Our initial plan for this June is to go to New Zealand, we fell in love with skiing the previous trip to Hokkaido but didnt get enough of it, so we were looking for more skiing trips and only place we can do it in June is at New Zealand. However, as I got down to do research I find very limited resources about people to travel to New Zealand at this time for skiing, and most of the people there self-drive so there are also limited resources about the public transport there. It was not impossible, but much harder to plan compared to Hokkaido. On top of that, we were not sure if the ski slopes will be opened the period we are traveling as it depends on the amount of snowfall and varies yearly (typically by mid June). I remember it was during one of our dinner to Astons in April, I suddenly had the idea of visiting UK instead as the air tickets cost the same as going to NZ. It was a random idea but P agreed immediately with excitement, he had been wanting to visit UK for years, his sister is residing there and they had not reunite for 8 years.
We had to get P visa clearance before we can get down to book the tickets. It took us a few weeks to do that and it was almost mid May when we jumped around with joy with his visa approval. I had been researching about air tickets and monitoring the direct flights to London on SQ. When we finally got down to booking the tickets, we realised his sister is staying at Manchester and not London, and getting a direct flight ticket there is expensive and rare. Colleague Y told me about the UOB rewards website where we can get 6 miles for booking certain airlines and I went to check it out. Surprisingly, Etihad airways tickets to Manchester were very cheap! It was only $920 with taxes included and seemed too good to be true as I was expecting to pay $1.7k for each of our air ticket when I was monitoring the prices on SQ. Although I read lots of negative reviews about the cramped seats and bad service online, the offer was too good to pass, so I went ahead to book.
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| Finally the day came, and we got on our way to our first Europe trip! |
Other than that, we did not get to plan much as it is more of a trip for P to reunite with his sister and everything else is secondary. So unlike previous trips when we got busy touring around and visit many places, I did not do much research for this trip at all. It felt quite odd and a bit uneasy for me as it seemed like a waste if we cannot get much out of this trip. However, I convinced myself to subdue the 'kiasu feeling' to and just sit back to enjoy whatever there is to come for this trip. This is my first trip to Europe (finally!) and I guess there will be more in future.
We were really crossing our fingers as like what was mentioned in the previous trip reports, we were always jinxed in some ways when we travel, especially missing flights more than a few times whenever we go for a longer trip like this. Since it is a 8pm flight, we tried to set off as early as possible just in case. Fortunately, our flight to Manchester did not have any hiccups and it turned out better than expected.
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| My first flight to Europe and Middle East |
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| Touch screen IFE |
I actually forgot about my worries about flying with Etihad airways as it had been more than a few weeks and I was glad the tickets were settled. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I stepped into the aircraft and realised my worries were unfounded. We had to transit at Abu Dhabi and our first flight was on a Boeing 787 which was new and the cool lighting made it look classy and posh. The legroom was sufficient and I was quite impressed with the high tech IFE, it was so much better than our flight on United Airlines last year. Since the majority of the passengers on both flights were Europeans, I guess the complaints were probably issued by these ang mohs as they were much taller and bigger built than us.
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| Glad that the seat pillow can tear open to become neck pillow |
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| Looked cramped for these guys on my right but actually it was fine |
Before my flight, I went online to book low caloric meals as usual and I was half expecting them to miss this out as nobody came to paste stickers like what they'll usually do on SQ flights. I looked at the menu and had set my mind on the pasta if my special meal do not turn up. I was a little hungry but had prepared some snacks for myself on this flight, we reached the airport quite early (at least 2h before flight) but went hunting for souvenirs for P's sister and family so did not have time to get any dinner. However, the LCML turned up and I actually enjoyed it.
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| Quite impressed with the sleep pack that came with both flights |
It was confusing when we reached Abu Dhabi as it was 11pm local time, 4am for my friends at home and 7pm for our destination. The transit time was about 3 hours, so we had 2 hours to roam but the hours are too odd for us to feel energetic. Abu Dhabi is the base for Etihad flights and the people working at the airport are all foreigners like Koreans, Filipinos and so on. Considering my previous flight to San Francisco was 17 hours including transit, this should be my longest flight ever, total 18hours including transit. A quick check online shown that Manchester is actually 3000km nearer to Singapore compared to SFO, probably the place of transit made it a longer journey.
The second leg of our journey was on a older and bigger aircraft exactly like most SQ flights but it was not as comfortable. Probably it was the red eye flight at odd hours that made us really tired and sleepy, we slept through most of it and could not wait to land. We were given a snack bag when we boarded the flight. It consisted of apple slices, sesame bar, water and sandwich for my low caloric meal. I tried to eat the sandwich although I was not hungry, but it was hard to savour as there were only tomatoes and cucumber slices in there, it will be nice if they can get some meat or simply give me the vegetable salad instead of the carbs. I got tired of their steamed chicken breast meat (which was not too tender) as they served it for both dinner and breakfast, although it was a well fed journey with 4 meals.
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| Took a photo of the old school postbox and I realised this is the design at most places |
We arrived at 7am at Manchester Airport and there was a full day ahead of us. A red eye long 18 hour flight like this is super tiring, and luckily we didn't have anything planned for the day. P's sister was there to pick us with her two younger kids and we made our way to their home to this town call Ashton-under-Lyne via taxi.
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| Love the design of the church |
On the way back, I looked around and took in the view of the surroundings from Manchester Airport to the small town. I immediately fell in love with the place as it was really what I had in mind for a small English town, all the buildings were European style and quaint. If we only have one of these buildings in SG, it'll be a tourist attraction.
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| Taxi which brought us home |
The taxi ride is most costly than Singapore, a 20-30min ride from the airport home was 26 pounds (>50SGD). Other than the airport, we do not usually see any taxi on the streets, so its quite impossible to flag down one, and people usually call or book them at no additional charges. As the family do not have their own transport, we take the taxi very often and I soon got familiar with it. There are seats (some foldable ones) behind the driver in two rows facing each other and it seems quite normal to book a cab to fit 7 of us, and its cost effective that way.
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| The neighourhood reminds me of US but UK style buildings are much nicer |
P's bro-in-law had already fixed up a very nice breakfast for us when we arrived, it was a sumptuous English breakfast with Filipino style garlic rice. We had the breakfast and chatted with the family, I cant believe it was only 10am+ when we finished our breakfast. P sister and bil were very kind to give up their bed room for us during our stay here, I was lying on the bed and fell into a nap really fast. I woke up, took a good shower and played with James (4 year old kid) who got familiar with us really fast.
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| Cute and inquisitive James who got very interested with our gadgets |
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| Reunion photo at the supermarket (us with Mica and James) |
After awhile, we got ready to go to the supermarket in the nearby town center as we have long train rides going to the Stonehenge the next day. I was amazed at the amount of food we bought there, looking like it can last us for a week. It was raining heavily when we went out and the weather was cooler than expected. It was warm the week before we arrived so I didnt expect that I will need my jackets much, however I'm still glad I've brought them as it was chilly when we went out. Most of the locals are wearing coats/raincoats and jackets in town due to the heavy rain.
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| Very delicious home cooked dinner for us, all thanks to Dan |
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