London to Penrith: Sun to Snow

by Miss Penny Black

I had a quick exit from Heathrow after buying a new SIM card, probably from the exact same store I got my last one (sorry Charmaine, I forgot the one you gave me but luke will bring it) and then caught the tube to Kings Cross. It was a short walk of a couple of blocks in the rain to the Prince Arthur pub where I bought a large glass of wine, a packet of chips and sat in the cosy bar for a short while before heading to bed around 10.

If you like ties, old cameras or spinning wheels you’ll find a surprisingly wide collection of each dangling from the ceiling inside.

All the trains that go to the north west leave from Euston, which is almost next door to Kings Cross and St Pancras, and if you think I’ve spent enough time in London to be over the Monopoly board names you’d be sadly mistaken.

Getting my hopes up despite checking the radar.

I bought a sandwich to eat on the train, and as we pulled away from London the sun came out and the blue skies and green fields really lifted my heart. I’ve been feeling a bit anxious about all the travel and doing it solo, but being on a train and heading in the right direction with only a couple of hours to go I could feel myself relax.

The first sights of the fells brought a surprise – snow! Not an entirely welcome surprise, as I’d left my warmest coat at home. The air felt icy when I stepped out of Penrith station.

I walked through the rain to a camping goods store to buy fuel for my stove but they didn’t have the one I wanted. It wasn’t much of a loss since there’s no way I’m going to set up a tent in the current weather conditions. As I stood in the store planning my next move I looked out and saw it – SNOW!

So that was it, I booked a room in a pub in Askham, a little village outside Penrith, and called a local taxi to take me there.

The taxi was driven by Jacqui, and the taxi company is entirely comprised of Jacqui and her taxi😂. She turned up almost instantly, since she was dropping someone at the train station next door. We had a good chat on the way to Askham and I told her that I come from a family of taxi drivers. She gave me her card and I said I’d share it on the blog so here it is!

If you need a taxi in Penrith I’d highly recommend pre-booking, this lady is in high demand!

the room I booked is in a pub called The Punchbowl. There’s two other pubs in town but Jacqui said I’d picked the best. Phew!

If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Hot Fuzz’ then you have a bit of an image of Askham. Not only did I have this thought but the guy behind the bar at my accommodation said the same thing. It’s extremely pretty, with swathes of daffodils on the village green and all very neat and tidy. It must be a popular spot in nice weather because I think I counted about 20 signs telling people where not to park. It wasn’t such a problem today of course.

I would’ve taken more photos but I was wearing gloves and it was raining sideways.

The highlight of the rest of the day was sitting by the bar in the Punchbowl and chatting to the bar staff and other patrons at the pub. One of the bar staff, Jack, is on his second last day here and we talked about proper cider, the joy of festivals and he showed me picture of his dogs, one of which is the size of a Shetland pony and does wear a Shetland pony’s coat when the weather gets cold. Speaking of dogs, more than ten came in at various times during the afternoon, none as big as a small horse, sadly.

I love the low ceilings and tartan carpet.

I had an amazing chicken pie for dinner, took a glass of wine up to my room and settled into a bath to relax before bed. Unfortunately the fire alarm went off and I had to jump out and dry off, burning myself slightly (and somewhat ironically) on the heated towel rail in my haste. It turned out there was no emergency and fortunately I didn’t have to stand in the car park for hours in the rain waiting for the fire truck to arrive, which is what would happen in Australia if a fire alarm went off for any reason.

So now I’m in bed, hoping for better weather but planning a trip by bus to Pooley Bridge and Penrith tomorrow if things don’t look good enough for walking.

Here’s a few photos of the room, just because I always like to remember what places looked like. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some decent photos of the village!

12Apr2023

Giant Spiders At Incheon Airport, Seoul

by Miss Penny Black

As is my usual habit, I arrived at Seoul airport (Incheon) with half a day up my sleeve. The Grand Hyatt is literally two minutes from the airport, I got my boarding pass in Sydney and I have no bags to check in so I’ve done a 5km walk around the airport and it’s great! Of all the airports I’ve visited I’d say Incheon is in the top 10, maybe even the top 5. Here’s why!

It’s full of art.

Sure, some of the art is giant spiders, but they’re *gentle* spiders.

It has comfortable furniture. If I’d had to spend my 19 hour stopover in the airport I could’ve actually stretched out on a couch. Some backpackers are sleeping very comfortably right behind me as I write this. If you’re in Incheon and looking for a lie down, it’s opposite gate 23.

I won’t be rude and take a photo of them, but they’ve pushed a bunch of these together to make a decent bed.

Robots! I’ve seen three different kinds. One for transporting bags, one for delivering food and one that I think was for information.

They have QR codes that take you to websites for more info.

Flowers! Orchids must be the floral emblem of Korea because they are everywhere and absolutely perfect. I looked closely, they are all real.

The food is great. Not a vast range, but I had a fantastic meal of bibimbap. I thought I’d see what it was like when it wasn’t actually airline food and it was great! The vegetables and meat were served in a heavy stone bowl that was so hot the food was still sizzling for about ten minutes after I got my tray. It came with soup, kimchi and a bunch of extras. In a moment of excitement I poured in all the chilli sauce, but with three hours to kill it wasn’t a problem and I only sweated through my T-shirt, not my jumper.

As I get older my tolerance for spicy food seems to grow, which was lucky because I poured in about half a cup of chilli.

The cuteness. There’s a giant Lego-style playground for the kids., as well as some giant plush figures around the place.

Last but certainly not least, being Korea, everyone cleans up after themselves and even the food court is spotless. Everyone in the restaurant took their trays to the rack for the dirty dishes and when I went up with mine there were no spaces left so a teenage boy behind me asked the chef where to put them and we all put them in the racks after pushing back the trays at the front. problem solved!

I thought that was going to be my whole list but as I was sitting here typing, a parade of people in traditional Korean dress and playing music walked in a procession past the departure lounge I’m sitting in, I’ve never seen anything like that in an airport… maybe Incheon deserves a place in the top 3?

A few cherry blossom trees outside the hotel.

11Apr2023

Incheon to Heathrow: Making The Most Of Economy Travel

by Miss Penny Black

I have nothing exciting to report about the second half of the journey, which was 14.5 hours long and had me questioning the wisdom of my entire holiday.

The plane was full but I enjoyed having an aisle seat so I could get up and stretch. When I’m flying I’m always thinking about the little details that make flying long haul more bearable, so here’s my collected thoughts on the things I do to get through it so I don’t arrive feeling like I want to kick the entire world in the fork.

I googled the flight path, the official one is in blue but I drew the route we actually took in orange. Seems like it’s better to fly over Afghanistan than Russia right now!

1. Taking a very small bag that fits under the seat in front so I don’t have to worry about using overhead baggage space, one of the reasons why most people race to be first on the plane. My cabin bag is actually two small bags that clip together to make a backpack about half the size of a regular daypack. When hiking they each clip to the front of my big backpack which makes them look, rather unfortunately, like boobs, but they are super comfortable and distribute the weight evenly.

They look dorky but they do mean I get to talk to a lot of other hikers who want to know what on earth I’m wearing.

They clip together with a minimal attachable harness to make a day pack and every part of the system has its own dry bag so everything I pack stays completely dry. Aaron is a NZ company and I highly recommend them for travel!

2. Having an aisle seat means being able to get up and down many times and frequently have a stretch. The guy next to me didn’t go to the bathroom once the whole flight! I need a stretch at least every three hours if I’m not sleeping. I did take some ibuprofen on the second flight as my hips and knees ache a bit after so long in the same position.

3. I don’t straighten my hair. I’m sure not many people will find this useful, but hair straightening makes it super dry and with the extremely low humidity on the plane everything becomes full of static electricity. Same goes for wearing wool or any clothing prone to static. This does make me sad, because I prefer having hair that doesn’t make me look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.

4. I have super dry skin so lip balm and moisturiser are vital. I don’t normally bother at home but it’s makes the flight so much more comfortable.

5. I don’t sit while I wait for the plane. I did 5km in Incheon and saw tons of interesting stuff on my walk, such as a parade!

I didn’t get a good photo, but here’s an excerpt from the airport website.

6. This was my first flight with my noise cancelling AirPods and I don’t think I’ll ever leave home without them again. If the noise of a crying baby or just the plane’s engine noise gets too much for the noise cancelling function, I just play my ‘rain sounds’ playlist that’s downloaded onto my phone and it solves all my problems!

I do have to be careful with headphones though, it’s like they reduce my acuity by about 50% so I turn them off when I am moving or packing so I don’t leave vital things behind or miss directions.

What’s your top tip for plane travel?

10Apr2023

Sydney to Seoul

by Miss Penny Black

I set my alarm for 5am so I could pack up and leave the hotel in plenty of time for my 9:30am flight. On the advice of the bus driver who drove me to the hotel, I decided to walk back. With the sun coming up and the sky a bright orange, it was a lovely walk and took me a bit under 30 minutes.

It was really easy to follow and I’m glad I got a chance to stretch my legs before sitting down for 11 hours on the plane.

I ended up getting to the counter 20 minutes before it opened so I got through very quickly. Security was very quiet as well, giving me lots of time for a nice breakfast overlooking the main hub of the terminal.

I had time for a video chat with luke and to answer some birthday texts, which were very nice to get. Then I bought myself a little word puzzle book in case I was sick of looking at screens on the flight.

Big airports really do almost all look the same.

I spent the 30 minutes before boarding walking up and down the corridor where the terminal gates were located, trying to stretch my legs. Knowing I had an aisle seat I left boarding until the last minute. I know some people like to get on quickly so they can find space in the overhead compartments but my large backpack comes with two small ‘balance bags’ – little pockets that clip onto the front when hiking to spread the weight around the body. When I take them on flights I can clip the two together to make one small backpack. It’s amazing how much stuff I can fit into them but they easily fit under the seat in front, so I never have to use the overhead space.

Charmaine and I originally chose Asiana, an airline I’d never heard of before, because it was cheaper than the nearest price by several hundred dollars. I’d normally fly out of Melbourne, but I wanted to leave my car in Orange and see my family (Charmaine and I grew up together and her mum is also in Orange) so we thought flying out of Sydney would be a good option, which meant different airlines to choose from.

Weirdly, when searching for flights this time, a lot of flights to Europe via the US were available. Now, I had a great time in America, I know lots of truly excellent Americans, but I’d rather stay home than fly on an American airline for a great number of reasons, not least of which is overbooked flights and the vast number of videos I’ve seen recently of people behaving appallingly on American planes.

Here’s why I love flying on Asian airlines. The other people are mostly Asian so they are polite and quiet and don’t do disgusting things like take their shoes and socks off or spread out into other people’s spaces. It also means all the talking around me is done in other languages, which I find much easier to tune out. The staff are delightful, the food is excellent and you get to stopover in interesting places where everyone will help you get to where you’re going.

On this flight I got to try bibimbap, rice with mixed vegetables and pickles and mince. Delicious! I even used one of the two sachets of chilli sauce, although everyone around me used two. I know my limits though!

The idea is that you stir all the separate parts together yourself.

Aside from that, we got a small ham salad roll halfway through and a chicken curry before landing.

When I first boarded the plane I was sitting in a full row of 3, with two ladies next to me. I noticed they there were two empty seats in the row in front so I asked if I could move, that way the two ladies could spread out and I’d be sitting next to an empty seat. The flight attendant didn’t mind and so I moved. Nothing feels more luxurious in economy than an empty seat and I was very happy to spread out.

The last thing I’m going to mention about the plane is the exercise video. Twenty years ago, when I flew JAL via Osaka to London, I was surprised to see everyone on the plane doing a stretching video together. This was the first time I’ve see one since and it was great! Also quite amusing to see a whole plane full of people doing synchronised movements.

Anyhoo, as you would expect, the flight ran perfectly to time and I got to my hotel with no problems, although I somehow managed to enter via a tiny side door (I’m staying at the Grand Hyatt as a birthday treat) and wandered around for a bit before I found the reception desk.

My room is lovely and I ran an bath before I order a glass of sparkling wine and a slice of cheesecake and listened to my new favourite podcast (Urzila Carlson’s ‘Enough Already’ – she talks mainly to comedians about things that annoy them, it’s very funny!) and had another video chat to Luke.

When my room service food arrived the waiter only filled up the sparkling glass half full and I explained with a winning smile that it was my birthday so could he fill it up a bit more ? And he did! But then said it had to be top secret so we’ll just please keep it between us and hope the manager of the Grand Hyatt Incheon doesn’t read my blog.

I still wouldn’t call it properly full though! The cheesecake was pretty amazing however.

The only other thing worth mentioning is the high tech toilet. I tried pressing all the buttons to see what happened but I think you have to be sitting on it for most of them to work. The only thing I managed to do was heat the toilet seat, which really just made it feel like someone else had got off it it right before I sat down.

The control panel on the wall is for the toilet. Here’s a close-up:

Fortunately it flushes automatically when you stand up.

I wonder if people who come from places like Korea and Japan freak out when they get to other countries and the toilets are so basic? Or maybe not all the toilets here are like this?

Anyhow, on to the UK, where the showers are terrible, the toilets less fancy but the scenery is 10/10…. Especially when compared to my airport hotel view.

Why is the weather at airports always so grey?

9Apr2023

Orange to Sydney

by Miss Penny Black

I made the mistake of packing my bags about six hours early for my flight from Orange to Sydney, so I spent most of the day doing nothing but worrying about how the trip was going to go and deliberating over removing stuff from my bag to make it lighter.

Mum was driving me to the airport so we left in plenty of time and had a cup of coffee while we waited. I love small airports. In Orange the whole thing is one big room with one baggage carousel and two gates which are about 20 metres apart. The distance between where Mum parked and the plane was about 50 metres. Much nicer than the kilometre you have to drag your bag at city airports.

When the flight was announced no one stood up. Not being in a hurry is a sign you’re in a rural area. Rushing for a plane? That’s for those galahs in the big smoke! I followed a group of unaccompanied teenagers out the door and across the tarmac, where they looked very hesitant about boarding and looked back at me and said ‘You go first!’ So they could see me go up the little stairs. They looked so unsure I think it must’ve been their first flight, which was kind of a delightful thing to experience vicariously.

Despite the size of the plane the flight was pretty smooth. I enjoyed looking down over the national parks that cover the Great Dividing Range.

I teach Australian history every second year and the view made me think about how it took a very long time for the Europeans who landed on the coast to make their way across the mountain range. It’s hard to make out in this photo, but those line pale lines are sandstone cliff faces. The whole thing is like a maze but when the explorers finally got to the open plains on the far side they found herds of cattle that had escaped on the coastal side, bred and then just wandered around until they got through. A little trivia gem for you there ;-).

The domestic terminal in Sydney is as crappy as the international terminal is glitzy. A lot of scuffed paint, narrow hallways and poor signage. Still, after a quick exit and short wander I found the shuttle bus stop and there was a bus waiting.

I was the only passenger and the bus driver gave me a half price fare ($5) since I paid cash. The other half of the fare normally goes to the hotel I get dropped at, so he dropped me round the back where they couldn’t see😂. He was a nice older guy from Portugal and we had a good chat on the way. He pointed out the walkway from the hotels to the airport and said I could save myself the fare back in the morning if I gave myself an extra 30 minute to walk.

I was staying at the CKS Airport hotel. There’s only one hotel actually on the bit of land where the airport is, all the rest are over a short bridge. The CKS wasn’t fancy but it was clean, the room was spacious and since Charmaine couldn’t come due to a broken ankle, they changed my booking from twin beds to a king. I did what I always do and slept right up against the side, not taking advantage of the space at all.

For dinner I walked the short way to the Rowers, a very RSL-style venue that was on the water. I ordered from the QR code on the table and then waited for dinner. And waited, and waited. I wasn’t in a rush but after a while I went up to the counter and asked about the meal. Apparently, despite charging me, the QR code system wasn’t working properly so they asked what I’d ordered and then gave me a free drink. I was doing pretty well for bargains today!

The food was good, I sat there reading my book for a while then went back to the room. The bed was comfy, I had a quick video chat with Luke and set my alarm for 5am, plenty of of time to prep for the 9:30 flight the next morning!