32(ish) Days Around the World

It’s time for another round-the-world adventure, only this time, there ain’t no stopping on the way round-the-world to New Zealand.

In fact, you would be surprised how easy it is to spend five hours in Singapore airport – and I didn’t even buy any gadgets!

But, back to NZ, we are having a nice long holiday visiting George’s sister in Christchurch, Sally in Auckland with a few days on the way back to see George’s old uni friend, Jim and his family.

The trip out was surprisingly comfortable – we beat the forecast snow by a few hours – then 12 hours to Singapore, the afore-mentioned 5 hours in the airport and topped with another 10 hours down to Auckland. Leg room and food were fine, and the stewardesses were all very … efficient. Unfortunately we sat next to the ‘man who has the deepest sleep IN THE WORLD’, which led to much hilarity at around 2 in the morning when George needed to visit the bathroom. It took a great amount of prodding and shaking, which frankly felt very un-British, and then we had to repeat the procedure on the way back because he had fallen asleep AGAIN. He did mention in the morning that he had drunk 4 pints of Stella before flying, which would explain a lot.

Then to Singapore, where we had planned to spend our time drinking by the pool, and generally acting like the international jet-set travellers we are. Finding the pool, however, was a different matter. Eventually, after much travellator and free foot-massage machine action, we made it to the Transit hotel which had the rooftop pool attached, only to find that it was far too hot to sit outside in. This thankfully gave me more time to ride the travellators.

The second leg was only punctuated by the intense fear of being stopped by the customs people for bringing in half a pack of tic-tacs – are they prohibited foodstuffs, or not? I think the regulations need to be clarified, if only to reduce the amount of stress I felt upon landing.

George said I shouldn’t worry about such stupid things.