This is the first time I flew with Continental. I must fess up regarding the $110 flight ticket … there are no direct flights from Vancouver to New York. The connection is in Houston. Thaaaaat’s right … instead of just fly east-west directly, I fly way south and then up north.

But I must say I am most pleasantly surprise with Continental. Like I said, never flew with them before. I had always thought that United and Delta was the best but Continental is better to me. I will tell you why further down the blog.

My destination is the Newark airport in New Jersey. Despite that Newark is in NJ, it is basically a New York area airport. As a matter of fact, Newark is closer to NYC than JFK.

The stopover in Houston was good with just an hour wait before the connecting flight. My “Plan B” in case I don’t get on to New York was to stay a night in Houston and visit the city. It was not necessary because both Houston and Newark are Continental hubs and there are hourly flights between them … lots of empty seats on my connection flight.

It is on flights that I try drinks that I had never tried before. This is not overly exciting I know … Seagram’s Ginger Ale? Well, heard of it but never tried it. How does it taste … well, all pop tastes the same to me.

This is what I like about Continental the best … they provide food … for FREE! It was nothing to shout about but considering that all other American airlines who provides free peanut packs or sells snack boxes, this is simply awesome. The box includes a surprisingly nice moist & soft muffin, some Cheerios (with milk!) and a small pack of raisins. I am happy.

Continental does come by quite often asking if anyone wanted more drinks … three times during each sector. Most airlines will just come by twice … maybe once. I get dehydrated quite a bit on flights and I do make it a point to drink a lot (before and during the flight). BTW, the coffee was pretty good, I must say.

They even provide free packs of peanuts on their drink rounds despite them already also provided the meals. Can’t beat that can you? For international flights, this is pretty standard but for US domestics, it’s mighty impressive.

I like Sudoku and have purchase a computer version of it for my notebook. I even have one of those books with hundreds of Sudoku’s which you find so commonly in bookstores. Sudoku is a great time killer … that kills about 30 mins of my time.

On the following sector, there are more food. This time it’s over lunch time and therefore they serve a more “lunchy” meal … burgers and greens, with a small bar of choc snack.

I am impartial to burgers but the cheese burger was pretty good. It came warm (see condensation on the wrappings above?). Moist and juicy too … it was not great-great but I enjoyed it.

The greens too was cold, fresh and crunchy. Fresh … that’s very important for salads huh?

You guys have seen this many, many times before. My favorite inflight drink. I must have blogged about this drink on EVERY flight report I had made on this blog. LOL!

Another thing I like about Continental is that their planes are new. I think they are the one that claim they have the youngest fleet in North America. So, how do you know if the plane is new? Well, a dead give-away is that they have flat screen TVs. You just can’t believe how many other airlines still have the ancient CRT TVs which is way past their date.

One of the shows I caught on flight was Harry Porter Potter — I don’t know which episode. Maybe it was the one that had “phoenix” in it. Dead boring for me but I know Arkensen and Nanzaro would love this show. Something about Harry Porter Potter I don’t quite understand … my boys can watch this show a hundred million times and they won’t get bored with it.

I spent the rest of the time planning for the trip. That’s right. Being a procrastinator that I am, I had hardly planned for the trip. I managed to complete the plan 30 minutes before landing.

I’ll blog about Manhattan tomorrow … stay tuned.

I flew Northwest Airlines for the first time. I can’t say that I like it. Not only do they not have inflight movies, why, they don’t even have earphone jacks on their seat for music. That was a bummer. If I had known that, I would have charged up my notebook a bit more and keep myself entertained with the movies I brought along.

Like most other airlines, they have snack boxes for sale. It’s $5 each cash … and USD too.

Although the box looked bit, there is nothing much in it. There’s Oreos, Trail Mix, Wheat Crackers and Beef Sausages. Compared to United’s snack boxes (click here and here to see United’s) which costs the same, this is rather disappointing.

About the only thing I enjoyed is the O’Brien’s Beef Summer Sausage … it’s all beef, no fillers.

The Wheat Thins was quite OK.

It felt a bit dry eating this until after I had finished half of the pack that I realized …

… that this Wheat Thins is supposed to go with the Cheddar Cheese Sauce.

About the only thing I really enjoy is the Bloody Mary Mix. Until today, I have not seen this sold here in the stores. Anyone have seen this in the store somewhere in Vancouver before?

We had originally planned for a road trip this summer to North California but decided to change our plans when we found cheap airfares out from Bellingham, WA to Las Vegas. I came across it quite accidentally when I heard over the radio of the news that a lot of Vancouverites had been coming over to Bellingham for cheap flights.

Although the airport is called the Bellingham International Airport, I don’t think they have scheduled flights to airports outside of the US. It’s a small airport really and that means that checking in and out is so much more faster and easy.

The flight tickets we bought were just $89 one way from Bellingham to Vegas. We decided to fly Bellingham-Vegas on our way there and take a return flight from Reno (which was just $39 or $59 depending on the day of travel), Taxes and all came up to about another 20% more. They do charge $3 for each baggage checked in. All in all, it’s a good deal — I figured it could be actually cheaper to fly than to drive from Vancouver to Las Vegas. You should check out their prices on their website … you’ll be surprised I’m sure.

One thing though … you need to be careful about all the additional charges they put on. I am not surprised because this is a no frills fare they are selling. For instance, if you book the flight ticket over their website, they will charge you $7.50 convenience fee, It is not charged if you buy it from the ticketing counter at the airport. To select a seat of your choice, it will be an additional $11. If you want a choice seat, you have to check-in early … at least 2 hrs early.

Everything about this flight is really basic. You don’t even board the planes via aerobridges but a walk-up stairs. Gosh … the only time I had boarded a plane via stairs were in Phnom Phen, Cambodia about 10 years ago!

The flight was smooth and pretty short. It took about 2.5 hours only. We were quite late checking in and got seats on the last two rows. The last row had no views at all … the engine was just by the window.

Can anyone recognize the mountain below? The give-away is the half crater.

They don’t serve anything for free at all during the flight … you have to pay even for a bottle of water.

Nanzaro loves the airline snack boxes I bring home from my business trips. So when he learned that they also have snack boxes for sale inflight, I just knew he wanted one. Each box costs $5.

Allegiant Air’s Snack Boxes were no where compared to United’s which costs the same (see here and here for United’s Snack Box review). They are all very dry snacks and simply not worth the money. You should bring along your own snacks.

Just before we landed, the stewardess organized a raffle on board. Everyone who wanted to participate have to write their seat number on a dollar bill and put it in a bag they pass around. The winner takes all the money in the bag (about $80!).

As we land we can pick out some of the hotels on The Strip. The LAS airport is just about 5 minutes from the Strip which I think is awesome.

Allegiant Air is an airline based in Las Vegas. You should check out their airfares on their website (http://www.allegiantair.com/). What I like about the website is that they show you a table of the prices by a range of days so that you can see at a glance all the options available.

Hey all, hope you enjoyed my series on Europe as much as I had enjoyed blogging about it. This is my last on the series and will focus on the flight back home.

I took the British Airways flight from Amsterdam with a transit at London. I was really glad to be on my way home.

I like British Airways — definitely more than Air Canada which I took the last time I went to London. Oh yeah, I forgot to share about some weird thing about the Brits on flights — at least on the flights I was on. When the plane landed on Heathrow, people actually claps! I guess it’s something they do … so of saying the pilot did a great job or something … *shrugs*

What I like is having your own video display on your seat. That way I have a choice of movies I wanted to watch. Forget about the computer games … they were crappy.

So, bye bye London and Europe. I think I’ll be back again as long as I am in the same job. Although the hours were irregular, one of the perks of this job is that I get to travel.

My fav drink … tomato juice. One thing I notice … my Asian friends mostly does not like tomato juice. I can’t really figure out what it is. Asians will drink orange juice, watermelon juice, but not tomato juice. Just the other day in a friends gathering, I made Bloody Caesars for everyone and guess what, none of them were even half-finished.

The main meal … same old stuff. At a glance they look like a feast because the tray looked so busy.

The bread is terrible … you see, I am now comparing this to fresh French Baguettes. I broke off a piece, spread some butter, ate it and left the rest untouched. Really, they are cold, hard and dry.

I did not drink the wine they gave. I kept it to-go and thought I let Suanne try if she likes it.

The salad looked colourful and pretty. It’s good cold but definitely not so cold that you see condensation all over the bowl. I’ll score 1 out of 5.

Now, the curry rice is much much better. The rice is fragrant and the curry gravy was rich. I like it and finished it off.

Suanne loves Cheesecakes … so I kept this for her too.

There is only one bar of chocolate. I could have kept this for Nanzaro and Arkensen but no … they’ll only fight after that one piece. It’s a boy thing I think … they seem to need to assert themselves on one another these days.

Ain’t Canada beautiful? This is over the BC-Alberta border … somewhere around where Banff is. It is still spring and there are still a lot of snow in the mountains. I can’t help by thinking that with global warming, one day all these will be much different.

This is so familiar. I like window seats and have always made sure I get one. I have always enjoyed the view of Vancouver from the air. It is so beautiful … and the city looked so different from the sky.

So here I am … home in Beautiful British Columbia. The hardest part is always waiting to clear immigration, and wait for my luggage. It always took so long. Suanne and the boys were there waiting for me. If you have never been to Vancouver’s International Airport, I can tell you that it’s one of the most beautiful airport in the world. It is not a big bust airport but certainly very beautiful.

There you go … the end of my series. I had more than one month of blog. Again, I hope you enjoy this blog as much as I enjoyed sharing it. I can’t help feeling that I am so fortunate to have a chance to travel to Europe largely on company’s expense.

So, for the next three to four weeks, it will be mostly Suanne who will be blogging … about recipes and other food related topics.

Thanks for the feedback and taking time to read … [getting off my soapbox]. :-)

I went on a two-week trip in Europe a few weeks ago. During that time, I had amassed over 30 blog entries on the travel and the food I tried. This means that I’ll be blogging the next one month and Suanne will have a long hiatus from blogging … i.e. no recipes or cooking class for the next little while.

I had a scheduled 4-day training in London. I thought that I take advantage of the free flight there to visit a bit more of the parts of Europe that I had never visited before. Over the 16 days, I was in London and the cities in the “Low Countries” — Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam. It was a great trip.

I bought some new photographic toys for the trip. Besides doing the normal touristy stuff and trying out the food, I planned to have a great time taking lots of pictures. So, I went and get myself a new long lens, the Canon 70-200mm 2.8L. The lens is a classic among the extensive Canon lens lineup. I also got myself a new Manfrotto tripod and a new software that allows me to make HDR (High Dynamic Range) pictures.

The picture below is taken at the YVR Airport of the Spirit of Haida Gwaii. It is extremely difficult to produce a shot like this in a dark indoor but with the HDR technique, one could bring out the details all round.

Enough of photography. I traveled for the first time on British Airways from YVR to LHR. Overall, it was much better than Air Canada. Trust me, if you travel in this sector choose BA over Air Canada anytime. It is an economy flight. During the 9 hours flight, they serve drinks, a main meal and a snack box.

The main meal is pretty normal, consisting of bread, salad, dessert, chocolates and coffee. British Airways does not publish their menu on the inflight magazine like other airlines. So, I had no idea what was really served except that there is a choice of chicken or beef.

The bread as usual is nothing to shout about. Airline bread for some reason is just soft, dense and not crusty.

The tomato and cheese salad is OK. I like the cheese though. It’s a tasteless type but am not sure what this type of cheese is called. What is this called anyway?

The main dish looked unappetizing. The mash potatoes looked so flat. The beef, I think, is the pot stew beef. Taste wise, it is OK … I had tasted worse airline food.

Here is the dessert …

… and ended up with coffee and a bar of Kit Kat.

About an hour before we landed, they came around and pass us the “All-Day Deli” snack box. It is meant to be the breakfast for the day.

As the name implies, the All-Day Deli is a general purpose meal. It consists of a pastry, energy bar, yogurt and juice.

For drinks, wine is served in mini bottles. I am not much into wine but did try their red wine (red wine with red meat and white with white, right?). I don’t know what great wine tastes like. I think this is the cheapo type … I did not like it a lot.

I landed in London and headed to the city immediately after I checked into the hotel. How do you like this shot of the Big Ben? It’s a HDR shot. Under normal conditions, this shot would have been impossible. It’s a simple technique really. Let me know if you want to know more. Go on … click on the picture below and see the amazing details captured using HDR.

This is it … day 1 of day 16.

A few weeks back I had to make another trip to Atlanta on business. Having just came back from Malaysia just the week after, I really dreaded another change in time zone. Man, I had so many trips this year, I must admit that I am really sick and tired of all these travelling.

I flew United from Vancouver to Atlanta. I had flew the same airline on the same sector before and had blogged about the United Airlines Snackboxes here. Back then I had the one of their four snackboxes called the Mini Meal.

For a change, I ordered their Quick Pick Snack Box. All their snackboxes costs $5 cash. Snackboxes on United Airlines are available only for flights 3 hours or longer. There are four snackboxes to select from: Quick Pick, Mini Meal, Smart Pack and Right Bite. This blog is about the Quick Pick Snackbox.

The Quick Pick is plainly described as comfort food and had a really wide selection packed into the box. As I opened it, I know that Nanzaro and Arkensen would certainly love to have this box, so would Suanne — it does look that appealing. In the box there are … Tortilla Chips and Salsa, Cheese Snacks, Trail Mix …

… Smoked Dried Beef Chunks, and Cookies. I normally like cookies crunchy but the Chipper Gourmet Cookies is really something else. This chocolate chip cookie is soft, moist and fresh — very nice.

I have seen the Jack Link’s Prime Rib Tender Cuts in the stores in Vancouver before but have never tried it. The beef came in bite sizes which is hard and is slightly salty. I like this.

Then there is the “Just the Cheese” Classic. It is a cheese snack and is crunchy with really nice taste of cheddar cheese. Other than the Jack Link’s I have never seen the other snacks in the box before. This “Just the Cheese” snack is really good and am sure the boys would love it too.

Next was what is known as the Stoned Classics All-Natural Blue Tortilla Chips. These are slightly salted corn tortilla and tastes crunchy fresh. It is perfect with the La Victoria Thick and Chunky Salsa. The salsa is mildly spicy.

I scanned the drinks list and saw something I had never tried before — the Mr&Mrs T Bloody Mary Mix. It is from the Mott’s people right? It’s a spicy tomato juice which reminds me of Clamato’s I find in Canada.

In all, it was a good snack, more than enough for me during that 7 hr flight as I am a small eater for lunch.

Food-wise I had a great time in Atlanta … I will blog about my meals for the next seven days.

Nanzaro and I flew Economy on EVA Air from Seattle to Kuala Lumpur to attend my father’s funeral. It was the cheapest flight we could get at such short notice. Man, I know that airline meals are bland but we did not expect it to be this bad. I tried eating anyway but Nanzaro hardly took a bite of the meals.

The flight took almost 20 hours with a 3 hr stopover in Taipei. During the flight, there were a total of three meals.

The first meal (served at about 2am in the morning!) was fish and rice. The rice was soggy and mushy. It was terrible. I took two bites and just gave up.

The fruits and salad looked colourful and that’s about it. I only took the fruits and did not touch the salad at all.

They also served Russian Ice-cream — Macadamia Nut and Vanilla. The outer side of the ice-cream was very soft and almost melted. This looks nice but melted icre-cream is just urgh!

I was not particularly hungry anyway. So I tried to sleep but simply can’t. So, I just watched the inflight movie and did some reading.

Breakfast is even worse. They asked me if I wanted rice soup. Rice Soup? Sounds OK to me but what I saw was far from what I had pictured it to be. It is a horribly looking glob of overcooked porridge with some slices of beef. I took two bites and decided I had enough.

Nanzaro was sleeping when they came around. I gotten for him the “chicken” dish which includes fettucini. The fettucini was all dried up and hard. Nanzaro did not eat this too. I left the chicken alone and finished off the pasta. I was beginning to feel hungry myself.

At least the bread was warm, soft and more importantly actually tastes like normal food.

On the Taipei to KL route, we had better meal. This time is was omelette, sausage, potatoes and tomato.

The fruits was pretty OK too.

So were the criossant and yogurt. This meal I finished everything.

You know what is the best meal for Nanzaro? It was the cup noodles! He hardly ate anything and I know he was hungry. He went to the back of the plane after this first helping to ask the stewardess for a second helping. Am glad to see him ate so much — was getting worried because he could not take the airline meal.

I must say I did not enjoy the flight and the meals at all. I would have avoided EVA Air if not for the fact that they have the cheapest fares. Oh well …

This was one long haul trip. I was travelling from Vancouver to Singapore a few days ago on work. Since Malaysia is just minutes from Singapore downtown, I will be taking at least a week off work to visit family and friends — and most of all eat all the food I so missed all these years.

The trip took a total of 19 hours. At least I was travelling in Business Class. Singapore Airlines’ Business Class is known as Raffles Class. I normally dread long-haul flights but this time I really enjoyed myself. The food was great, the service was superb. I felt so pampered and full rested by the time I got to Singapore. What made the difference the most was the fact that I could sleep on flight because the seat could actually recline!

Even before I got to settle down, the stewardess came around with a tray of champagne, juice and cocktail. I chose the Golden Spice cocktail which was really refreshing. This appears to be a lime cordial with a spicy relish, pineapple juice and ginger ale. I had a lot of drinks during the flight and tried to try every one on their menu.

The flight has an in-flight entertainment system which includes movies, TV shows, and Nintendo games. Each seat has its own personal television. The movies and TV shows were the on-demand type where I could pause, rewind and so on from my seat control. There was a selection of 80 movies of various kind. On the flight I caught the Da Vinci Code. I like computer games but the Nintendo games was downright childish and game that a miss.

Next they issued me socks. Nice touch. It felt so good taking off the shoes and donning the socks.

Of course, there is the obiquitious packets of nuts.

There are a total three meals served throughout the 19hr flight. Two of the meals are full meals while one is what they called a light meal — which is not light in every sense of the word!

For the dinner menu, I started off with Satay with onions and cucumber.

Oh yeah, they actually setup the seat tray with table cloth. The tray was large and I really had the meal in comfort.

Next came the Marinated Prawns salad. The prawns were succulent but I am not a great fan of cold prawns.

They came by with a basket of various type of bread. The garlic bread looked really good. They looked better than it tasted. I mean, I had much better garlic bread before. I prefer garlic bread which is crusty but this one is a soft.

For the main, I selected the Poached Chicken Breast with garlic mashed potato, sauteed spinach and creamed morel. I selected this primarily because the menu indicated this is an exclusive creation by Nancy Oakes (who?) of San Francisco.

I also had the coconut and mango ice-cream. The taste was unique but too airy.

They next came with a push cart of some gourmet cheese selection. I asked for one of each to sample.

For coffee, I chose the Kenyan AA Kilimanjaro coffee from their gourmet coffee menu. This is a very dark brew with an intense flavour. It was so good that I ordered this two other times during the flight.

To end the meal, they came by with a nice tray of chocolates. I felt like asking them to leave the entire tray with me!

That was just one meal. Frankly, it was too much food. By the third meal, I could not finish what was on the plates. You know, I had weighed myself before I left for the airport. At the rate I am going, I am afraid I will have gained quite a lot of weight.

Anyway, I really had a great time on the flight. There are a few more pictures of the food I had on the flight. Click on the link below for them.

continue reading "Singapore-Malaysia Trip: Business Class on Singapore Airlines"

I left Vancouver for London on an Air Canada flight in late afternoon on Friday. Timewise, the flight was not too bad — it took about 9 hours in all and I did had a chance to sleep quite well.

Grant told me I should have booked on British Airways. Grant was right, the Air Canada plane was a really old plane. The inflight movie was on a CRT TV. The seats although comfortable, has seen many. many years of service.

Right after the flight took off, dinner were served. I was not given a choice at all unless you had special dietary requirements. The meal was chicken with potatoes and some vegetables. The chicken breast was pretty good.

The meal also came with salad and Balsamic Vinegar for dressing. There were also a small tub of vanilla ice-cream. The meals were passable but I remember many years back, airline meals were a bigger deal.

I choose red wine. It knocked me out right after — I wanted to sleep throughout the flight and it did the trick.

About 1 1/2/ hour before landing, I was woken up by the announcement about breakfast. Breakfast was served in a simple box. The box contained a muffin, peach, orange juice, yogurt and dried raisins. I also had coffee.

I have never been to London before. Right after I checked into the hotel, I quickly made my way to the City on my own. I actually had a great time and seriously wished Suanne were here. I know she would have loved it here too.

I have tons of pictures I took this afternoon. Check out the link below if you care to read about them …

continue reading "London Trip Report Day 1"

A good meal ought to begin with hunger.
~ French Proverb

On my flight to Atlanta, I thought I try out United Airlines’ Snack Box even though Suanne packed some snack for me. It has been a while since most airlines had discontinued free inflight meals even for long haul flights. On United’s flight over 3.5 hrs, one could purchase United’s snack boxes for USD $5 each — they accept only cash. United has choice of four different types of snack boxes. Click here for their selection. I wanted something a bit salty and cheesey. I opted for the Mini Meal Snack Box.

The boxes were shrink wrapped. I was pretty surprised by the content. It was packed pretty tight and had a very good selection.

I started off with the Pepperidge Farm Milano Cookies. There are two in a pack and sandwiched a layer of chocolate. As with most cookies I was particularly concern about crumbs since I was sitting in such cramped space with my bulky camera by my side, but it does not crumble much. Made just right for a flight.

I always get so dehydrated on flights. I took the apple sauce next. It’s a Granny Smith apple sauce from Mott’s. I like it because it is unsweetened.

There are seven of Hommel Hard Beef Salami slices in the pack. It was exactly what I wanted … a little bit of salt and meat. Next was the Parmesan Cheese spread on stoned wheat crackers.

I did not particularly care for potato chips and kept it aside for snacks later.

I like this item. It is called the Hiya Peppermint. Instead of the normal peppermint drops, these peppermint is liquid filled capsule. It releases the mint instantaneously. Good thing to share with people.

It was a good thing I had a window seat on the last row on the plane. It was not easy to escape people’s attention when I took my time to arrange my food for the shots. Luckily, the person who sat next to me was sleeping all the way. Some people did notice and must have thought I was a village bum flying for the first time and taking shots of every little thing I came across. :-)