Circling through Poland - with a bit of Germany thrown in.

OZDUCK · 2025-10-01T18:52:57+1000

This was a bit of an unexpected trip. We usually plan our trips a year or so in advance. In this instance early this year a friend of my wife was going to a "Sketchers" symposium in Poznan Poland and asked her if she wanted to come along and then see some other parts of Poland. This is not a meeting for shoe fetishists but for people who love to sketch. My wife agreed and asked me to plan the logistics as the friend was getting stupidly expensive travel quotes from Flight Centre for J tickets.

USk Symposium Poznan 2025 - Urban Sketchers

The 13th International Urban Sketchers Symposium Witamy! Join Us in Poznań, Poland from 20-23 August 2025. Sketch your way to discover and explore a city steeped in history, brimming with architectural wonders, and bursting with artistic inspiration. Regardless of your sketching level, connect...

urbansketchers.org

I worked out an itinerary and as often the trip started with a flight to Singapore from Perth in ScootPlus. Then QR would cover the Singapore - Europe leg. It ended up much cheaper using Berlin as the arrival/departure point in Europe with the rest of the trip being via train. This reduced the airfare costs by about 50% compared to the original quotes. By this time my wife was a bit concerned about how she was going to handle the train transfers etc and asked if I would like to join them. After some hesitation I agreed to do so.

We took virtually no photos of the trip to Singapore. It was a duplicate of one we had done only a couple of months before hand.

However, just a reminder that you do not get QR Business Class food on TR. But it was hot, tasted ok and was enough for a short evening trip. Once again the cabin crew were excellent and we arrived on time so everything was fine. My wife prefers the plastic cutlery on Scoot compared to the wooden stuff in QF Y. Except for some water this is the sole offering included in your fare.

We have been in Singapore a lot over the last 12 month so once again we took very few photos.

Our hotel on Jalan Sultan in Kampong Glam

It is made up of about 6 former shophouses so it has pretty disjointed floor plan and you often have to go outside to get to your room.

The Sultan Mosque is basically right behind it and you can usually hear the morning call to prayer.

The Arab Street area is also nearby. It has certainly been spruced up over the last few years.

Our friend went to a Sketchers gathering by the Kallang Basin

After a couple of hours all the sketches are displayed and a few winners of small prizes chosen

While we were waiting for her an otter turned up to please passers-by.

.He had caught a pretty big fish and was having a nice feed.

OZDUCK · 2025-10-01T19:12:48+1000

I will quickly get to our arrival in Germany

While we were there Singapore was celebrating its 60th Birthday and we caught the tale end of a practice military parade.

We did have a very nice Indian vegetarian meal on Serangoon Road in Little India

We left Singapore at 10:30 so we went to the QR J lounge and had a small but nice breakfast. The staff were attentive and kept offering us more food but we declined.

The weather for our departure was pretty awful

As you c an see we were in the clouds virtually inside the airport perimeter

Until we got to the Indian sub-continent we were either in clouds or just above them. It was not as rocky as our flight across the Bay of Bengal a few weeks previously but it was still a bit uncomfortable.

OZDUCK · 2025-10-01T19:40:07+1000

I refused to pay QR their ransom to select J seats - around S$120 per seat per leg. I tried to check in the night before and select seats but the system wouldn't co-operate. We prefer to sit in the single window J seats on QR. When we checked in at Singapore we had been allocated window seats in the 'old' J seats on a B787 from Doha to Berlin. However for the first flight on a Q Suites equipped A350 it seemed that we were going to have to sit next to each other - the horror - in the centre backward facing seats. When I went to sit down, in the smaller rear J cabin, a young German couple next to me were asking the FA if they could be seated together as they had a 3 year old with them and they wanted to share the workload. They were being told the cabin was full when I pretended to be a gentleman and nobly offered to swap our centre seats for their two window seats. They were extremely grateful and jumped at the offer so I ended up with a rearward facing seat and my wife had the forward facing seat she prefers. At the end of the flight I was telling them how go their kid had behaved and they once again effusively thanked me for forgoing the chance to sit next to my wife. I actually felt a bit ashamed of my eagerness to do the swap but everyone ended up happy.

Settling in