Shanghai..... for a change

Crazy Trip to Shanghai

We decided to go to HK last year for a break, downtime, underground time, recharge, chill out and didn't post a thing on social media.  Brilliantly freeing to say the least.

I might, now it's been close to a year actually bunch a heap of posts here about said trip. 

Mrs Bao was preggers with kid #5 (a 4 year gap and unexpected to say the least) and we wanted a getaway before she was too far gone to travel.

As it stands, we arrived back with only a week to spare (she was about week 31 by this stage).

Travel, chill out, preggers?  Are we nuts? Actually, she says it was her best flight (plenty of water, no booze, lots of walking) and the trip was relaxing.

Add in that craze of 2016 (no, not the man bun - Pokemon Go) to have a bit of a play.

Airbnb, a bit of wandering, no itinerary, a typhoon.  Kewl, normal relaxing stuff.

So this year, we decided to take our brood of now 5 kids (though the two oldest are nearly teens) to Shanghai.

In the immortal words of Jeremy Clarkson "how hard can it be?"

In the meantime, I'll try to post more about 2016 Hong Kong.

Deathstar v2

Just a quick one - because we didn't take piccies and nothing worse than a big block of text.

So after swearing we'd never do Jetstar again, we did it.

This time, we went from OOL (Gold Coast Airport) to Narita.  So an hour's journey in the car.  We did this from Shearwater to Launceston, so not a major issue except getting up early to drive.

Jetstar bloke at the OOL counter was really nice.  We checked in online and went to the counter to grab our final tickets.  Lovely bloke moved our family of 6 down toward the front of the plane and was just really nice and efficient and quick.  He also suggested we use up our baggage allowance (we took basically 2 empty suitcases for our touristy crap  I mean, holiday treasures and had some space to spare).

We also paid for food beforehand, entertainment beforehand.  We travelled 787-9 (Dreamliner) in the LCC configuration.

Sitting in the overpriced food court of OOL

The thing with Jetstar - if we had the time available, there was a super special we could have flown for an extra $400 in total (so like $70 per family member) on a full cost carrier to HKG, had extra foot room and proper meals and flown on an A330.

So yeah, it was cheap, but LCC needn't be the only cheapie available.

I also found the food too variable, service too variable, the noise on the much-touted Dreamliner too variable.  The thing with full service is that there is a level of consistency (even if it's consistently average) that's oft-missed.

The food on the plane to Narita - pretty passable.  The offerings on the return leg - I didn't touch and as a result, we grabbed some Lawson's Sandwiches, Onigiri and drinks and ate before bedtime kicked in.

Service in OOL aiport - pretty decent, as was the service to Tokyo.  The return service - very matter of fact and minimal, not at all friendly.  I've had this in HKG Jetstar and Singapore.  It seems that the service model varies from airport to airport.

The Dreamliner - pretty quiet and I was raving about it once we'd flown to Tokyo.  On the return trip - it was wheezing a high pitched squeal that was worse than the plane noise on an A330.  Again, a variable that I didn't want to deal with.

Narita Terminal 3 (the LCC terminal) has a decent enough food court, decent directions and it is easy to get a bus to Tokyo central.  More on that in another post.

Japan on Jetstar with 4 kids and a pregnant mum

I broke my promise to myself.  I swore to myself (and likely at myself, too) that I'd never, ever, ever do Jetstar overseas or even domestically for more than 2 hours.

Never.

Ever.

Ever.

Like, don't even mention it.

Then an amazing thing happened.  Jetstar got the B787-9.  Then charged effectively $430 return per adult ticket including food and entertainment.  And there's no stopover.

That meant we waited 6-9 months less for our next holiday (and it turned out, that someone is pregnant (oops!), so lucky we didn't buy anything for later on), and it were dead cheap.  And our 11 year old is full fare in 7 months, so even better.

So 8 days before we go, we're getting excited.

Bags are packed (see the links about capsuling - Mrs Brisket has managed to get 3 children's clothes into one carry on - fantastic for hauling a small army of tired children through an airport.  Nothing worse than trying to get children saying "I'm tired, I can't keep up, this suitcase is too heavy to pull......." - a sure fire way to get a frazzled parent who's been cooped up in a giant tin tube for 9-10 hours, just that bit more frazzled.  Less suitcases, means less frazzle.

Bought money - normally not my thing.  Using the ATM overseas is far better as you get the wholesale rate plus commission of around 4% (and ATM fee).  But there has been a ¥5 per $AUD fluctuation, so I grabbed it high as insurance (and played off some currency exchangers against each other), and basically got it at a little less than wholesale rate and no commission.

Another tip - pay $5 and American Express (in selected Australia Post shops) will buy back notes up to their exchanged amount (¥82000 for us) at the wholesale rate.  That is between 10-15% better.  You have 6 months, so you could even time it for a currency drop and make a few bucks.

If not, I got a good rate, and Murphy's Law says the exchange rate will improve, so good for me.

Sorry about the lack of photos - I'll go nuts in a week time.  

7 days rushing aorund in Tokyo with a busted knee awaiting surgery, 4 children and mum pregnant - what could possibly go wrong?

About my links and a blurb about wardrobe capsule and gratuitous use of the word crap

Just a quick one today.

I thought I'd explain the links I'm now putting up on the side.

They aren't particularly ordered, but broadly fall into 3 categories:

1.  Travel tips related
2.  Travel with kids related
3.  Food related - whether that be food bloggers or the ubiquitous openrice.com.hk, which leaves all other restaurant collections and reviews for dead (yes, urbanspoon, I'm lobbing that grenade in your direction).

I'll add them as I find them.

I think a special mention has to go to the capsule wardrobing link.  Mrs Brisket is a made capsule wardrober.  Our last trip for a few days was condensed into 2 carry on suitcases (for a family of 6, including a toddler which we took nappies for).  Pretty impressive.

In HK, there are cheap laundries everywhere.  Not everyone has the space to put a washer in.  Some apartments via wimdu or airbnb we've rented have had a washer, some haven't.  If we have to pay double our money for a place with a washer (or a less wanted location), we'll take the gamble that there will be a cheap laundry.  Generally around $7-$10 AUD for a few kgs of laundry washed, dried and folded.

Color Rich - purveyor of my cow neck pillow and all round cute stuffed crap - perfect for that blanket, pillow or bear hat

The other tip that this gives you?  If you have lots of carry one (which we will, as we will take full service again), you can either a.  take empty suitcases and fill them with your bargains of (crap) interesting acquisitions - actually, we fill it with cheap shirts and shorts (I still have an Oakley shirt from 2009 that has held up very well), socks, booze, souvenirs, Asian stationery (I have four daughters, there is a suitcase dedicated to stationery) - that sort of thing.  Likely you will wear something ahead of fashion at home; or b.  Travel out light and buy suitcases there.  I tend to buy them in little old vendors that aren't at the markets - they tend to be cheaper, then proceed to filling them with said crap.

One thing I love about travelling to HK is the cheap shopping - markets can be a tourist trap (or not, if you are prepared to be hard in bargaining and don't flash wads of cash around), but there are plenty of other cool places, some in malls, some just on the street.

Either way, I'm sure you will be less likely to hesitate on buying that 5th Rilakkuma towel.

Hi diddley ding dong crap.

Food Heaven in the sticks

Courtesy of circumstance, we found ourselves in a tiny apartment, out in the sticks.  Well, sort of sticks - technically Tai Kok Tsui, it seemed a bit too far from anything.  But it was cheap because the entire area is going through some sort of Urban Renewal, so we grabbed it.

Said Urban Renewal - to you, it looks yuk, to me, I see opportunity

How wrong we were!  I found food heaven and convenience heretofore unfound in cheap HK accommodation.

We arrived at night in Man Ying Street - no safer place in the world with kids

In no particular order, it was fantastic because:

1. It's a block and a half from Austin Station, which is like an 8 stop line that will quickly get you connected - that's a quick trip to Tung Chung for outlet shopping, Disneyland for, well, Disneyland and 2 stops from Hung Hom for a trip to China.
2. It's a little longer to Jordan, but not much - and that gets you down the 'backbone' of HK MTR stations.
3. Food - I think there are more cheap eats per steet than anywhere I've been, and pretty much tourist free (thus making them cheaper and more 'local') - and all different cuisines too.
4. 3 7-Elevens within a block.  Booze is sorted.
5. Near Jordan Road, so you can walk anywhere.
6. About 3 blocks from Temple Street Night Market and Woosung Street (more on Woosung in another post).
7. It's quiet by HK standards and a little safer to get kids over the street safely.

If none of this makes sense to you, then you'll need to read last year's trip a bit.  Or just trust me - it's a great place.

Typical Canto-restaurant, where we paid $15 for more food than we needed

Mini Parked in front of one of 4 Japanese Restaurants in a row

I love old school HK buildings

Urban renewal during the day

In 4 days, there is only so much eating one can do.  Once you remove the obligatory trip to Yoshinoya to satisfy the kids (and Mrs Brisket) and a gorge on egg tarts for one breakkie there isn't much time left to try everything.  I could be here a month and only need to travel a couple of blocks in any direction and never eat the same thing twice.

Restaurants line each side of Man Ying Street

Austin Station is also fantastic.  It's quick to a number of places (I finally made it to Tai O) and not as packed as say a Jordan, Admiralty or TST/MK station.  That is superb when you are yelling at 4 kids to get the hell on the train or risk losing an arm.  There is no stampede to work through.

These side street markets are more interesting than the tourist markets

Temple Street is close by, I'm not always a fan, but it's worth poking down the side streets a few streets away for local food and stuff.  We bought some towels for $20 (HKD) to go swimming with.

I'll do some posts on what we did eat nearby, as well as Tai O (Venice of the East), Woosung Street and Cha Chaan Teng Food.

Suffice to say, Man Ying Street will be revisted and restayed at by us, hopefully in the middle of the year.  Do yourself a favour, get over here.

Don't do it, don't fly Deathstar

So we tried our first international flight on a budget carrier.  With 4 kids.

I'll try to keep this easy-to-read.

The title says it but some details and even positives to come from this experience.

To make this easier, it was a flight from Melbourne to Hong Kong via Singapore.

The bad stuff started when I got the ubiquitous "your flight has been cancelled for operational reasons" 2 days before we leave. Closer inspection reveals that it's the SIN-HKG stretch with Jetstar Asia that got the ol' boot.

I'd seen this happen before to others. Some older couple were waiting for hours in MEL domestic getting a flight back to Launceston scheduled for 2pm. They ended up flying out at 11pm, with a lovely 3 hour drive to look forward to at midnight. Notwithstanding the fact that Melbourne Jetstar domestic sucks big time.

Anywho, this isn't a rant.

So we ring up several times and get several different stories, a theme that is the only consistent approach in the way Jetstar deal with their clientele.

Cancel all flights out, rebook the entire trip (MEL-SIN-HKG) a day later. Nope, no time to waste. Aami weren't much help either, stating we had to incur a loss to attempt a claim.

Aftet several calls, we suggested that they rebook the second leg only and whaddaya know, there was a later flight. Instead of arriving at 1pm, we'd arrive at 8pm. Okay, so we compromised.

This is another issue with Jetstar service, you need to do the thinking and suggesting for them. Don't expect them to volunteer useful information. Another theme that carries through the Jetstar experience.

Flight from MEL to SIN was nothing exciting. We got a new A330 and the seats were pretty decent though the legroom was smaller than full service. I'll pay for the extra legroom.  You have to pay lots for rubbish food and drinks.

The typical travel hack for this is pack lots of snacks for the kids and fill water bottles in the airport and on the plane. It sort of works but I find that on longer flights, being served food breaks up the flight.

Kids have tablets each. Again this helps. Stock them with movies and see if you can get them to share, so each tablet has longer battery use. It'll save you a little from the last 2 hours being "how long until we're....". It won't save you from the Charlie n Lola vs Lion King 5th time arguments.  Nothing will save you from that.

Given we spent extra time in the air over Singapore waiting for a storm to finish, extra batteries would have been fan-flippin-tastic. There were more red rings on the flight map than the haemmoroids department of the RPA.

So we arrive at Changi.  Courtesy of some astute capsule wardrobing by mummy, we only checked the pram in on the way there, despite paying for 2 extra suitcases of checked baggage.

But the problem was because the 2 legs were no longer linked together, we had to fetch our pram from baggage. Which means clearing Singapore customs.

Now the transit area of Changi is pretty good but we were outside of it with very few restaurants at 9pm with 16 hours to kill. Not fun.

So we go to the Jetstar counter and ask about what to do. Come back at 11pm. So we needed to eat, had nowhere to relax and had to kill time outside of transit.

After paying for an overpriced meal which was still pretty good we let the kids play in a playground full of other screaming kids - so much that it'd test the engineering of that floor.

11pm comes, we spend an hour in line only to be told that there's no ability to allocate seats so early on the flight, therefore no checkin. We need checkin to get back to transit and sleep. So after some polite firm insistence we get our boarding passes and go in.

Short trip, Jestar, what next?

A strange post?

A great deal has happened in the recent past.  We had wanted to move to Hong Kong and when work fell through (and with it, a VISA) and accommodation fell through, we had to return to our home town.

But we had 4 nights accommodation and flights paid for, so we thought "hey, why not make use of it?"

It'll also give me the opportunity to flight test a low cost carrier and a two stage flight to HK.  

Usually, we just jump a Qantas flight on super special and fly directly to HK.  This time, we're with Jetstar (cheerfully nicknamed "Deathstar").  Flying from MEL-SIN-HKG over a fair number of hours.

So a review of that effort (and any tips) will be forthcoming.  As noted in other places, a big tip with Jetstar is a. bring your own tablets and b. Buy snack food for the trip.  It's even on the Jetstar website, so they're cool with it.  The other advantage is that we touch down in Changi Airport, can buy dinner and breakfast and then fly the shorter jump to HK.

No trip to Macau this time :(

Cannon in New Territories - HK isn't just shopping, you know?

More cool history stuff

Walled City, New Territories

Lovely lights in HK

So 4 days in HK - we'll do as much as we can in those four days and post lots of photos and new tips if needed.

We plan on spending some more time on HKI this time

Hong Kong, how we love thee.

Tsing Ma/Tsing Yi Bridge