View of Amman Old Downtown
Internet speed is so slow at Marriott Petra, equal to dial up.
internet cafe in town is much better, so just one picture……
Heading to Jordan now, quick summary of Almaty, Kazakhstan
I am heading to Jordan now, here is quick summary of Almaty, Kazakhstan:
I didn’t speak a single word Russian, most locals did not speak English, even if they did, it’s English word, not sentence, but locals were very nice, friendly and helpful,so I was able to get around using buses and taxi like locals and commute with them using hand languages. Tourist trap? I did not see any because there was no tourist for them to trap, I only met 3 tourists including myself. If not because of the incident today at ALA airport, I would say I was very happy with the visit.
Immigration official at airport refused to stamp my passport and let me exit the country by claiming I did not have Jordan Visa in my passport. I know some countries put certain restrictions to their own citizens such as China or India when leaving the country, but those restrictions doesn’t apply to the foreigner, whether a foreigner could enter next country or not is not immigration officials’ business.
She did eventually let me go after 50 minutes. I didn’t know why she did that, maybe
1 She wants money, but I did not try to offer?
2 The country has such law, and she just could not believe that one country like Jordan would give “visa on arrival” to a ordinary passport holder of a communist country.
Who knows and don’t care, no desire to go back in near future.
China Eastern will officially join Skyteam as early as June
The current boss of China Eastern is the former boss of China Southern, who brought China Southern into Skyteam. I guess he was too lazy to look for new connections, so he did the same for China Eastern.
You can earn and redeem Delta Skymiles on China Eastern long time ago, but Delta charges fuel for redemption on China Eastern.
China Eastern has the oldest fleet among all Chinese airlines, they still have Airbus 300 currently in service. None of their Aircraft have personal AVOD system in economy.
The good thing is, they do have pretty good award spaces on transpacfic route.
Don’t know whether Delta will give Elite bonus on MU flight or not. and one more thing, If you are Delta Skyteam Elite Plus, you can not access to China Southern lounge for China domestic flight unless you have international connections within 6 hours, so I guess MU will probably do the same once they join.
You can enjoy In Flight wifi on Lufthansa transatlantic flights
I saw it on Lufthansa in flight magazine yesterday. LH will offer in flight wifi on transatlantic flights, it covers pretty much from Eastern Europe all the way to US and Canada west coast.
You can read more information here
Heading to Kazakhstan
If you have not seen me in 2 days, either because internet is too expensive or they don’t issue me a visa on arrival, so have to sleep in the airport for 2 days. Haha! 
You can now earn United/Continental Elite bonus when flying ANA
Don’t know how I missed this, from Apr 1st, united Elite can earn Elite Bonus when flying ANA, in addition, earning ratio had changed to better
For TRANSPACIFIC, INTRA-JAPAN WITH INTERNATIONAL CONNECTION AND INTRA-ASIA FLIGHTS (NOT INCLUDING FLIGHTS BETWEEN JAPAN AND AUSTRALIA, CHINA, INDIA, OR KOREA):
You will earn 100% base miles on many discounted economy fares.
For other flights, base miles earning fare class still the same.
This made United/Continental Elite can earn Elite bonus on all UA, CO, US, LH and most AC, now all NH flights.
More detail can be found here
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Conclusion
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Introduction and Planning
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-From PVG-BOB, a 24 hours journey
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Bora Bora
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Hilton Moorea
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Moorea
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Heading to New Zealand
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Hilton Lake Taupo
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Around Lake Taupo
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Rotorua
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Everything is fine in Japan
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Back to Auckland
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Back to home on Korean Air
A lot of people told me Tahiti is “once in a lifetime” experience and it’s the most beautiful place on earth, I agree. but maybe because I stayed too long and made Tahiti to become really “one in a lifetime” experience place to me.
New Zealand is beautiful, people are friendly, I think I made mistake when planed our trip, Tahiti too long, New Zealand too short, but it gave me a great excuse to go to New Zealand again in the future.
I really don’t think Tahiti is that expensive, at least you don’t need drive around with $9 per gallon gas. Overall speaking,I still believe the cheapest industrial country to live is United States of America.
Thanks for reading. I am going to Kazakhstan now.
I was fined by FRA custom!
If you have never been to FRA terminal 1 B section, that’s because flight from industrial country such as USA or Canada land in A section, where you can hardly find one custom officer.
B section is a totally different story, that’s where all flights from developing or third world countries land. several custom officer wait to find something from you. Did they ever ask or search Caucasians? maybe, I never saw one. Today, I was the first Asian to get off plane and passed immigration, but custom officer already stopped several African for question and search. I knew I would be stopped again, not first time, actually nearly every time.
” Do you have any cigarettes and liquor in your bag?”
“Yes, I do, 10 packs of cigarettes,”
Then he took my bag for X Ray to make sure I don’t have liquor. I thought it was done and I could go, but instead, he opened every single pocket of my bag to find cigarettes. After he emptied every pocket, he scanned my bag again to make sure I did not have any secret compartment. He looked a little disappointed when he could not find more than 10 packs.
Then he asked me to empty my pocket to see if I had any in my cloth, Aha, he got me. I had one opened box with only 7 cigarettes left. He finally could put some fine on me and explained to me how much will be, 200 cigarettes for free, but need to pay these extra 7 cigarettes with 0.38 euro each including fine, total 2.66. Unbelievable. Again, while they were searching me, I did not seen a single Caucasian was stopped, well, that’s FRA. I am used to it already!
I understand racial profiling is happening everywhere, It’s the world we live in. It’s not I have never been searched or questioned in US or Canada before, but every time people are nice and reasonable.
I don’t believe coincidence, so what’s the chance I got searched every time and seen at least 8 officers at FRA B section but rarely seen a single officer in A section?
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Back to home on Korean Air
We left hotel around 7:00am in the morning to AKL airport and filled up gas along the route. Gasoline price in New Zealand was very expensive, 2.18 NZD per LITTER=8.72 NZD per gallon=6.92USD per gallon. It cost us a lot to drive around.
New Zealand airport was small compare to most industrial countries’ gateway airport and Korean airline check in counter was pretty empty for all classes. We finished all procedures and arrived Air New Zealand lounge in just less than 20 minutes. The lounge was packed with so many people, I couldn’t’ even find a place to take pictures.
This was not our first time to this airport, few years ago, we took Air New Zealand from Los Angeles to Sydney, but our connecting flight was delayed by 9 hours due to weather and no smoking area in the airport…Maybe they got too many complaints and finally opened up a smoking area for us now. However, the cigarette price in New Zealand was the most expensive one I have ever seen, it’s even expensive then New York City, London, 14NZD per PACK.
Korean airline was parked at the furthest gate in the airport, Gate 15th, it was a long walk from Air New Zealand lounge. Boarding was on time and business class was not full, only 7 or 8 people in total. It was still older version B777, seat was not a flat bed, but monitor was very big
Soon after took off, purser came to introduced herself and to my surprise, she knew how to speak Chinese. I really liked Korean Air because of their Korean traditional cruise, bibimbap, the spicy sauce tasted so good, I ended up bought several boxes.
Since it was a day flight, it’s hard to fall in sleep, thanks to the great entertainment system to keep me busy and most importantly, I hadn’t watch any movies for few months.What impressed me the most was their Duty free shopping book, it was so big and so many to choose from, price was low and most stuff was indeed “duty free”. Like most Asian airlines, the on board service was always excellent, but this Korean air lie-flat seat was one of the most uncomfortable seat I had ever been on.
Flight landed in Seoul on time, there was one more flight back to Shanghai the same day, but since I wanted to stay one night, I did not choose that one when I booked my flight. Shuttle to Hyatt was packed with full of transit passengers, we had to stand in the shuttle, glad it was not long. We went to Regency Club for the cocktail hours, there was no seat anymore, too many people. Since I wanted to go to Casino, I just ate my dinner in the lounge.
Only foreigner or Korean with resident permit of foreign countries could go to Casino in Korea, so the only quite place was actually Casino. I stayed until 3:00 am.
Korean Air had a check in counter inside the Hyatt hotel, but the funny thing was, they only checked your bag to a specific counter in the airport where you need re check again! Flight back to shanghai was short, but I still had a chance to eat bibimbap one more time. We landed in PVG around noon, after 3 weeks of vacation, we finally back home. My wife missed our girl so much.
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Everything is fine in Japan
We were suppose to go to Japan on our way back to see cherry flowers in Osaka, but earthquake happened while we were at Bora Bora, then nuclear power station crisis was all over the news too, but I still decided to go because I really didn’t think there would be any problem for Osaka. After our family heard we insisted to go, they started to keep calling us every day, every few hour and tried to change my mind. Eventually, I changed the flight.
But how is Japan now? They are fine, everything is ok. I just went to Osaka and Kyoto with my mom last week, street was packed with locals. now the key word here is local. You don’t see many tourists, especially tourist group, so when you go to local attractions, you don’t have to worry about places will be packed with tourists anymore. Airport was empty, only one exit immigration window opened when I was there. It’s Osaka KIX airport!
Economy in Japan is not looking too good, less tourist, currency appreciated a lot, foreigner doesn’t want to buy anything anymore because everything is too expensive. Duty free is expensive too, not a single passenger in the duty free shop.
Still, if you don’t care about price, then it’s a great time to go!! Very safe!
Our fifth year anniversary trip-Tahiti, New Zealand and (No Japan)-Back to Auckland
After 3 nights in Hilton Lake Taupo, we headed back to Auckland downtown for our last night and visited another famous attraction along the route-Waitomo glowworm caves.Tickets were purchased from their website with 10% discount. Unfortunately, photo was not allowed in the cave. To be honestly, I was disappointed by the tour, so my suggestion was, if you had seen glowworm before, skip it. There were 2 other caves around same area, and a lot more active and fun, If I had enough time, I would choose the other 2 caves.
We stayed at All Season Auckland, Accor Group for our last night because I had some hotelclub reward dollar and only paid $20 out of pocket. never stayed at this brand before, but judging from the price, I did not expect too much. The location was excellent, right in the center of everything, but even I was prepared, I did not expect room to be that small AND with kitchen.
There was a interest Chinese cafe right next to the hotel” Red Guards Cafe”, waitress were dressed Chairman Mao’s Red Guards uniforms, but taste? Not very good.
