Tiger Airways... Unlike what everyone thinks

I'm back, well... for the time being anyhow. Cheryl and I headed off to Adelaide last weekend kinda as a celebration thing after ending my semester of Pharmacy learning. Having bought some rather cheap fares with Tiger to Adelaide, we headed to South Australia to relax. Neither of us have been to Adelaide before so we were looking forward to the weekend with much anticipation. We stayed at the Stamford Plaza Hotel which was nice, but maybe more a 4.5 star rather than a 5 star hotel. I still prefer the Sofitel in Sydney that we stayed at in November 08.

I have heard of so many negative reports about Tiger Airways ever since they started flying. I have flown on them in the past and they were fine, except for a 3 hour delay which we experienced. Our flight was scheduled to depart at 4.05 pm from Canberra and we took of at about 4.20pm, arriving at 5.30pm, which was about 15 minutes late. A little late which is to be somewhat expected with the likes of budget airlines but nothing unbearable like the 3 hours or more that everyone has been complaining of.

2 days later we were back at Adelaide airport, 3 hours before departure. There was a passenger who was disallowed from checking into a Gold Coast flight, because check in had closed just 10 minutes before. She was made to purchase another ticket for the next flight out even though the boarding call for the flight was 40 minutes away. Its a strict policy, but fair as seriously, Tiger has to turn around a 180 seater in 30 minutes, which is really fast.

After checking in, Cheryl and I went to eat Hungry Jacks at Adelaide airport. The plane we were due to board was coming in from Hobart, with an ETA (estimated arrival time) of 1440. Not long after eating lunch we saw the plane land from Hobart. With about 150 or so passengers hoping off, we started boarding at about 1455 or so. But with only 117 boarding the aircraft, we pushed back at about 1515 and headed to Canberra. We arrived at 1720 pm, pretty much on time.

So there you go. Tiger Airways, on time for both flights. Not like the massive delays that everyone hears from the media. I don't know if Cheryl and I were lucky (if you could call it that) but let me just say that Tiger is seriously like any other LCC - Low Cost Carrier. Would I fly them again? Yes. Would I recommend them to others? Yes, especially since both landings were smoooth, unlike other airlines I have flown.

Thank you Tiger for an enjoyable flight to and from Adelaide.

More to come later from Cheryl. Gold Coast in two weeks and then Penang 3 weeks after that.

Alex

Off to South Australia for the weekend..

Another short trip, another Aussie city, gonna drop in on Deborah ... YAY! :) Back next week with photos!



cheryl

Michael Jackson Passes On at 50

Images from the web

I woke up this morning (8am Aus time -26 June) to a phone call telling me the King of Pop had died. In my sleepy stupor I thought it was a joke or maybe a dream. I distinctly remembered having a disturbing dream right before and thought maybe this was an extension of it. However it has been confirmed that he has passed on from a heart attack. He had been rushed to the hospital in a coma after suffering the heart attack and never regained conciousness after.

As this news spreads around the globe, it has been reported that many rushed to the web, accessing Facebook, Twitter, TMZ and other various celebrity webpages causing a record rush of traffic equal to the traffic seen during the inauguration of Barack Obama.

So much has been said about this man -plastic surgery, oxygen chamber, neverland, child abuse, eccentricity, financial woes, etc - how much of which is true we don't know.

Goodbye to the MJ era..

UNINSPIRED. BRAIN FREEZE

These three words sum up how I have felt for the past month. To those who have been periodially checking in on this blog, I do apologize for the lack of posts. Not only have I been suffering from a bout of brain freeze (both literally and creatively) but I have also had the finger freeze and the toe freeze. Its been nothing but weeks of cold and wet weather. And I DO NOT FUNCTION well in such 'extreme' conditions.

I woke at 7am this morning and this was the view from my kitchen balcony. I would have taken more shots from the living room balcony and the master room balcony but really it wasn't necessary. You get my meaning. Its the same view from all angles. GLOOMY GRAY. (For some reason the camera captured the color blue. But it was gray. Trust me.)

These are the shots at 9am this morning. Yes. MORE GLOOMY GRAY.

Whoop de doo. Excitement is me. This year is colder than usual because there is a cold front blowing in from the South Pole. Sounds like long term brain freeze to me. How can anyone be inspired to do anything by gray? I am so a summer girl. Give me yellow sunlight, nice bright blue skies, refreshing green grass and beautiful rainbows. I need color and warmth to function!

When I was a kid (and I think many kids in tropical countries do this) I used to tell my parents I wished we stayed in a country where there was winter and snow. I wished we had a swimming pool in our back yard and a multi storey house where I could explore and play games to my hearts content. I now wish I hadn't wished so much. What you wish is really sometimes what you get.

1. Winter?

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire = overrated. Cold extremities are not fun at all. Wearing gloves, beanies, socks and ugg boots only serve to make you clumsy while looking like Dopey (Snow White).

2. Swimming Pool?

Unrealistic. Great for kids who don't know the cost of maintaining one and the horrible task of cleaning one. It's worse with 4 seasons. Leaves in Autumn, fuzzy reproductive things in Spring and ice in Winter.

3. Multi Storey House?

Bah to staircases. Have you tried lugging a vacuum cleaner up and down the stairs plus plugging and unplugging just to cover all areas of the house? Cleaning is a pain. Or yelling just get everyone together for dinner? We have a 3 handset phone plus one corded phone and still its a 100m sprint to get to one of them before the call rings out.

Winter. Whingey. Whiney. Winter.

I'll try and come up with something more cheerful later this week.

cheryl