangement was made that your Filipino friend has no intention of fulfilling because he felt he couldn’t say no to your face. I do not mean that in any way as a criticism, merely be aware that a cultural difference such as that is not so important to the Filipino as to us. When it happens to them they just shrug and move on. I suppose it’s all about being a little more laid back and relaxed. Filipino Time is also another big cultural difference. We arrange our lives around fairly exact timings, “meet you at 9” and so we do meet at 9. Filipino time “meet you at 9” means meet you at whatever time I am ready after I’ve done this and that, been shopping, had dinner and phoned a few friends. And nobody minds when you arrive 2 or 3 hours later than arranged!! Finally, getting the full story or all the information needed to make a decision from a Filipino is nigh on impossible. You need to be a master inquisitor to drag the information from them, they will not volunteer it willingly, not from a malicious sense but because they genuinely believe you can read their mind and know exactly what they are arranging. For example, when we travelled to North Luzon we were being driven by Dodie and we were to stay at 3 hotels during the 4 days. I knew I was to pay Dodie for the journey, diesel and his time and I obviously knew I was to pay for Lu and my accommodation. What nobody had told me was that I was expected to pay for everybody’s accommodation and food. I didn’t mind, especially when you consider the low cost associated with the Filippines and that we were being accommodated at Hotel Encarnacion for free, but if someone had just said at the beginning that was the arrangement we wouldn’t have had our embarrassing moment in Vigan and Pagudpud. Having said all that the trip was absolutely superb and my companions were all good fun
3am, we’re up and saying our final goodbyes to people we only met 24 hours previously but feel we’ve known for years. The hospitality we received was second to none and genuine and we truly appreciated it. At Ninoy Aquino International Airport we sit and wait for our flight details to appear on the board and when they do we begin queuing. However, Filipinos and other Asian races are not very good at a peculiarly British institution and so pockets of people start appearing in random places near the check-in. We check with the couple in front of us that they are queuing for the London flight to which they agree. However an Airport worker starts to organise everybody into a line for the Singapore flight and he informs us that this area of the “queue” is for Taiwan flight. So we go to the back of a rapidly lengthening queue! Then the check-in desks put up a new sign for E-Ticket holders to check-in. Result for us as we have e-tickets. So we queue and another check-in desk worker comes to see our ticket. “This not e-ticket sir” “Yes it is, I booked it on the internet and it says Electronic Ticket Booking.” “yes sir but you do not have a printed e-ticket” Give me strength, I am about to have an argument with him when Lu intervenes in Tagalog. We now go straight to the check-in desk an get booked on the flight with the seats we had already pre-booked 5 months ago. He is very helpful and helps carry our bags and fusses around until we are sorted. She has never told me what she said to him!
When we board the Singapore Airlines 767 we take our seats and the flight to Singapore begins without incident. On arrival at Singapore, Changi we have 50 minutes to disembark and connect with the 747 flight to London, which should just give me enough time to nip in to the Duty or Tax free shopping area and buy some drink. As we approach the embarkation lounge for our flight they have already loaded most passengers and we are some of the last to arrive! Well at least we have less time to sit in the cabin. We are lucky to find that there is an empty seat beside us so it gives Lu a little more room to stretch out and sleep. This flight is almost full so we were really fortunate. The food was again, really good. We were served a lunch with plenty of wine and Lu had another Singapore Gin Sling which the flight attendant managed to spill on my white shirt! But she went and got a cloth and some soda water and after a few minutes dabbing all the rather fetching pink colour had been removed! So handy tip, keep soda crystals at home for nasty coloured wet stains. I think I watched 3 or 4 films during the flight and after about 4hours from having had lunch we were served with dinner, more wine and then some more wine. I was unable to sleep on this flight but Lu seemed to have no problem, she seems to be able to go to sleep at the drop of a hat! Some things just aren’t fair.
The flight arrives only a few minutes late at Heathrow which is pretty impressive when you hear of so many flights being late and delayed. I would most definitely recommend Singapore Airlines to any one who is taking a flight on a route which they cover. http://www.singaporeair.com/ The Flight Attendants are attentive, polite and courteous all the time, with nothing seemingly too trivial for them to attend to. The food is outstanding and prepared (I think they mean designed, because I can’t imagine one chef producing all the meals for one airline) by an Internationally renowned chef who I’ve never heard of! All the meals are offered with a choice of dishes, usually a fish, choice of 2 meat and some vegetarian but you are required to specify vegetarian when you book the flight. The meals are served with proper steel cutlery and drinks are served in glasses not the nasty plastic things offered on charter flights. All seats in economy are the second largest size available from airlines so you do have a little more leg room and seat width than normal. I especially liked the head rest which had little bendy wings on the edges which you could turn in so holding your head a little more snugly whilst you rested. Well we are back in chilly old England having missed all the good weather you had while we were gone and as usual it doesn’t feel good to be back! I only half mean that really as a destination like the Philippines is a real assault on one’s senses and sensibilities. So the familiarity of home is reassuring but does also highlight the differences in the way of life experienced in both countries, the infrastructure of our towns and cities and the high standard of living we generally enjoy. However the unfailing cheerfulness, hospitality and desire to make your stay happy, of Filipinos is inspiring and sometimes a little overpowering. I have also found that a Filipino will say yes to almost every request you make of them because they find it most difficult to say no. I think this is in some way because they think it reflects badly on them personally and they will not be thought of well. But to a westerner it means that you are sometimes disappointed because an arrangement was made that your Filipino friend has no intention of fulfilling because he felt he couldn’t say no to your face. I do not mean that in any way as a criticism, merely be aware that a cultural difference such as that is not so important to the Filipino as to us. When it happens to them they just shrug and move on. I suppose it’s all about being a little more laid back and relaxed. Filipino Time is also another big cultural difference. We arrange our lives around fairly exact timings, “meet you at 9” and so we do meet at 9. Filipino time “meet you at 9” means meet you at whatever time I am ready after I’ve done this and that, been shopping, had dinner and phoned a few friends. And nobody minds when you arrive 2 or 3 hours later than arranged!! Finally, getting the full story or all the information needed to make a decision from a Filipino is nigh on impossible. You need to be a master inquisitor to drag the information from them, they will not volunteer it willingly, not from a malicious sense but because they genuinely believe you can read their mind and know exactly what they are arranging. For example, when we travelled to North Luzon we were being driven by Dodie and we were to stay at 3 hotels during the 4 days. I knew I was to pay Dodie for the journey, diesel and his time and I obviously knew I was to pay for Lu and my accommodation. What nobody had told me was that I was expected to pay for everybody’s accommodation and food. I didn’t mind, especially when you consider the low cost associated with the Filippines and that we were being accommodated at Hotel Encarnacion for free, but if someone had just said at the beginning that was the arrangement we wouldn’t have had our embarrassing moment in Vigan and Pagudpud. Having said all that the trip was absolutely superb and my companions were all good fun
Labels: filipino, Ninoy Aquino Airport, Pagudpud, Philippines, Singapore Airlines, Singapore Airport, singapore Gin sling, Vigan
Thursday, May 31, 2007
28th May 2007 - Off we go, destination Singapore
It's our plane looking in the window at us!
Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th May
Collected Ludy and drove to Andy and Carol’s house. We left just after 1.00 pm for Heathrow and Singapore International Airlines flight SQ319 to Singapore. I had booked the flight on line direct with SIA for £506 each to Manila via Singapore. We arrived nice and early and had a lovely surprise to see Ate Tess And Ate Matilda were there to wave us off. We booked in straight away but no upgrades this time as Raffles and First Class both “fully booked”. Oh well no harm in trying. LHR is really quite a nightmare for flying out from now since the anti terrorist measures were introduced. We were quite lucky as there wasn’t too many passengers passing through but during very busy times it must take hours to be processed through Departure control. We queued for approx 30 mins just to get through x-ray machines and body searches, and then you are required to take your shoes off and they go through a separate x-ray machine! We walked down to Gate 31 to board the flight only to find that there were no more than about 200 pax on the flight! So when we took our seats we prayed no one was going to sit next to us….. And they didn’t, so we could spread out over the 4 seats and be a little more comfy for the 12½ hour flight. Who needs an upgrade anyway! Took off 30 mins late due to Air Traffic control and made our way up through the bleak, grey and wet London clouds tand headed East o the warmth of equatorial Singapore.
Pre dinner drinks trolley was rolled out and a tiny splash of red wine was taken by me and a Singapore gin Sling (or 2!) by Lu. We had a choice of menu for dinner, roasted beef fillets served with roasted vegetables and mashed potato or, roasted chicken in hoi-sin sauce with chicken flavoured fried rice and seasonal vegetables including pak choi or, fish vindaloo with mixed vegetables and pilao rice. Not bad for economy! Oh and they insisted we had wine with the meal and that it should be refilled very regularly. I tried to refuse but to no avail of course. Watched a couple of films including the new one, Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhall. Pretty good film actually, despite the constant interruptions to refill my wine glass . Lu gave up about 4 hrs into the flight and slept fitfully for about 6 hrs. Lucky her, I managed about 3. During the flight I got to talk to the senior flight supervisor, Loy Ying Hian about life with SIA. He has been flying with them for 15 years but said there are some flight attendants and pilots who have been with them for 30 or 40 years! The current average though for flight attendants is about 4 yrs. On the long haul flights such as LHR - Singapore or USA - Singapore they have a 50 hr stopover. By law they must have one night and one clear day before flying again and they always stay in very good hotels. No stories of wild parties or orgies though and I also asked if he had any funny experiences or stories from his flights but he remained inscrutable throughout. I suggested it must be quite boring for parts of the long haul flights, during, for instance the part where pax tend to sleep but he assured me that they have a variety of jobs to perform to ensure the comfort of their pax. They remove previous or unused meals from the galley and restock for the next meal, check, restock and clean the toilets, deal with pax needs or problems and prepare for the interim snack and drink rounds of the cabins. With SIA the crew, Captain and flight officers do eat the same food as the pax but 2nd officer always eats a different meal to Captain. The rest of the crew must have a reasonably balanced split between the menu choices too. However one very interesting fact emerged from our talk. SIA has a very strict No Upgrade Policy. They say they have a high proportion of regular Raffles passengers travelling in that class. So when they get full on a normally half full Raffles class flight they get annoyed that they have paid full price and travel regularly and we, the hoi poloi get upgraded for nothing! They only operate it when they have an overbooking problem in economy. They allow a certain percentage of overbooking of seats because the also have a problem with ‘No Show’ pax. Naturally it doesn’t always balance it self out. So they bump Raffles Class (equivalent to Business) pax to First Class where possible and economy to Raffles to free extra seats. But he said they always get complaints none the less.
Flight takes an extra 30 mins or so due to strong headwinds and we land at Changi Airport at 14.50 local time Tuesday 29th May. (I hate the “losing a day” effect of flying East) The airport is just as clean and full of orchids and plants as last time. We take the airport shuttle (still SG$7) to Peninsular Excelsior Hotel and in the shuttle get talking to the 2 girls travelling with us. One is going to stay at Sleepy Sam’s in Bussorah Street which, as those who have been paying attention to previous blog entries will know, I raved about last time. Must go back again on this trip, I know Lu will love it. The other lady is from Mauritius and of French extraction. She has a marvellous mix of French and Afrikaans to her accent which, hard to decipher at first but becomes rather melodic as you tune in and listen. She has just returned from Vietnam on a buying trip for local artefacts to sell back in Mauritius. She also has about 40 apartments which she rents to holidaymakers and the web address is here and also in the summary at the end of the blog trip. www.Oazure.com
Peninsular Exelsior hotel is right in centre on Coleman Street by North Bridge Road and Hill Street and very handy for City Hall MRT so we can go pretty much everywhere without too much unnecessary walking in this heat and humidity. Today it is around 29C and humidity 80%. The hotel have upgraded us to a superior room which is on the smoking floor as there are no rooms at all in the non smoking floors. They have loads of tour parties staying and they take whole floors together. Our room is quite big and comfy with a sofa, armchairs, coffee table, dining table and chairs and a huge queen size bed but the bathroom is in need of a make over and refurbish.
More about the hotel tomorrow when we’ve had a better chance to explore it. We showered and dressed in nice clean, fresh creased clothes and went off to visit Clarke Quay for dinner via the MRT. Bought a new MRT travel card which you charge with $15. We chose Clarke Quay Fish restaurant (yes I know, everybody knows I’m not too keen on fish) and had an interesting dinner. Lu chose sea bass (we had seen it 5 mins earlier swimming around a fish tank with its friends) with stir fried okra, barbecued and served with chef’s special lime and chilli sauce. We started with crab claw and seafood soup and deep fried baby squid in chilli sauce and sesame seeds. I ordered stir fried scallops with asparagus in oyster and ginger sauce and we shared seafood fried rice. For drinks, Lu had fresh squeezed lime and orange juice and I had local Special Brew beer. Total SG$140 plus taxes and svc charge SG$164 or £56. Oh and the sea bass was delicious. Walked along Clarke Quay to the reverse bungy jump in a ball and watched some poor victims shoot into the air and get thrown around and upside down until they went green! Great fun for the spectators! We walked back to the hotel which took only about 15 mins, had a quick drink and retired at 10.30 pm completely knackered! Woke up at 02.00, not sure why, and as couldn’t get back to sleep decided to write today’s blog.
Collected Ludy and drove to Andy and Carol’s house. We left just after 1.00 pm for Heathrow and Singapore International Airlines flight SQ319 to Singapore. I had booked the flight on line direct with SIA for £506 each to Manila via Singapore. We arrived nice and early and had a lovely surprise to see Ate Tess And Ate Matilda were there to wave us off. We booked in straight away but no upgrades this time as Raffles and First Class both “fully booked”. Oh well no harm in trying. LHR is really quite a nightmare for flying out from now since the anti terrorist measures were introduced. We were quite lucky as there wasn’t too many passengers passing through but during very busy times it must take hours to be processed through Departure control. We queued for approx 30 mins just to get through x-ray machines and body searches, and then you are required to take your shoes off and they go through a separate x-ray machine! We walked down to Gate 31 to board the flight only to find that there were no more than about 200 pax on the flight! So when we took our seats we prayed no one was going to sit next to us….. And they didn’t, so we could spread out over the 4 seats and be a little more comfy for the 12½ hour flight. Who needs an upgrade anyway! Took off 30 mins late due to Air Traffic control and made our way up through the bleak, grey and wet London clouds tand headed East o the warmth of equatorial Singapore.
Pre dinner drinks trolley was rolled out and a tiny splash of red wine was taken by me and a Singapore gin Sling (or 2!) by Lu. We had a choice of menu for dinner, roasted beef fillets served with roasted vegetables and mashed potato or, roasted chicken in hoi-sin sauce with chicken flavoured fried rice and seasonal vegetables including pak choi or, fish vindaloo with mixed vegetables and pilao rice. Not bad for economy! Oh and they insisted we had wine with the meal and that it should be refilled very regularly. I tried to refuse but to no avail of course. Watched a couple of films including the new one, Zodiac with Jake Gyllenhall. Pretty good film actually, despite the constant interruptions to refill my wine glass . Lu gave up about 4 hrs into the flight and slept fitfully for about 6 hrs. Lucky her, I managed about 3. During the flight I got to talk to the senior flight supervisor, Loy Ying Hian about life with SIA. He has been flying with them for 15 years but said there are some flight attendants and pilots who have been with them for 30 or 40 years! The current average though for flight attendants is about 4 yrs. On the long haul flights such as LHR - Singapore or USA - Singapore they have a 50 hr stopover. By law they must have one night and one clear day before flying again and they always stay in very good hotels. No stories of wild parties or orgies though and I also asked if he had any funny experiences or stories from his flights but he remained inscrutable throughout. I suggested it must be quite boring for parts of the long haul flights, during, for instance the part where pax tend to sleep but he assured me that they have a variety of jobs to perform to ensure the comfort of their pax. They remove previous or unused meals from the galley and restock for the next meal, check, restock and clean the toilets, deal with pax needs or problems and prepare for the interim snack and drink rounds of the cabins. With SIA the crew, Captain and flight officers do eat the same food as the pax but 2nd officer always eats a different meal to Captain. The rest of the crew must have a reasonably balanced split between the menu choices too. However one very interesting fact emerged from our talk. SIA has a very strict No Upgrade Policy. They say they have a high proportion of regular Raffles passengers travelling in that class. So when they get full on a normally half full Raffles class flight they get annoyed that they have paid full price and travel regularly and we, the hoi poloi get upgraded for nothing! They only operate it when they have an overbooking problem in economy. They allow a certain percentage of overbooking of seats because the also have a problem with ‘No Show’ pax. Naturally it doesn’t always balance it self out. So they bump Raffles Class (equivalent to Business) pax to First Class where possible and economy to Raffles to free extra seats. But he said they always get complaints none the less.
Flight takes an extra 30 mins or so due to strong headwinds and we land at Changi Airport at 14.50 local time Tuesday 29th May. (I hate the “losing a day” effect of flying East) The airport is just as clean and full of orchids and plants as last time. We take the airport shuttle (still SG$7) to Peninsular Excelsior Hotel and in the shuttle get talking to the 2 girls travelling with us. One is going to stay at Sleepy Sam’s in Bussorah Street which, as those who have been paying attention to previous blog entries will know, I raved about last time. Must go back again on this trip, I know Lu will love it. The other lady is from Mauritius and of French extraction. She has a marvellous mix of French and Afrikaans to her accent which, hard to decipher at first but becomes rather melodic as you tune in and listen. She has just returned from Vietnam on a buying trip for local artefacts to sell back in Mauritius. She also has about 40 apartments which she rents to holidaymakers and the web address is here and also in the summary at the end of the blog trip. www.Oazure.com
Peninsular Exelsior hotel is right in centre on Coleman Street by North Bridge Road and Hill Street and very handy for City Hall MRT so we can go pretty much everywhere without too much unnecessary walking in this heat and humidity. Today it is around 29C and humidity 80%. The hotel have upgraded us to a superior room which is on the smoking floor as there are no rooms at all in the non smoking floors. They have loads of tour parties staying and they take whole floors together. Our room is quite big and comfy with a sofa, armchairs, coffee table, dining table and chairs and a huge queen size bed but the bathroom is in need of a make over and refurbish.
More about the hotel tomorrow when we’ve had a better chance to explore it. We showered and dressed in nice clean, fresh creased clothes and went off to visit Clarke Quay for dinner via the MRT. Bought a new MRT travel card which you charge with $15. We chose Clarke Quay Fish restaurant (yes I know, everybody knows I’m not too keen on fish) and had an interesting dinner. Lu chose sea bass (we had seen it 5 mins earlier swimming around a fish tank with its friends) with stir fried okra, barbecued and served with chef’s special lime and chilli sauce. We started with crab claw and seafood soup and deep fried baby squid in chilli sauce and sesame seeds. I ordered stir fried scallops with asparagus in oyster and ginger sauce and we shared seafood fried rice. For drinks, Lu had fresh squeezed lime and orange juice and I had local Special Brew beer. Total SG$140 plus taxes and svc charge SG$164 or £56. Oh and the sea bass was delicious. Walked along Clarke Quay to the reverse bungy jump in a ball and watched some poor victims shoot into the air and get thrown around and upside down until they went green! Great fun for the spectators! We walked back to the hotel which took only about 15 mins, had a quick drink and retired at 10.30 pm completely knackered! Woke up at 02.00, not sure why, and as couldn’t get back to sleep decided to write today’s blog.
Labels: Bussorah Street, Clarke Quay, Desmond22, Peninsular and Exelsior Hotel singapore, Raffles Class, Singapore Airlines, Sleepy Sam's
