First Long Haul in J/F: PER-SIN-FRA-JFK-LAX-SFO-LAS-JFK-FRA-SIN-PER

[Pumbaa]

As promised, this is the long awaited trip report of my once in a lifetime trip to Frankfurt and America. Firstly, I would like to thank everyone from AFF that gave me helpful tips and suggestions for this holiday. This would have never happened if I hadn't stumbled upon this community approximately 5 years ago. I initially started reading the discussions on this site to maximise points from AMEX, but in the last year started to learn about frequent flyer points and how to use my points better. Initially I was redeeming for David Jones gift vouchers and flying domestic J with Qantas. Now I am only interested in flying long haul in J and maybe one day in F. I am always in awe reading posts from the more experienced members of this board. You guys are truely amazing!

OK, enough about my history and more about the trip report

 

[Pumbaa]

Sunday 9th October

My GF and I arrived at Perth international airport 2.5 hours early because I’ve always been scared of missing my flight. My GF thinks I'm cute, but all my friends think I'm a bit nutty. Especially since this is close to nothing to do at Perth airport! Checking in was a painless and pleasant exercise. We were both so excited about the holiday that we were about to embark on and were smiling from ear to ear

We were kindly invited to the Singapore airlines lounge after our bags were checked so thats where we went! It was a small room with help yourself drinks, party pies, sandwiches and instant cup noodles. This lounge was much smaller than what I expected, but I guess thats Perth for you. Don't get me wrong, I love Perth and am not a Perth basher at all. Its just I wish we had some of the nicer things that our eastern counterparts take for granted. Having a large lunch before arriving at the airport, I just got a drink from the fridge and read the newspaper. The GF was busy on my computer tying up some loose ends for work.
Time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to board for our flight. I still couldn't believe that I would be in USA in a few days.

Flight: Singapore Airlines SQ226 Perth - Singapore
Depart: 15:55
Aircraft: Airbus A330-300
Class: Business

The plane appeared to be brand spanking new. I'm not sure how new it was, but it had all the candy! Nice 15" LCD screens at a high resolution. It had heaps of outlets to plug in my Macbook Air and iPad, the seat could be inclined to unbelievable low angles (best I've previously experienced was a modest recline on Qantas domestic J). My GF and I looked at each other and were absolutely blown away. Then she said the words that I've heard everyone mention on this site: "I don't think I can go back to economy" :shock: Oh no what have I done! Looks like I need to take a few pages out of Cove's book and start manufacturing as many points as I can! The seats had a very generous width pitch and there was a fancy remote control on my left hand side.

Food

Starters: Satay chicken and beef sticks
Entrée: Prawn and rocket salad
Mains: Beef steak with peppercorn sauce or Duck with potatoes
Dessert: Chocolate cake or Icecream

Sorry for the absence of photos. I am a bit funny about taking photos of food on the plane. I do it all the time when we dine at restaurants, but felt a bit funny doing it on the plane. I must say that the food was very tasty. We were both truly stuffed after we finished our lunch. I had a few too many glasses of this nice Italian red wine, but my GF enjoyed a skyhigh coughtail. We then decided to recline our seats as far as they could go and have a quick nap before arriving in Singapore. 5.5 hours on a plane, while a long time, goes by pretty quickly when you are eating for an hour, watch a 2 hour movie and have a 1-2 hour nap. My GF and I can get pretty used to this J travel. I truly understand why it is so addictive now!

We arrived at Singapore Terminal 3 at around 2130 and made our way towards the SilverKris lounge. There were an abundance of shops and food options that we walked past. It was mighty impressive when compared to Perth's offerings, and I can understand how people can spend half a day in Singapore's airport and still be surprisingly content. We somehow entered the gold lounge by mistake, and the nice lady directed us to the silverkris lounge. It was huge and we made our way to some comforty seats. There was heaps of hot food and we picked up a selection of dim sum (prawn dumplings, bbq pork buns, siew mai), some small party pizzas, radish cakes and a spicy pork dish. In hindsight I think we eat a bit too much considering we were boarding our plane in 2 hours. I had a quick shower after eating, and my GF played angry birds. We then made our way to the terminal for our flight to Frankfurt

 

[Pumbaa]

Monday 10th October

Flight: Singapore Airlines SQ26 Singapore - Frankfurt
Depart: 23:50 (09 Oct)
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400
Class: Business

This being my first long haul flight in J i was pretty excited even through it was close to midnight. I selected seats in the upper deck and we got some nice seats in the middle of the cabin (I think they were the emergency row seats). We were both quite full from our snacks in the lounge, but when the FA asked us if we were both having supper, we didn't hesitate and answered yes! We somehow managed to stuff it all down, maybe the champagne, red wine and coughtails helped a little

Food
Starter: Coffee favoured duck foie gras and duck confit, Kumquat compote and rocket salad
Main: Wild mushroom risotto or Singapore beef noodle soup
Garlic bread
Cheese and fruit

Drinks
Bollinger Special Cuvee
2007 Chateau La Garde Pessac-Leognan Bordeaux France
2008 Barbera D’Alba DOC GD Vajra Piedmont Italy

I really enjoyed my italian red, a little too much to be honest

After a full belly, we both changed into our socks, got our blankets and tried to get some shut eye. I’ve never slept well on planes (have only flown domestic economy and business), but managed to get a total of 7 hours sleep (I woke up a few times). I had to have a toilet break sometime in the morning (I think it was due to all the alcohol I consumed ). This was where the beauty of flying Singapore airlines shined through. The flight assistant, folded my blanket when I was doing my business and when I got in my seat, she was right beside me to tuck me in! She also have me a bottle of water in case I got thirsty through the night. Boy is that service. She was by far the nicest FA I've ever met on my travels. I really wished I had some chocolates to give to her. It never really occurred to me giving gifts to good flight assistants until I read some old posts by Bossreggie. Oh well, I'll remember to do it next time!

By the time breakfast was served, I felt mighty refreshed and ready to hit Frankfurt running. We were served breakfast 2.5 hours before landing.

Food

Eggs benedict
Croissant
Fresh fruit

It was a shame that the eggs were completely cooked through as I love when the york oozes out of the eggs. I guess it must have been a limitation of airplane food!

We arrived at Frankfurt on schedule and quickly made it through immigration. I do remember being slightly scared by the police that checked me through. They didn't smile much, but were very efficient. We caught a cab and made our way to our hotel.

Intercontinental Hotel Frankfurt

The hotel and rooms appeared a little dated. I like the modern looks of Hiltons and the newly renovated Intercontinentals.
Bed: Huge and soft and nice to sleep on
TV/AV: Old CRT style TV with nothing to watch and no iPod dock. This was probably not a bad thing as it forced us to get out of the room and do more exploring.
Bathroom: Smaller than what I’m used to, and the shower was on top of the bathtub. Not my preference. Was nice and clean
Internet: Free WiFi at the business center downstairs which was very handy and generous

Gold Ambassadors Benefits
Free natural water
Box of chocolates
Welcome gift (Metal drink tin)
3 Apples

After checking in and have a quick shower, we went downstairs, got a map from the concierge and started to explore what Frankfurt had to offer. We did a bit of shopping in Hauptwache, we visited Zara, H+M, Hako and Rewe supermarket. We had a breakfast snack at a place called Chicken/Chips. We got some bratwurst in a bread roll with twisty chips. Very satisfying and surprisingly cheap!

The GF needed new shoes, as the ones she bought for the holiday were too uncomfortable. For some reason she thought it was be a good idea to break in new shoes on the holiday! Lets just say that didn't go to well and she could barely walk after a few hours. We didn’t have much luck finding something comfortable that met her standard for nice footwear.

We decided to have lunch and rest her feet and then continue the search for some good footwear. I usually don't mind shopping with the GF, but shoe shopping is something I've always struggled with. The only good thing is I'm able to sit down, but its by far the hardest shopping a BF has to endure I'm sure. We managed to find a pub in middle of city. I ordered the Pork Knuckle which had a HUGE serve of potato mash and cabbage. My partner had the tomato soup. We both got no where close to finishing our meals (servings were way too big). Pork knuckle $17EU and Tomato Soup $8EU. There were lots of bee looking insects that scared us when we were sitting outside. This quickly prompted us to move indoors and eat in peace.

After lunch we were going to go back to the Hotel, but then identified a whole part of the city that we hadn’t see yet. There we found a Timberland store where the GF found some really comfortable walking boots. We also found a Hagen Daas incream store where we enjoyed some chocolate ice-cream. We also saw the Apple store, and at the front was a nice memorial to Steve Jobs. We then walked back to the hotel to rest a little, get ready for an early dinner, and have an early night. We went downstairs before dinner to do the usual Facebook thing and research where to have dinner. Trip advisor recommended Fujiwara as it was ranked as the best Japanese in Frankfurt. I plotted the way with google maps and off we went. Unfortunately when we got there the restaurant was closed. It is only closed one day in the week and would you believe it was just our luck, Monday

We decided to keep walking and find something else, unfortunately there wasn't much on offer. The GFs feet started hurting again, and we were prepared to eat at the next place we saw. All we could find was this really small pizza takeaway place in a side street. There were a few people lining up outside which is always a good sign that the food could be good. It was an old husband and wife team. They looked like great grandparents! The place was called Monte Carlo pizza. Having no ability to speak German, I pointed at what we wanted to eat (pizza and lasagne) The food was actually really good. I was pretty impressed and it was under $15EU for the meal + coke!) We made our way back to the hotel and pretty much crashed so we could have an early start the next day.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Great start I think you are definitely right about the step up from Y to J. I do however love shoe shopping
Looking forward to the next installment

 

[Inver]

Great start to the TR Pumbaa.

 

[Pumbaa]

This is a photo of the Chicken and Chip place we went for breakfast


This is the Pork Knuckle that I had. I really love having this dish with a beer. Food of kings!

 

[Pumbaa]

Tuesday 11th October

Being our last day in Frankfurt, we thought we should tackle City Hall and a food place that I wanted to visit Monday, but was far too full from my Pork Knuckle. We did the tourist thing and took a few photos around the City Hall. I love Europe's culture and history. Their buildings are amazing, the detail, the symmetry, the craftsmanship. Truly beautiful. We did a bit more shopping then visited Schlemmermeyer (the place I wanted to visit). I swear this place had the best sausages I've ever tasted. I had the cheese sausage and the GF had the currywurst. Both AMAZING. It was so good that we had it twice. Once for lunch, then again before we walked back to our hotel after a full day shopping in the city center. There was also a place called Alexandro's that had the most amazing freshly squeezed fruit juices. They may have costed 5-6EU each, but they were so good. I had 2! I think it had Mango, Paw Paw and some other fresh fruits. We stopped off at Haagen Daz for some ice-cream. Boy I love their icecream, so sad there are no stores in Perth.

We made our way back to the hotel after a full day in the city. We packed all our shopping into our nearly empty suitcases and tried again to make our way to dinner. After failing to make it to Fujiwara last night. We tried again that night. We got the concierge to call and make a reservation, but they were fully booked. We were a little disappointed, and tired to find somewhere else to eat. We were both in the mood for japanese, so we decided to walk there anyway and try our luck with a walk in. The restaurant was smaller than we thought, and they were unfortunately fully booked. Not prepared to miss out on their highly rated food, we asked if they did takeway. We were in luck, we ordered our takeaway and bought it back to the room.

OMG the food was seriously some of the best Japanese we ever tasted. The ratings on Trip Advisor did not lie. The food was amazing and surprisingly good value. The restaurant were full of Japanese tourists, always a good sign that the food would be good. If we ever go back to Frankfurt we are going to must reservations ahead of time so we can sample their entire menu. If anyone is going to Frankfurt, please visit this restaurant, you won't be disappointed!


City Hall in Frankfurt


Currywurst - Came with a nice piece of crusty bread


Best sausages in Frankfurt


The GF thought it was so cute seeing little kids transported this way. I managed to take a nice photo without looking like a shady fellow


This is the food we took away from Fujiwara.

After dinner we made our way back to the hotel and enjoyed our two days in Frankfurt. We both felt that it was more than enough time to scratch the surface of this beautiful city and would be more than happy to stopover for 1 day in the future. We were both super excited about arriving in New York the next day. We had an early night because we had an early flight to JFK the next day.

The next installment is where the USA holidays begin. Stay tuned and thanks for the warm comments thus far

 

[drron]

Great start.An enjoyable read.
Only 2 comments-SQ just went down in my eyes-why oh why would you have coffee flavoured foie gras!
And as for shoe shops-get used to it.I have seen every shoe shop in the US.:shock:

 

[lmere12]

looking forward to the next instalment

 

[cove]

A very enjoyable trip report Pumbaa and the photos are really good.
Had an extra laugh about shoes with drron.....are all our partners Imelda's in training?
That SQ lounge in SIN is great and the Satay starter is really yummy. The red or the champagne......so many decisions on that long haul flight.
Now I hope you are replenishing your points stash because I noted your partner may have difficulty going back to Economy bookings. Ouch!
It is really great fun to read your posts from "Perth eyes" !

 

[Pumbaa]

@ Drron: The coffee flavoured foie gras tasted surprisingly good! I'm not sure if it was because I had a few too many glasses of red, but I enjoyed it nevertheless

@ Drron and Cove: I'm still getting used to the shoe shopping. I think I would have found the shopping more productive if she bought a pair of shoes everytime we visited another shop, but after the 10th shop with no shoes in hand, I get a little bored!

@ Cove: I'm forever envious at the number of points you amass. I try to pump as many points through my business as possible, but am currently not allowed to put through the business's tax bill on my credit card. I'm only a junior partner of the business I'm working at, so I might have to look at other options

I will continue the trip report tomorrow night. I never realised how much time it takes to write one of these up

 

[cove]

If I am overseas I let my partners pay the BAS and I see their reactions are very very good to doing that.
There are so many businesses who don't know!
My partners and their wives are now planning trips like yours so I am really chuffed that some ideas work nicely.
I must learn how to post a photo as my blogs look so plain compared with your lovely trip posts. Now I had been worried that it was 10 pairs of shoes out of the first 10 stores as the warm up..............
Last night I did a Christmas present trip to London for my sister in law and my teenage niece and so they will be testing SQ and QF front of plane products.
Keep your great posts coming out of Perth!

 

[lmere12]

Last night I did a Christmas present trip to London for my sister in law and my teenage niece and so they will be testing SQ and QF front of plane products.

If you ever feel the need to adopt, I'll start first on the list lol

 

[cove]

I hope you can get your partner interested in travel Imere12. He could buy you a post office for Christmas so you could process the tax office payments into many zillions of points.
Actually Australia Post won't play ball probably because they want the franchisee to be there to serve the public! They pay about 8 cents to process Tax Office payments so there are billions of dollars with points potential going to waste.

I can see Pumbaa has had a lot of fun getting out there so keep it coming!

 

[Pumbaa]

Wednesday 12th October

We had to wake up quite early due to our early 8:30am local flight. I always try to be at the airport 2 hours before the flight itself, so we woke up at 5:30am! Trying to wake up my GF when shes fast asleep on holidays is always an interesting job. More so when its 5:30am! Anyways, we woke up on time, checked out and made our way to the airport via taxi. Not all taxis in Frankfurt take credit card for payment, so always check before you drive away. We got to the airport ahead of schedule (no traffic at 5:30am ) and checked in our luggage. We decided to visit the LH lounge because he had some time to kill. It was a pretty far walk from our terminal, and we had to go through another set of security checks to get in.

The lounge was quite nice and modern. We had a chicken wrap, some instant noodles, fresh fruit and some orange juice. It was all quite nice and quiet, the lounge was pretty deserted. We did our usual facebook and emails and then made our way to the terminal. We boarded our plane to New York and sat right up the front on the upper cabin. I thought they would be nice seats as we had extra leg room and were close to the toilets. In hindsight, the seats near the emergency row are the best seats on the upper deck.


Sandwich and rolls selection


Orange juice, fruit cup (very nice) an instant noodles that they prepared for me

We were served a continental breakfast/brunch shortly after take off. It consisted of some fresh fruit, pastries (we had the croissants), yogurt and cereal. We also had a beef with noodles dish which was quite satisfying. A few hours later I wanted to try some their snacks and ordered some cup noodles. I expected them to give me a cup with some hot water and a plastic fork, but thats not how they do it in J. They prepared my instant cup noodles in a bowl, used a nice soup broth, gave me chopsticks, cut chilli and soya sauce. It was like another meal! It was very enjoyable, and was just another reason why Singapore J is so highly regarded.

Lunch followed an hour or so after. I booked the cook and had the duckling with noodles. It was a magnificent dish considering we were on a plane! My GF had a prawns dish that she also highly enjoyed. We kinda regretted eating so much food on the plane because we were both quite full when we arrived in New York. This meant I could eat less junk on my first day. Quite a sad predicament! After lunch we both had a bit of a sleep before we arrived in New York.

We arrived in New York around 11am local time. There was hardly any lines in immigrations/customs, and we were in and out in 30 minutes. We must have been really lucky and landed in a quiet period. We walked straight to the taxi stand and a nice taxi attendant asked "where are you off to darling?" in a nice american accent. I think it hit me right then and there that I was in New York City! I replied Time's Square proudly and next thing you know we were in an american yellow cab driving towards Time Square. The ride was pretty long, approximately 30-40 minutes. Traffic was pretty bad when we got close to times square. The taxi had an LCD screen for us to watch some reruns of TV shows. It was also interactive, you could check the weather and news updates. Its the first time I saw tech in taxi and I was pretty impressed. Seeing the bright lights in Times Square for the first time was amazing. We were both super pumped and couldn't wait to explore New York. The taxi ride cost a flat rate of $45 + tolls ($5). We tipped 20% so it came to a total of $60.

As soon as we got to Intercontinental Times Square, our doors were opened by a bellman and our luggage was quickly unloaded and taken into the hotel lobby. We tipped him a few dollars (first time I tipped in the US and it felt a little wierd). We checked in quite painlessly and made our way into our room. It was a very modern room. We were both really impressed. It had a nice high LCD TV and a computer that had all the hotels information. The bathroom was really nice and the bed was super comfty. A much nicer improvement than what we stayed in at Intercontinental Frankfurt

Intercontinental Times Square

Excellent location: Very close to Shake Shack, John’s Pizzeria, Carmines, Juniors, Subway
Very nice check in with a free upgrade to King Executive Room.
Ambassadors Benefits: 2 bottles of Evian water, chocolates, free movie, late checkout

 

[Pumbaa]

We both had a shower and freshened up before we left the hotel to explore Times Square. I thought that Times Square was the heart of New York and everything would be in walking distance. I was expecting to see Papaya King and Kat'z deli in my travels only to learn afterwards that New York is huge and we were going to need to catch the subway to all the places I wanted to see. We did a nice lap of Times Square in about 2 hours but didn't see anywhere that we really wanted to eat. We saw some iconic US food places like Applebees and Red Lobster, but ended up eating Pizza at a random diner. I had a slice of sausage pizza, and my GF had a bruschetta pizza. We shared a juice and the bill came to $12. After finishing those slices we were pretty much stuffed. The size of each slice was nearly as big as a small takeaway pizza! The slices were excellent and we were both very satisfied.

View attachment 4564
One slice was half the length of my arm! Boy those slices were tasty. They were just a little hard to eat cos they were so big!

After our slices of pizza we both felt really exhausted. It must have been a mixture of the early wakeup, the change in time zone and all the food we just consumed . We decided to go back to our hotel and have a little nap and then see Times Square at night. We woke up at around 7-8pm and got ready to explore Times Square at night. It was amazing seeing all those neon lights. The only thing that I remember that comes remotely close was when I was in UK and saw Piccadilly Circus for the first time. Times Square through was on a whole new level!




We found Shake Shack (A place I had on my list that I wanted to visit). It was actually just next to our hotel! We ordered a burger each, fresh lemonade and some fries. It only cost $18 and it tasted amazing. The burgers were freshly made, the beef pattie was cooked to perfection. The bun was soft and sweet, and the sauce just complemented everything so nicely. There was help yourself water, and help yourself napkins, sauces (ketchup and mustard). The placed was absolutely packed and there was a line out the door to order the food. We had to wait a while until we could have a seat, and were lucky to find two free stools on a bench. First dinner in New York and we loved it!


Words cannot describe how good this meal was. I constantly keep thinking about it everytime I'm hungry and want a burger. The burgers were only $3.95 each. OMG I wish I had one right now


After the burgers, we went back to the hotel and crashed. We decided it was best to have an early night so we could have a nice and early start exploring New York the next day.

Stay tuned for stories of Macy's, Carnegie Deli, Soup naz_, Empire State Building, Gray Lines Hop on Hop off and lots more!

 

[Princess Fiona]

Love your Times Square pictures, it's such a touristy place but whenever I am there I love it

 

[Pozza]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just reading through your trip report.

Excellent work, I can't wait to try out SQ J and F later this year.

We were staying at the Intercontinental on that Wednesday night as well and may have walked past you at the shake shack The world is a small place.

I miss those shakes so bad, best Caramel Milkshake I have ever had!

 

[jukebox333]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just reading through your trip report.

Excellent work, I can't wait to try out SQ J and F later this year.

*snip*

Glad you did, Pozza - I missed this one, too.

Great report Pumbaa!

I visited FRA for the first time last year, and loved it too - had a day there at each end of a three week stay in Germany last Spring, and could easily have made it a week. Great food, friendly people.

 

[Pumbaa]

Sorry to dig up an old thread, but just reading through your trip report.

Excellent work, I can't wait to try out SQ J and F later this year.

We were staying at the Intercontinental on that Wednesday night as well and may have walked past you at the shake shack The world is a small place.

I miss those shakes so bad, best Caramel Milkshake I have ever had!

haha I have dreams about those shake shack burgers every now and then. And to think they only cost around $4 each. I'd be more than happy to pay $10 for something like them in Perth. Nothing thus far even comes close

Thanks for commenting on this old thread. I actually never finished this trip report, if you and a few other members are interested, I'll be happy to continue my story of LA, San Fran, Vegas and my return leg to New York!