on what i want from an elevator

Usually one's hotel room number consists of 3-4 digits. The last two are insignificant, it's the first one or two that determines how valued or lucky you are. I'm not quite sure why. The higher floor you are on, the more time it takes to get there and away. Which is where the elevator comes in. At the moment I'm on the 25th floor at the Hilton Tokyo and the elevator knows just what to do. The doors close with assured precision rather than an awkward or bouncy clumping sound, and the lift accelerates subtly to a significant speed and decelerates just as unassumingly. The overall impression is that I'm there faster than expected, and with no unnecessary fanfare. And the view is quite nice.

on not letting the story get in the way

As a wary and ever-vigilant traveller in this time of swine fever, I was of course attracted to the headline in a local Malaysian paper today: "226 suspected cases of H1N1 nationwide." It wasn't until the 2nd paragraph that the journalist reported the fact that 224 of these cases were found to be not infected. That left two positive cases (known previously), who had already been declared free of the virus. Meaning that there are zero cases in Malaysia at the moment. Which to me opens up a whole new field of possibilities for employing the word "suspected" without being constrained by any evidence to the contrary. Newsflash: "leery traveller" blogger suspected of being witty, wealthy.

the upgrade roller-coaster

The dizzying highs, the terrifying lows. As far as flying goes, I've been upgraded to business class once (many years ago) and once to premium economy (the existence of which has made the business class upgrade an even more elusive possibility). Of course the upgrade makes the subsequent flight measurably more miserable, and the temptation to spend points on an upgrade ever more appealing. Just today Qantas sent me an email offering that I could upgrade my upcoming Sydney to New York flight, despite the fact that "your seat booking class is usually not eligible for upgrade." I'm honestly surprised they're prepared to tolerate my sort in premium economy. Presumably they'd sanitise me somehow first.

In terms of hotels, the best upgrade I've had was to the Royal Suite at the Radisson in Santiago, Chile. Of course, it was hard to make full use of the separate dining room, as I checked in at 2am, and had to check out 7 hours later. When I had two nights there a few days later I was back to a regular room with an eternally blocked toilet and a relationship with the hotel plumber forged in adversity. 

Tonight I checked in to Le Meridien Kota Kinabalu (infamous on a previous trip for a colleague finding a cooked cockroach in their breakfast) for one night and have been upgraded to a suite (shown here). Although I only have a few hours in the room, I've so far managed to eat dinner at the dining table, rest on the sofa in front of the lounge room TV, post to this blog from the work desk, hang a pair of pants in the walk-in-wardrobe, snaffle a complimentary copy of Newsweek for tomorrow's flight, and will spend some time reclining languorously on the chaise longue before taking to the bed. It's all about making hay while the sun shines, and resisting the nagging feeling that this should be the natural order.

simple things

Why does one never remember to unwrap the bathroom soap before one's hands are too wet or gooey with hair product to easily do so?

Diarius, the roman god of scheduling

When I travel for work, I usually need to fit in as many meetings in as few days as possible. When I first started to do this, I used to get stressed about the variables that need to be juggled in order to do this: flight schedules, meeting availabilities, arranging by location, transport times, etc. Then of course there's the delay in confirmations - do you give a range of options, do you wait for each meeting to be confirmed, what's the politics of withdrawing an offered slot?

But I suspect that all that angst is wasted, as I've become increasingly suspicious that there's a whole 'nuther field of science here waiting to be discovered. Because experience seems to show that the later you leave the arrangements, the more likely they are to oddly fall into place. Once it's down to the last week, some sort of magical force steps in, and the schedule just seems to magically coalesce. People quickly agree to proposed times and others randomly request meetings right at the time you have a gap in the schedule.

In fact, I'm thinking about taking this to the next level on my next trip: I'll just book a flight in and out of wherever I need to go, and then if meetings are meant to happen, they'll just happen. I may go as far as booking a hotel, to be safe, but other than that I'll just head to a cafe on the first morning and see who turns up.

Of course the other conclusion is that the boy scout motto "be prepared" is not worth the woggle on which it was carved.

a380 review

I'll admit to a little giddiness when boarding QF32 back to Sydney from Singapore this time, closet plane-spotter that I am. Actually more like lounge room plane-spotter, since the view from the closet is restricted. Anyway the prospect of my first A380 flight was exciting. It was also came with a little hesitation - somehow a 747 still looks more like it actually wants to get off the ground, whereas the A380 comes off a bit more like a road train with wings. And being an experienced Apple fan, I've learned to be wary of 1st generation product releases. On this flight there was indeed a "malfunctioning [something] back up power system [something] will be ok after takeoff." And it was ok, although when we landed they had to keep the engines running at the gate until they plugged the plane into the wall. Just needed an extension cord I guess.

Let's start with the negatives: nothing major to speak of. The plane wasn't especially full, so it didn't seem too unruly getting on or off. Could be a different matter with a full flight. There was also quite an unsettling grinding sound when the flaps were fully retracted after takeoff, and again when they began to be extended for landing. Nothing that I'm sure some WD-40 wouldn't fix. On take off, it accelerated very rapidly and impressively, although certainly seemed to linger on the tarmac for longer than usual - just long enough that you can't help but wonder how much might be left. On landing, it did seem to groan just a little on impact - like it wasn't entirely convinced that it wanted that sort of interaction, but slowed quickly and obediently.

On then to the positives. I like the seats. It seemed like there was more space - both leg room and width. It's probably partly that the cabin feels modern and spacious. And the plane is certainly quiet. Really quiet compared to a regular jet. My noise-cancelling headphones really didn't make that much of an impact (they do on a 747). I think it feels less exhausting because of that.

But for me it's all about the video screen. It's widescreen and it's huge - in comparison to a standard one. And it's much higher quality. Normally I will only choose movies that I think can survive the translation to the small crappy screen (ie, nothing that gets nominated for a cinematography oscar) - but on this screen the viewing is actually involving rather than trying. I tried watching Quantum of Solace on the way over, but just couldn't tolerate the visuals on the small screen, but was able to watch it all the way through on this one. Personal video screens (with video on demand) are the best thing to happen to flight since smoking was banned, so I reckon improving that is the best thing you can do for an economy passenger.

Leery Traveller says two thumbs up.

iron cord art

It may be worth adding an eleventh criteria to my list below for determining the quality of a hotel, and that would be whether housekeeping engages in iron cord art. The example pictured here is from the Hilton in KL where my iron cord was arranged thusly every day, and every morning I did a small ribbon dance to get it undone. While I appreciate the neatness and elegance of the cord wrapping, it did evoke for me the vaguely troubling image of a stocky German woman tut-tutting every day she came in to find it unwound again.

a word about potato gratin

Here at the breakfast trough* at the Howard Plaza Kaohsiung, I was amused yesterday morning to see that the potato gratin had been filled out by mixing some fried potato wedges throughout it, looking suspiciously like they had been retrieved from the previous night's bar menu. Fair enough, I thought, if it was going to ensure that there was enough gratin to satisfy everyone. Presumably just a stop-gap measure until someone went to the market for more potatoes that could be added in a more traditional manner. However, clearly the potato shortage is ongoing as this morning I found the gratin had been filled out by the careful addition of hash brown nuggets.

* trough = buffet

whoever gave this hotel a four-star rating is ****ed.

... by which of course I mean that they were completely accurate. To be honest, I don't know half the time what the actual star rating is supposed to be for any given hotel, who has determined it, and what sort of money changed hands to get there. 

So I think it's time for a better system, and I am just the one to design it. It's a ten point scoring system, and it works on a binary basis, by which I mean that there are ten criteria that the hotel either has or does not have. Each of the following criteria is worth one point:

1. Hangers in closet are free-hanging and ready to steal, not like those annoying ones that leave you with a nub on top while the hangy part stays fixed.
2. Conditioner is in a separate bottle to the shampoo.
3. Room service/housekeeping/concierge uses your name when you call them from the room.
4. Something yummy is left in your room daily - the welcome fruit does not count.
5. The temperature selector on the air conditioning thermostat has some connection to the temperature it will actually deliver.
6. There is an easy-to-find TV channel listing.
7. Internet access is free (bonus point if wireless).
8. Room is any one of: tasteful, cool, sleek, ridiculously large, has excellent view.
9. The widescreen TV doesn't stretch every crappy analogue standard-aspect channel it receives, rendering most movies unwatchable.
10. A firm pillow is available, or can be provided with a minimum of fuss.

Thus I can rate this current trip as follows:

G Hotel, Penang: 5

Hilton Kuala Lumpur: 8

Puteri Pacific, Johor Bahru: 3

Howard Plaza, Kaohsiung: 3.5 (because three pieces of welcome fruit is better than one)

The pass mark is necessarily low, because I want to leave room for a hotel to really satisfy me, and for me to be able to express that. Hence, even though the G Hotel gets 5, I'd happily stay there again. The Howard Plaza Kaohsiung is serviceable, but the Puteri Pacific just makes me sad in so many unexplainable ways.