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Europe 2024: Chilly London and the wrap up
posted : Sunday, March 02, 2025
So, the final day of the trip, and I think I’ll cover the flight back in this post too.
Agenda is to travel into London city again and we have almost the entire day to spend there, our flight home is at 830pm so we just need to be back to the hotel by 4/430 ish, and reach airport by 5pm or so, because oh I have a nice Silverkris Lounge to go to. But anyway back to the morning. Checked out, then headed to town. It was going to be a mostly solo day for me because the sister had friends to meet and I was perfectly fine not coming along because well, can’t say no to solo trips. But her program is at 11am so she joined me while we explored Covent Garden a bit first, before heading to my first stop of the day which is a bakery. There is quite a bit of queue though, so she didn’t get to try the pastries on the spot (I did save some of it for her to try eventually).  View of office block opp from our room  Good morning London. Why are you all gloomy again.  Covent Garden again  I don’t think I had a chance to explore these little streets the last time round…I remember it being the starting point of our walking tour after which we just never came back  Offering of Arome Bakery  I remember this honey butter toast till this day. It was that good, I kid you not.  Pick me up So my plan was just to roam around the area - Covent Garden, Leicester Sq, and honestly the earlier part of the day was just so cold and drizzly that I couldn’t bear to stay outdoors for long, and kept finding indoor places that I could get into. It got better by early afternoon such that I was even able to enjoy a Christmas market that I had stumbled on.  I love it when streets are decorated in this manner. Ours have no character at all and it wasn’t even hard to come up with one at places like Chinatown and Little India but nobody wants to maintain as usual  Red telephone box. Musicals.  Agatha! I still haven’t finished the third book that I bought, come to think of it. And that was 2019 oops.  My KFC dream. Didn’t have it the last time round I think. And I ordered two pieces alacarte, but somehow three came and that meant I had slightly less stomach space to contend with but I guess I wasn’t complaining  I needed a toilet. The only way was to buy something so that I get a passcode, but I was gonna just try my luck…and just nice someone came out and held the door thinking I was a legit customer lol. But I did legitimize myself eventually la, after my business.  Chinatown  I particularly like this shot. I really do think the 2x and 3x cameras make for better street photography  Stumbled upon a Christmas market! But decided to wait for the sister to explore it.  Another one (sort of) at the actual Covent Garden  I always want to buy one of these paintings to hang at home but at the rate I’m going I’ll never do it  Gelato looks good, but  Picked up the sister and into the Christmas market we go  After all that talk we didn’t actually buy anything lol Met up with the sister and that’s about it for the trip into town! Headed back to Hammersmith, picked up our luggage and re-packed a bit, then off to the airport we go. As expected there are some difficulties in having the sister’s luggage offloaded in Sg because it flagged suspicions that she might be skiplagging considering my trip is ending in SG, so the check-in agent initially said she would have to make some calls to make this happen, but I think a brainwave came over her and she suggested that the sister’s luggage can be tagged to me too, seeing that it was just nice within my (larger) luggage allowance and we can take it all out in SG. Brilliant move hahah. So that’s a plus one in my books and I made sure to mention her helpfulness in my post flight review hahah. The sister also managed to tag along priority immigration queue, the officer decided to close one eye seeing that the queue wasn’t very long anyway. So we made it to airside in good time, shopped a bit before I head off to my lounge.  All our room key cards except the Interlaken one who was very sharp and didn’t let us take one  Checked in! No blue business class ticket card stock though. SilverKris Lounge at LHR has separate sections for business class and first class passengers, and unfortunately for me the business class lounge was really packed with passengers - since it was accessible by any passenger flying business class on a star alliance flight and apparently the home lounges for some of the airlines were quite full today too so many passengers were redirected here (passenger queueing in front of me mentioned that United redirected him here). Oh well. Food wasn’t spectacular though the spread is quite okay, but sadly there weren’t many spare seats after I was done with dinner and shower. And the bartender’s attitude was kind of a put off when I asked if there’s any cocktail menu, he basically just brushed it off and say they don’t do this and rattled off a couple of basic ones he can do, and I went with a pina colada in the end. Settled down at the one seat I could find, posted some stories, and actually that’s about it - had planned to lounge hop to United’s lounge but obviously that’s off the table given the packed circumstances so left to meet the sister at our gate.  A section of the buffet Part of the spread  The bar. The more I think about it the more I was annoyed at the bartender’s attitude.  Shower before the long flight because I don’t want to go through 48 hours without showering (ok I exaggerate there’s a time difference)  Ambience. What ambience? It’s packed af.  Pina colada at least tasted like one. Ok fine you can sense my disdain for this lounge. Flight back was awesome again, other than the fact that the wifi was once again very spotty. Managed a solid 5-6 hours of interrupted sleep, flight attendants were very attentive throughout and one of them was particularly apologetic to me throughout - story being, I got a bulkhead seat but unfortunately the overhead compartment was reserved for safety equipment so I could only stow my luggage underneath a cubby (where my legs go to when the seat is in flat bed mode). I initially asked if I could store my luggage somewhere else because I thought I was going to need that space for my legs when the seat is upright, so said FA helped me to find another one a few seats behind me. But 5 minutes later she returned to apologise and told me that the passenger insisted the space to be vacant because it is his right to, and asked if I could move my bag to another space in a different aisle altogether, which I helpfully agreed (while giving the passenger a death stare along the way). After we reached cruising mode I realized that I didn’t need the footrest space anyway because it’s too far in front so I went on to retrieve my luggage and stored it there, and from then on the FA apologized to me a couple more times lol. Which meant I sort of have a stranglehold on her hahahah and I took the chance to ask for another pair of bears for the sister lol. And eventually when she gave out amenity kits she also gave me two lol.  PDB, got champagne  Bears came early so they get to enjoy (view of) my dinner too  SilverKris Sling  Dinner served after takeoff. Appetizer was Yellow Fin Tuna Oka, Ikura, Coconut Cream And Shiso - Marinated yellow fin tuna in coconut cream, lemon juice, zest, cucumber, cherry tomato, red chili, pepper. Salmon roe on top of the Oka and finished with micro shiso and coriander cress  Main was Pan Roasted Cornish Cod Fillet with Caper Gherkin Sauce On a bed of sea purslane, sea fennel, cucumber seasoned with lemon salt, pepper and dill oil. Topped with smoked paprika batter crumb. Didn’t go for BTC because options out of ex-LHR was dire and uninspiring to say the least. This was instead a collab with a chef which I sadly can’t rmbr the name oops  Dark Chocolate Cremeaux Rich and dense dark chocolate cremeaux with whipped vanilla mascarpone. Garnished with salted caramel hazelnut and ginger biscuit crumble  Oh I forgot to show a hastily taken picture of my crib  And I didn’t trouble the FAs to set up a bed for me, got things done and off to bed I go. The other episode was with food - for my second meal, the options were very breakfast based and BTC options were very limited - so even though I had preselected my options, when it came to meal time I asked the other FA if it was possible for me to have something from the night before - if they still had spare - and he duly told me that he will try to work some magic. And he delivered! Extra points again in my books and I also mentioned these two in my post flight review - something I wanted to do for my Suites flight but unfortunately I missed the section and couldn’t go back to list down his name (whom, I have forgotten by now actually haha but he was the helpful one who escorted the sister up to my suite).  Coffee to pick me up.  It’s called “before landing” service but it’s mostly breakfast items. Including starting with fruit platter  Braised Pork Belly with Dried Tangerine Peel and Sweet Soy Bean Paste, Chinese vegetables and egg fried rice. Told FA jokingly that I was craving for Asian food after two weeks in Europe and she also shared that she finds it weird that they are serving breakfast for this meal considering we are touching down at 5pm and this feels way more like lunch.  Amenity kit unboxing. New colour!  And here I was wearing my new watch to act as if it wasn’t new lol. Turns out to be the only time I wore it so far.  The majestic bird that brought us home. And so we landed back in SG close to evening, marking the official end to the trip. And what a trip it has been. Perhaps one day I’d be back in Switzerland, and maybe in a full winter mode too. But for now it’s really a core memory unlocked. cked a bit, then off to the airport we go. |
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Europe 2024: Christmas market
posted : Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Last day in Vienna!
Evening flight so we still have some time to spend in Vienna, and lots to do but I ended up giving up some of it. Checked out, didn’t hunt for a breakfast place but we headed straight to Schonbrunn Palace. Agenda was not the museum itself hahahah but the Christmas market outside it. I was oddly excited about this, I’ve heard good things about European Christmas markets and as usual, our travel period meant that we are mostly too early for Christmas markets - this is one of the few that opened earlier, in fact just the day before, or I would have gone here on our first night instead of in bright daylight because I think the ambience would have been very much different but hey I’m not complaining.  Station named after the landmark  Entrance to the Christmas market in front of the palace  Stalls  Of course there’s a carousel  Let the feast begin, started with some schnitzel  Mulled wine, and I had this orange punch liquor thing. Gotta say it’s not my favorite thing on earth, unsurprisingly since I am not a huge alcohol drinker and this is hot alcohol even so that was even more of a turn off. The concept of paying a deposit for the mug is new to me - we ended up bringing one home so forfeit the deposit for one.  Friend told me to find a restaurant with spaetzle, I didn’t have time for one so just got one here. Quite like it.  Arancini  Then a loaded baked potato to round things up  Of course there’s a Christmas tree  This dude is so 小气seriously. If you didn’t pay up he will just look away and refuse to be part of your photo. And I think the food was mostly good, wish I could stomach more though I think I really am not a fan of mulled wine. Or wine in general. I had planned a market visit but decided to drop it, and headed back to Stephansplatz. In pursuit of Viennese coffee, which was something of an obsession ever since I learnt of its existence (in a cafe at Seoul of all places). So I thought I really need a good one (the McDonalds one last night didn’t count, although I thought it was quite nice and sweet)! We passed by this cafe the other day near Figlmuller so I thought I’d check it out again because I googled and saw it on their menu, but they clarified that they only have a hot one and it is more like the Wiener Melange I had the other day, so we ended up just having the sister’s usual matcha latte and their cheesecake which turns out to be an unexpected star.  San Sebastián cheese cake or more commonly known as basque cheesecake….and it was so good! Popped by another cafe nearby that I googled and finally found out that they don’t serve iced Viennese coffee during cold months. Ahh I don’t see why not but I guess you do you. Then doubled back to Truth Coffee to get an actual cup of latte ahahaha staff must be questioning my choices.  Got a croissant, didn’t get around to eating it until we were in London lol  Exploring  Doubling back to Truth for a coffee  Passing by St Stephen’s cathedral again. Their Christmas market had also started but we didn’t see a point. Then it’s back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head off to the airport. Airport Express is a scam apparently as it is only 8 minutes faster than the S7 train but a lot more expensive. So we duly took the alternative, though it meant we had to drag our luggage a bit further to another train station. And after alighting, it was a longgg 10 minute walk or so to T1.  Vienna city station (not to be confused with Vienna HBF) But I think highlight of the airport was the Vienna Lounge, which was free for Priority Pass holders and it was an excellent lounge - food variety was decent, facilities were clean and aplenty, nice aesthetics and we also get nice sunset views to round off the Austrian leg of the trip.  Lounge interior  Sun sets early so we are there at the right time!  Quite like the deco We took British airways and it was a decent flight even though once again, there wasn’t any full meals despite it being a two hour ish flight and BA being a full airline, but I guess that’s the norm in Europe? But we got to London on time, and to our hotel. Knowing that we really only had one short night in London I didn’t want to go all the way to town and be subjected to expensive room rates, so I settled on somewhere along the Elizabeth line, that is sort of still near-ish to town if we wanted to head out after arriving. But in reality we were in no condition to do that la so actually I could have just taken one step further and stayed at an airport hotel instead - we were going to leave our luggage behind after checking out the next morning anyway before heading to town. Oh well.  Just a small snack and a drink which is what we get for short MH flights to KL  Obviously hungry again and we passed by this Popeyes outlet at Hammersmith while looking for the correct exit so decided to just eat first And this was I think the least enjoyable room of all our stays, a bit warm and the toiletries were poor - using a Rituals bottle but filling it with cheap diluted stuff, dirty towels etc. But ultimately we were only there for about 12 hours so we didn’t make a fuss.  Ended up at Novotel Room tour  Said croissant from earlier Off to the last post of the trip (finally!) |
