Day: June 24, 2018

Waiting for my train to Krakow (1.5 hrs wait) I decided to get some lunch as I remembered I didn’t actually have breakfast apart from a coffee.

Options here with available seating were slim, and Starbucks was huge with a few places left to sit. So swallowed the pride and in I went.

What could have been an ultimate fail turned into an awesome win. I asked the guy serving if he spoke English to which he responded he spoke excellent English… he was a Barista from Melbourne !

Totally last place I would have ever thought I be served by another Australian. It was only an iced coffee but it’s the best Starbucks I’ve ever had.

Remember I almost died of boredom on my Singapore to London flight due to Digital Deficiency Syndrome ?

As well as watching a metric shed load of downloaded Netflix to relieve the symptoms, I played around with iMovie on the iPad and created this:-

Day 1 Vlog

My flight today is scheduled at 7am so my plan was to be at the airport no later than 5am. TfL thwarted that plan though, as I discovered last night that whilst the Heathrow website says the transfer trains between terminals run 4 times an hour, they don’t start running till 5.20am, and the transfer time is at least 20 minutes.

Apparently there are free busses but couldn’t find it, so just cut my losses and took a cab. £37, very ouch.

Got to the airport and there was quite a queue already to check in, so was glad I did take the cab anyway. Then the airport gods intervened and the lady managing the check in line pulled me out of the queue and sent me to the first class checkin line. Have no idea why, maybe having a blue coloured passport in my hand in a sea of red coloured ones paid some sort of divine dividend.

Coffee was from the “Nero” chain here at the airport, average but welcome at 5 in the morning. I also discovered that the pound coins I had left over from last year have expired and couldn’t pay for the coffee with them.

The round gold only ones no longer legal tender in the UK

My Cab ride

The flight from Singapore to London was fine, quite glad I decided on the day and an overnight in Singapore. The only issue was I was suffering a really bad case of DDS – “Digital Deficiency Syndrome”, no internet at all for 14 hours. It was so bad the boredom could possibly have killed me.

On the way to Singapore, internet cost USD30 for 500mb. Really expensive but enough for the flight. On this one to London they wanted USD20 for 50mb. That is outrageous, even I won’t pay that. Not sure why there is such a difference between flights on the same airline.

Luckily I was prepared and had a reserve of digital bits in the form of Netflix downloads. Rather appropriate for the destination, I binge watched a series of “The Crown”.

Since I arrived in London at 3pm and I fly out at 7.30am for my next adventure on the continent, rather than find a hotel in London and lug my bags around, I’m here in the Western answer to the Japanese capsule hotel. I’ve got a very small room with bathroom, tv and bed right here in the terminal. Tomorrow I’ll wake up, switch terminals and fly out. It kind of reminds me of the little room Bruce Willis has at the beginning of the movie “The Fifth Element“. If you have heaps of luggage, this is not for you. They even have a purple night light you can switch on, as there is no natural light so it would be pitch black in here.

I’d planned to spend a few hours in London tonight, but I was so knackered still after all the travel I got as far as Paddington station for a coffee and a burger before heading back to the Yotel for some rest. The immigration line took about an hour to clear, the line was insane.

I used the Heathrow express. If you don’t pre-book it, its super expensive, but rebooked 90 days in advance for weekend use, its only a 5-er each way on weekends. Not much more than taking the tube which takes an hour. This only takes 15 minutes from Heathrow to Paddington station. From paddington anything in london is a simple tube trip away. I also found out that there is now a faster “TfL” train, with prices and times someone between the standard tube line and the express. Plenty of options here.

The coffee wasn’t fantastic in any regard, but really appreciated after such a long day.