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Got to HK fine.
My father has a bad habit of saving pennies to throw away pounds.
Sometimes the most direct - if not the cheapest - solution is the best one. But he wants to cut corners, to find the magic way that things will work. And then when they don't, well, it ends up being more than the direct way.
Such was my trip from airport to airbnb last night.
The suggested route was an airport bus, which is long but gets you close to the airbnb. Dad's suggestion was the MTR, so he could drop by my brother's place to put his stuff down, including some meat he'd brought from Vietnam. Don't ask because IDEK. My SIL likes it, apparently? Anyway, we got there, dropped off his luggage, and then went to look for a minibus to take us directly and cheaply down to the street with my place to stay. Except then the minibus wouldn't take my luggage, and the alternative route involved trekking to an MTR, catching an MTR, and trekking to the place. I chose a taxi, but he ended up paying for it.
Also a problem: it seems none of the 'small services' in HK takes credit card. Which makes a kind of sense - at the banking end, it's expensive. But it realigned my plans for paying for things in HK outside of the Big Shops (which you can get anywhere in the world).
I'm going to have to change some money today.
--
The flight on QANTAS was fine, in the general way of flights. That said, one can see why the carrier is such a fuckup these days.
Check-in, baggage tags, and boarding passes were by kiosk. Easy, right? Not when there are at least three major flights all going out that morning (LA, HK, and I think one somewhere else), and there are almost no signs or markings or queue barriers to indicate what to do and where to go. Also, maybe 1 airport/airline personnel per fifty people, trying to deal with confused and frustrated travellers.
QANTAS has no queues? Oh, that's because they don't have markings, and you just slide in wherever you can.
And even where they have queues, they don't particularly care if you ignore them. Boarding was fun - people going into the premium lane when they didn't have premium tickets, and then not being sent around to the back. I realise that the gate personnel aren't paid enough to deal with obstreperous passengers, but by not dealing with them people look at the queue-jumpers and think "well, if they can do that, so can I" and then the gate personnel are dealing with even more people who don't follow instructions because there are not consequences for not doing so.
This is why I don't fly with QANTAS. Singapore are a lot better. I am wondering if my agent was just railroading me into QANTAS when he said that was the cheapest flight.
Not premium economy but the upper level of the A380 so more space, less crowd. That said, the entertainment facility was rather less impressive than expected and the meals weren't actually 'presented'. Talk about cost-cutting!
My baggage at least arrived with me in HK, so that was an upside. (A year ago QANTAS was having all kinds of baggage issues, eg. my parents' luggage not arriving in Iceland and being stuck in Sydney for an extra three days.)
But now I am in HK.
--
Apart from my general frustration with Dad and his attempts to trim pennies while spending pounds, there's also the fact that he kind of wants to spend lots of time with me. Which is always the case, and why I didn't want to stay with him, and why I don't go visit him for longer than four days at a stretch.
I was hoping to spend more time with G&S, my half-brother and SIL, but apparently it's a bit of a mess sorting everything out with their time and schedules.
--
ETA: 4pm HK time.
Spent the day roaming about HK. Much to say, no time to say it. Had lunch with S, but going back to G&S's shortly to spend some time with niecelet.
ETA2: Doing dinner with G&S and niecelet tomorrow. Tonight I get a bit of peace. Dad asked if I wanted to grab dinner with him, but I don't. There's only so much time together with him I can manage and I think I've about exhausted it at this point.
--
So, I was given an assignment and have struggled to get anywhere past the second chapter (there's four planned) over the course of the last six weeks.
I took a pinch-hit, and completed it in the last two days.
Guess I should ask for an extension on the assignment...
My father has a bad habit of saving pennies to throw away pounds.
Sometimes the most direct - if not the cheapest - solution is the best one. But he wants to cut corners, to find the magic way that things will work. And then when they don't, well, it ends up being more than the direct way.
Such was my trip from airport to airbnb last night.
The suggested route was an airport bus, which is long but gets you close to the airbnb. Dad's suggestion was the MTR, so he could drop by my brother's place to put his stuff down, including some meat he'd brought from Vietnam. Don't ask because IDEK. My SIL likes it, apparently? Anyway, we got there, dropped off his luggage, and then went to look for a minibus to take us directly and cheaply down to the street with my place to stay. Except then the minibus wouldn't take my luggage, and the alternative route involved trekking to an MTR, catching an MTR, and trekking to the place. I chose a taxi, but he ended up paying for it.
Also a problem: it seems none of the 'small services' in HK takes credit card. Which makes a kind of sense - at the banking end, it's expensive. But it realigned my plans for paying for things in HK outside of the Big Shops (which you can get anywhere in the world).
I'm going to have to change some money today.
--
The flight on QANTAS was fine, in the general way of flights. That said, one can see why the carrier is such a fuckup these days.
Check-in, baggage tags, and boarding passes were by kiosk. Easy, right? Not when there are at least three major flights all going out that morning (LA, HK, and I think one somewhere else), and there are almost no signs or markings or queue barriers to indicate what to do and where to go. Also, maybe 1 airport/airline personnel per fifty people, trying to deal with confused and frustrated travellers.
QANTAS has no queues? Oh, that's because they don't have markings, and you just slide in wherever you can.
And even where they have queues, they don't particularly care if you ignore them. Boarding was fun - people going into the premium lane when they didn't have premium tickets, and then not being sent around to the back. I realise that the gate personnel aren't paid enough to deal with obstreperous passengers, but by not dealing with them people look at the queue-jumpers and think "well, if they can do that, so can I" and then the gate personnel are dealing with even more people who don't follow instructions because there are not consequences for not doing so.
This is why I don't fly with QANTAS. Singapore are a lot better. I am wondering if my agent was just railroading me into QANTAS when he said that was the cheapest flight.
Not premium economy but the upper level of the A380 so more space, less crowd. That said, the entertainment facility was rather less impressive than expected and the meals weren't actually 'presented'. Talk about cost-cutting!
My baggage at least arrived with me in HK, so that was an upside. (A year ago QANTAS was having all kinds of baggage issues, eg. my parents' luggage not arriving in Iceland and being stuck in Sydney for an extra three days.)
But now I am in HK.
--
Apart from my general frustration with Dad and his attempts to trim pennies while spending pounds, there's also the fact that he kind of wants to spend lots of time with me. Which is always the case, and why I didn't want to stay with him, and why I don't go visit him for longer than four days at a stretch.
I was hoping to spend more time with G&S, my half-brother and SIL, but apparently it's a bit of a mess sorting everything out with their time and schedules.
--
ETA: 4pm HK time.
Spent the day roaming about HK. Much to say, no time to say it. Had lunch with S, but going back to G&S's shortly to spend some time with niecelet.
ETA2: Doing dinner with G&S and niecelet tomorrow. Tonight I get a bit of peace. Dad asked if I wanted to grab dinner with him, but I don't. There's only so much time together with him I can manage and I think I've about exhausted it at this point.
--
So, I was given an assignment and have struggled to get anywhere past the second chapter (there's four planned) over the course of the last six weeks.
I took a pinch-hit, and completed it in the last two days.
Guess I should ask for an extension on the assignment...
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"HUGS"