Sydney, round 2.

Korean dinner. 1
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Back to Syd, we arrived in the afternoon after the 3 hour flight. We were back in the same hotel. Some of us, including two Korean flight crew, headed to a Korean restaurant for dinner. Sydney is quite like Vancouver in cultural make up. There are a plethora of ethnic restaurants to choose from. After dinner we meet up with the majority of the cabin crew in the basement of the Hilton in the marble bar, and it lived up to its name, being covered in marble, quite nice.  The long haul flights require 2 sets of flight deck crew so we were joined by another set of pilots. Of the 4 pilots 2 were Canadian, apparently there are a lot of Canadian pilots. These two were from Cranbrook and Montreal. It was nice speaking some Canadiana for a while.

Korean dinner. 2
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The next day 4 of us headed out to the Olympic site. It was nice, but very deserted, almost a ghost town. I wonder if our Olympics will suffer the same fate? We went out there to visit the Soka Gakkai International Australia Buddhist Centre. One of the cabin crew is a member and wanted to visits the Australian chapter. It was a cool experience and if I was forced to choose a religion I think it might be Buddhist. The philosophy/ religion had some cool tenets.

Breakfast buffet in the hotel… $38!

Some kind of Korean liquor. Tasted like vodka and rose water.
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That afternoon was spent lounging and preparing for the 14.5 hour flight back to Dubai. I was watching the news when as story came on about a crash back in Dubai! Crazy! The quick version was that a Bangladeshi jet’s nose gear collapsed on take off, causing it to face plant, 14 inured and airport was closed for 7 hours (for those interested I will include the full story at the end of the journal) So this didn’t affect our flight, seeing that we were still 18 hours out.

The draw back I find to the both CHC and SYD are the costs of everything. The dollar didn’t seem to go was far as back home for most things, especially food. For example the breakfast buffet in the hotel… $38! Drinks were up to $15 each, and our dinner in CHC was $45 each. Now, in there defence, we didn’t shop around, who needs to when the airline gives us over $100 a day for expenses, and most hotels give us a major discount.

Me stuffing my face.
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Well the flight home was great! 14.5 hours, and I slept for half of them! After take off we served dinner, then some take a break (5 hours) while others attend to the passengers needs. Well Mikey came up after 3 saying he couldn’t sleep. I told him I would take mine right away, and in 5 hours he could take his last 2. Well he never came down to wake me, so I sleep right though, and man was it a great sleep! I was woken in time to serve breakfast, then we landed. Thanks Mikey!

Well there you have it, 6 days of travel fun. I am looking at 3 days rest before I am off to Germany. If anyone has any questions please feel free to write, I would be happy to elaborate further on any aspect. Other then that, tune in next time for the next exciting adventure!