So how was last week?

This week I am back with Etihad up to the Middle East.  Am wondering what they will do with my Platinum card (last time I flew them I was Gold). In Melbourne (where I am starting my journey from), they use the Air New Zealand lounge which is a very nice one.

Safe travels to you!

I am in Bangkok, Wellington, Palmerston North, Auckland and Melbourne this week. 8005 miles (12 808 km) to be flown with four airlines: Air New Zealand, British Airways, Qantas and Virgin Australia.

Trivia: I will fly my 820th flight of my life!   I will also have my 40th Air New Zealand flight!

Where are you this week? Hope its a great one!

In 2011 I visited  eleven new cities with a population of 100 000 people plus. This brought the number of cities I have been to with that size population to 167.  The new cities were (in order of how highly I rated them)

1. Seoul, S Korea…I was blown away by this amazing vibrant capital city. I ve decided it is the best city in Asia and my 11th favourite in the world!
2. Exeter, UK….a cute small English city with amazing Roman ruins and a very old and grand Cathedral
3. Dubai, UAE…as fun, spectacular and  mind boggling as I had been led to believe
4. Brasilia, Brazil…Despite the many detractors, I really enjoyed this city- so much so that I dedicated five blog posts to it!
5. Beirut, Lebanon…vibrant, fun with so so so much potential. If the hounds of war can be kept at bay, this will be a city to watch
6. Pattaya, Thailand….this is a lovely city which is easy to get around with amazing food but I found there is a very nasty undercurrent which I found very disturbing
7. Changwon, S Korea…another planned city but not one that feels oppressively planned
8. Houston, USA…I must admit, I was dreading going to Houston but was very pleasantly surprised
9. Fujariah, UAE…fascinating place with a great castle and  one of the oldest mosques in the world
10. Amman, Jordan….chaotic, friendly with great food and drink and very friendly people. Better infrastructure and public transport would make it a great city
11. Dammam, Kingdom Saudi Arabia…. a city that is overshadowed by neighbouring Bahrain…frankly I felt, a lot of work is needed here to bring this city up to world standards….unplanned infrastructure, poor public transportation don’t help with getting around

Last year, I identified my top ten cities in the world. That listing has not changed in the year:

1. Paris remains my Number One in the world.
2. Berlin
3. San Francisco - see my 2011 Review
4.  Melbourne, Australia
5.  Stockholm
6.   Montreal
7.  Barcelona
8.  Wellington, New Zealand
9.  Portland, Oregon, USA
10.  Toronto, Canada

What are your favourite cities?

December is one of my quietest travel months. A mere seven flights- three with Etihad and four with the transitioning Virgin Australia (all in front row!).

Blog post wise:

• Dec 31: Best and worst airlines of 2011: Top Spot to Emirates and Bottom spot to Tiger Australia (that will teach them to bump me off a flight!)
• Dec 21:  Flying highlights for 2011 -I effectively flew round the world seven times in 2011 and  managed a  7*7 frequency whereby my 737th flight was on a Southwest 737, the 747th on a Qantas 747: 757th on a United 757, then Qantas 767 and Air New Zealand 777
• Dec 23: Season Greetings
• Dec 19: Singapore and Virgin alliance
• Dec 17: Air New Zealand Struggling
• Dec 16: Virgin’s new era

Tuesday Trip Reports:

• Dec 27: korean-airlines-a380

Wednesdays

• Dec 28 Wednesday Weirdness-Whats left in luggage
• Dec 14: Wednesday Weirdness -Rollerblades
• Dec 7 Wednesday Weirdness-I wanna pay-my way

I am Wild about Flying and thanks to my friend Tony (see separate story), I have a very accurate record of my travel. This means I know for a certainty, that as at today’s date I have flown 812 times in my life-   111 times in 2011.   Question: Do I need to fly 112 times next year? 111 times in a year is about twice per week. In total a scary 412 hours of my year was spent in aeroplanes- two and a half weeks!!

Distance Flown
I  travelled 304 560 km  (189 245 miles). That number is meaningless to me as a quantity but it is 7.6 times right around the earth!!!  This is the most I have flown in my life and brought my total miles flown in my life to:  1,161,075 miles/  1,868,569 kilometres.  At current flying patterns, I will hit two million kilometres by mid 2012! Like to bet when?

The Overall Experience.

For me, flying was not quite as good an experience as it was in 2010, but way better than the first five years after September 11. My overall score for flying in 2011 was 4.3 out of 5 (86%). Flying is made more pleasurable for me by looking for the good in it, not checking bags in, having high frequent flyer status and seeking after exit row seats as much as possible. Its let down by crappy US airlines, US security lines and proceses (although TSA personnel are much happier now).

Greenhouse emissions

My plane travel resulted in a staggering 39.4 tonnes of greenhouse gas, which I offset 110% by purchasing 163 trees. We also added offset to some tickets as we bought them from the airlines. Its kind of like double dipping in a good way.

Airports Visited 

The airports I visited the most were Melbourne and Sydney (Australia), Los Angeles, Auckland and Perth, I added a lot of new airports in the year mostly in South America and the Middle East.

Airlines Flown- Qantas drops from my most flown airline

In terms of the 27 airlines I used in  2011, the Virgin Australia group were the ones I was with the most travelling with them 20 times for 61 000 km. Qantas came second 15 times for 43 000km, While a lot, my Qantas flying has firmly dropped – see the table below of annual Qantas travel which shows a reduction from a peak of 61 to 43 to 15 flights over the last three years).

I had quite a sour taste in my mouth about Qantas due to

1. my perception that the Qantas management have been less focused on customer service
2. the dilution of Platinum status frequent flyer
3. a dramatic improvement in the Virgin Australia product within the Australian domestic market
4. more flights to the middle east and South America where Qantas has no presence

I am curious as to how many other Qantas Platinum customers have done the same reduction in travel.

New Airlines

Experienced Etihad  for the first time (trip report to come), as well as V Australia (now part of Virgin Australia, Royal Brunei and Royal Jordanian and Korean Air. In total in my life I have now travelled with 81 airlines- some of which are defunct. See my blog tomorrow for my top (and bottom) airlines of 2011.

The Big One – The Planes

The fact I flew on 24 types of planes is a little humdrum in view of the real excitement (for me) in 2011.

The first was my 7** sequencing. I managed to time my 737th, 747th, 757th, 767th and 777th flights of my life to be on the aircraft of the same number:

• Southwest 737: Portland to Spokane - brilliant flight
• Qantas 747: Excellent
• United 757: awful
• Qantas 767: okay
• Air New Zealand 777- Auckland to Los Angeles- Perfect Experience

I was very excited by this achievement

Little disappointed that I didn’t manage:

• 707 – I don’t know John Travolta well enough to ask to go in his 707
• 717 – I didnt manage to get an Air Tran flight timing right
•  727  -The only airline with 727 in regular service is in Iran a
• 787- the first B787 flight ended up being after my 787th flight and despite lobbying efforts I did not get near it

The other was an additional three A380 products: korean, Air France (to come) and Lufthansa.

34 of my 111 flights were on 737s– mostly shorthaul.

Toward 2012

• I know the China Southern A380 is on my list
• I also plan a 40% reduction in travel next year. What that means in terms of actual flights, I am not sure yet!
• I do want to add States 47, 48, 49 and 50 in the USA
• I want to add five new countries- Japan, Turkey, Denmark, South Africa and ?
• I expect to fly 3 or 4 new airlines
• I hope to be able to share all this with you….thanks for being Wild About Travel!

Aboard the tourist bus

I have two more blogs to conclude my description of my experiences of Brasilia, the planned capital city of Brazil. The previous four are:

• Boggling Brasília - overview of a planned metropolis
• June 14, 2011- Bewitching Brasília -birds eye view of the capital
• June 17, 2011- Appraising Brasília -How does this planned city rate?
• July 28, 2011: Touring Brasília - the Tourist Experience

Tomorrow’s Blog will tackle the fundamental problem of Brasília- successfully being a pedestrian!

I took a very informative Tourist bus for a two hour tour of Oscar Niemeyer’s awe inspring architecture. Niemeyer’s was responsible for most of the public buildings in Brasília. You would recognise his UN Headquarters in New York City. He is still designing buildings at the age of 103!In Brasília, his buildings are mostly arranged along the the East West axis of the city known as the Monumental Axis (see blog post).

First building on the Monumental Axis moving away from the centre of Brasília is the space agey  looking National Museum. Great building and looks fascinating. My criticism is that it looks very alone in the huge square that surrounds it. In my first blog about Brasília, I dare to suggest the museum needs another building plus I would love to see a Guggenheim built opposite it.

The exhibits in the Museum are very good but modest. The museum can be thoroughly visited in a less than an hour.

I fell in love with the Brasilia Cathedral  which is next along the axis. Its amazing! Consisting of sixteen curved 90-ton concrete pillars and stained glass panels, it is a stunning modernist building opened in 1970, ten years after the city’s opening. Niemeyer was deservedly awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize,  considered the most prestigious architecture award for the Cathedral in1988. His intention for the cathedral was for it not be gloomy and he succeeded. The light filled building soars to heaven.

I was surprised at how clearly under utilised the cathedral is for the main church in the capital city of a predominantly Catholic country. There are very few pews in it, for example.The day I was there, they were preparing for a wedding. There were decorated pews and a mirrored walkway reflecting the sky.

Brazil’s National Congress Building almost at the end of the Monumental Axis looks very similar to the UN Building in New York City.

The semi-sphere on the left is the seat of the Senate. Currently, the Senate comprises 81 seats with three Senators from each of Brazil’s 26 states and the Federal District. Senators serve eight-year terms.

The semi-sphere on the right is the seat of the Chamber of the Deputies. There are 513 deputies representing their disticrts.

Between them are two vertical office towers for the Congress.

In front of the complex there is a large lawn -used predominantly for demonstrations and a reflecting pool.

Behind the congress is the Praça dos Três Poderes (Three Powers Square). Three Powers Square is where the Monumental Axis finishes. This is Ground Zero for Brasilia. The buildings representing and housing the three powers that “rule” Brazil were the reason why the entire city was planned and built.. The other two Powers are represented by the President’s Palace (Palácio do Planalto) and the Supremo Tribunal Federal.

Looking toward Supreme Court

I didn’t like the Square. It felt too sterile, too barren and too large. To me, it makes the three buildings which are all great buildings feel distant and forbidding. I also would have thought having these buildings closer down toward the lake would have been a more pleasant backdrop. This would have meant orienting the city further east.

There were many people there on the day I visited but the square felt empty.

Democracy Monument, 3 Powers Square

One building in Brasilia that is near the lake is the President’s Residence: Place of the Dawn which is built on a Peninsula jutting into this artificial lake.

What made the President’s Palace fun this visit were the school kids trying to make the Presidential Guardsman react. Like their London counterparts, the guardsmen who protect the President stand unsmiling and almost unblinking.

The Palace was finished in 1958 before the City was opened. It has since been thoroughly renovated.

The Palace of Justice is made more attractive with the addition of flowing waterfalls along the front. It stands opposite the Foreign Affairs Ministry which has a lovely reflective pool out the front.
We went past the National Library which again looks good but looks lost in a barren concrete landscape and the Cultural Centre which looked lifeless. In a nation with such an exuberant culture, it could have looked much more alive.

Niemeyer also designed the first building at the University of Brasília and the first hotel both of which I didn’t have time to see.
His latest project (at the age of 103) is Digital Television Tower which should be opened sometime this year. It looks amazing!

This is my fourth article on my recent experiences on Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. When I told people that I was going to visit there, I got one of three reactions:

1. Why?
2. Where?
3. What for?

I was regaled with tales of people going mad with boredom in the sterile cityscape and the empty streets. Even Brazilians said to me that it would not take long to see the sights! Brasilia gets such a bad rap – from anyone who has never been there. The locals I spoke to, however, liked their city.  Many who were born there, bristle at the negative be stereotypes perpetuated by other Brazilians and visitors. Overall, as mentioned last week, I have appraised it as a good city.

Arrival

I arrived at the interstate bus station which is an impressive modern building that looks like it is in the middle of nowhere. As an example of how tricky it is to navigate Brasilia,  nowhere in any literature about the bus station does it say that it’s right next to Shopping Metro station (home of park shopping mall) I took a cab from the bus station to my hotel which cost 36 Brazilian Real on the meter (about $21) . Next time I would take the metro for 3 Real ($1.77 ) and get a 5 Real ($3) cab from the galleria station to my hotel.

How I filled my time

• I took a two hour City Bus tour which was a brilliant introduction to Brasilia. Again here is where being a tourist is difficult, None of the websites that had tour information had correct times. The tour started at the TV Tower and took in all the key parts of the Monumental axis ofthe Pilot Plan . On my tower were 9 people : 2 from Brasilia,  6 from other parts of Brazil and me. Reading through their  registration list for the week, I saw no other English speaking tourist! The tour had a taped commentary – on my trip it was in English and Portuguese.
• I then spent more hours gazing at the monumental buildings of Brasilia
• the museums did not take long to go through but had some great stuff-labelled mostly in Portuguese of course
• I went up the TV tower the highest building in the city twice- day and night
• I walked around the commercial centre of the city people watching, architecture gazing and window shopping
• I shopped at one of the main shopping malls
• I checked out the amazing Brasilia bar scene- its very fun with all these little bars scattered everywhere
• I ran through, walked through and hung out in the City Park including a sunset
• I  enjoyed the city markets

New Towns in Brasilia

• Although I felt a little like a burglar, I wandered around the residential zones of the city. I kept thinking someone would challenge me exploring the super blocks
• I took the metro out to the new settlements
• Next time, I would spend time on the Lake and check out the  Zoo and Botanic Gardens

The city does not get many international tourists from what I saw:

1. Few international flights land there- most of them go to the coastal cities of Sao Paolo or Rio
2. Most of the key websites for services in Brasilia were only in Portuguese eg
• Brasilia Metro  http://www.metro.df.gov.br/
• Brasilia Buses  http://www.tcb.df.gov.br/
• Main Tourist website  http://www.brasiliatur.df.gov.br/
• City information: http://www.gdf.df.gov.br/045/04501001.asp
• Cultural activities http://www.sc.df.gov.br/
3. Any English information was largely out of date or inaccurate or unclear eg there’s a new bus to the airport which stops in the southern hotel sector where I was staying. But where? no one could tell me where the bus stop was for it-a detail that I’d important if you need to catch a bus to the airport. As it happened the bus stopped for me in the street -I was the only one on it
4.  most of the posts about Brasilia from other tourists were negative warning people to stay away!

The Brazilian tourist authority’s need to set up a comprehensive accurate website promoting their city with positive testimonials.

Upcoming: blog post on Brasilia’s’ Buildings.

Who would you say was the best country in the world?? There are two rankings of countries by the world based on how that country is perceived by others.

1. The 2010 Country Brand Index ,
2. The 2010  Nation Brands Index -info from this Index is less as I think they want you to pay

To me, Country Brand seems more focussed on a country as tourist destination and Nation Index seems to be a little more focussed on a range of other attributes.Full explanation at end of Blog.

The Rankings:

Canada has got themselves number one spot on the Country Brand Index for 2010. This may have a lot to do with the Winter Olympics coverage. This may make Canadians happier about the price tag! Nations Index has them a little lower at sixth place. When you consider Nations index is also including culture, exports, people and governance, this would explain the differences in ranking.

Australia number two in Country Brand and number nine for Nations Index. This would suggest that Australia is seen as a very attractive tourist destination but people are less certain of the country’s exports, government etc.

In fact, in an article in Australian newspaper The Age, Simon Anholt, said: “Australia was ranked best in the world for natural beauty and as a place to visit if money was no object.”  But he said “Australia is a country that is considered to be very decorative, but not very useful,” In other words, Australia is is viewed as the ”dumb blonde” of the world, attractive but shallow and unintelligent.

Mr Anholt noted that the result of the attacks on Indian students in Melbourne which had been well publicised in India had impacted in India. In 2008, the Indian panel of respondents gave Australia seventh place in the world for promoting equality within society. In 2010, they ranked Australia 34th. “China, for example, ranked Australia first in 2008 for a warm welcome. That dropped to third in 2009 and ninth in 2010. That has serious implications for tourism, education and international relations.

New Zealand, number three on one and not in top ten on the other. It says a lot about the world’s perception of New Zealand beyond fjords, mountains and kyaking. I suspect its not dislike but lack of knowledge.

USA, number four on Country Brand and number one on Nations Index. So despite all the anti American rhetoric, the USA is a well respected brand.

I was surprised that Switzerland was ranked at fifth on CountryBrands but so much lower at eighth on the Nations Index. Do people not like Swiss chocolate exports?
France is the other way around seventh and third. Perhaps the perception of French arrogance slides them down a little in determining preference for a visit but people like to seek out French quality in products?.

United Kingdom is ninth  but ranked a little higher at fourth in Nations Index

Sweden is a good solid brand sitting at tenth in both indexes. In  fact too solid for some other Scandinavian countries who feel overshadowed by the strength of the Swedish brand.

Greece interestingly enough is at 22 in the Country Brand’s and we know they are not even in the top 50 for Nations Index undoubtedly due to the recent austerity measures in that country,  accompanied by violent Greek riots.

Iceland kept its reputation on Country brands but could not imagine it making the top 100 in Nations Index with concerns over its governance resulting from their spectacular economic collapse.

Iran and Pakistan were the worst ranked.

What do you think?
How do you rate a country? Which of those Nations would you like to visit? Buy something from?

CountryBrand Index was developed by FutureBrand in partnership with BBC World News and measures:

AWARENESS: How top of mind is the country?

FAMILIARITY: How well do people know the country?

ASSOCIATIONS: What qualities come to mind including:

tourism

heritage and culture

good for business

quality of life

value system

PREFERENCE: How highly do audiences esteem the country?

CONSIDERATION: Are they thinking of visiting?

DECISION / VISITATION: To what extent do people indeed visit the country

ADVOCACY: Do visitors recommend the country to others?


Nation Brands Index developed by Anholt-GMI looks at:

PEOPLE: reputation for competence, education, openness

GOVERNANCE: opinion regarding national government competency 


EXPORTS: image of products & the extent to which they are sought

TOURISM: level of interest in visiting

CULTURE & HERITAGE: Reveals global perceptions of each nation’s heritage and appreciation for its contemporary culture


INVESTMENT & IMMIGRATION: power to attract people to live, work or study