This was from Singapore to Dubai flight, EK349 on the Boeing 777-300ER in March 2013.

The Economy Class Dinner Service:

As expected, the food was served earlier. The crew was just so busy serving the meals.
Probably for this flight, a lot of folks requested for special meals.
Instead of butter, there was canola spread instead.

Can’t missed it!

This meal was the wife’s. She was surprisingly quite happy to eat it because that’s how she boils veggies in the evening when she needs to add some fiber and vitamins to her diet. The thing about women eating light stuff to maintain their weight 1 or 2 times a week.

Carrots, broccoli, yellow capcicum and french beans.
The chicken was steamed and some tomato salsa over it. The salsa was surprisingly tasty.

The side dish was even more tasty and the wife’s very happy with it.
It’s mushroom salad. It has 1 cherry tomato and 2 short stick of asparagus. I tried it and mushroom was nicely sautéed!

The fruit was regular fruits that other passengers ate.
It was watermelon, pineapple and dragonfruit. 

The Economy Class Breakfast Service:

The low cholesterol / low fat breakfast service.
Butter as usual had been replaced with canola spread.

When we opened it, we were surprised that there’s poached eggs in it.
Don’t expect flowing egg yolk. This is economy class.

Broccoli is more ‘cooked’ for breakfast. Mushrooms looks like the ones from cans.

Instead of another low fat sidedish, 2 portions of fruits were served instead.

Verdict: For the flight that originates from Singapore, the Low Fat / Low Cholesterol food is quite tasty. You can safely order it when you book your flight. It’s for folks who wants something light and clean looking meal. It has lots of vegetables that are still in form!

The breakfast does not seem as nice as the dinner service though. You can get some breakfast at Dubai Airport. So be patient if you don’t like their breakfast. 

As an Instagram and Facebook addict, I was very excited. The long flight can be spent doing something I like which the wife thinks I am too addicted and frowns on.

The week before the flight I downloaded programs to track how much data I would use while I Instagram daily. I think it can last me the whole flight if I don’t keep scrolling photos after photos on Instagram. Maybe posting a few photos and posting updates on Facebook.

The first leg of my flight from Singapore to Dubai was on the Boeing 777-300ER, so that plane did not have wifi on it.

The second leg from Dubai to Paris was on the Airbus A380-800. All the Emirates A380 has now been fitted with wifi.

When you board the plane, the SSID is already available, but there’s no connection anywhere.
It will only be turned on around 10-15 minutes after we are in the air. They will make an announcement that wifi services are available.

This screen shot was captured while I was still on land in the plane, while I am still connected to du.

Job hazard, for techies who wants to know what’s the DNS and IP Address.
It’s not as if I can help anyone solve their problem on board. LOL!

The welcome screen.

This is what everyone is interested in. The pricing!
It seems Emirates has priced it quite reasonably!

Before the flight, I read that it’s USD20 for 100 MB, so I wondered where’s this package that I wanted? (Scroll to the end for the answer)

I was testing what 100MB would have lasted the days before I boarded the plane.

They had the option to allow you to stop access when you reach your allowance or continue to charge you.

Create an userid to start!

Surprisingly, the transaction was quite fast!

There! The addict paid USD10 for 30MB of data on board!

There’s this screen that I kept open on the browser on my iPhone to check once in a while how much data I have used.

Since it’s Wifi (and not 3G or 4G), your smartphone does updates now and then. (Eg uploading photos to photostream, download emails, check for apps update etc) To be doubly sure your precious data won’t be wasted, disconnect when you are not using it while on the flight.

Enable again when you are ready to surf.

Click on connect and I was instagramming and facebooking on the flight!
Yes, some friends did reply and I could reply up in the air too.

Most of the time, we were ‘whatsapping’ with family and friends in Asia and Europe.
It works quite well, and it’s reasonably fast too!

Guess what? I did not finish using the data. There’s the eating time, sleeping time, and you don’t really finish using if you are careful in your usage. OK, I posted a photos of our meals from the plane!

Some photos that I posted from the plane using satellite signals connected to the Emirates A380 wifi.

Ya, people say it’s boasting. A techie thinks that it’s amazing how the mechanism behind it works!

Another photo. We did unusual things like ordering low cholesterol and low fat meals before the flight.
The food turns out very good!

Techies like to do speedtest, ping etc.
But no, I did not do these onboard. Not going to waste my money!

There is mobile roaming on the plane too, but I can’t seem to find the provider Aeromobile online.
It’s very expensive! My provider (Starhub) will charge me SGD8.50 per minute for incoming call!
Calling someone in Singapore will cost me USD4.28 a minute.
SMS is USD0.95 per SMS. It’s better to use the wifi and whatsapp.

On the return trip back. I had my Macbook Air with me, and I tried to log in.
I wanted to know if I could still use my leftover minutes, but I forgot my ID and password!

Aha! Now I know where the 100MB for USD20 is from. Only when you access it via your notebooks!
Now I wonder, if you can purchase the 100MB for USD20 and use it on your phones.
It’s much better value than 30MB for USD10 ya?

You know how when we travel on land, our reception keeps breaking now and then?
It’s quite amazing how the plane that was flying at over 900km/h can maintain the connection!

I read online that when you are flying over certain countries where their civil aviation authorities doesn’t allow it, the internet will be cut off. From Dubai to Paris, it seems OK for me. I probably slept through those countries.

This post is for those who wanted to find out about the costs of the internet via Wifi on board Emirates Flights. Info current as of March 2013.

Do you think there will be less choices when you next rent a car?
With less competition, the prices might go up too.

With a bigger company, they might have the muscle to bring in more cars for rental too.
We shall see what happens.

If you fly to KL with AirAsia, you would land at LCCT and that means you have to walk down the ‘steps’ on a moveable staircase from the aircraft’s door. You would then have to walk around 5-8 minutes to the low cost carrier terminal building. I have done this a few times, it’s very easy, you won’t get lost, just follow everyone else! At the LCCT, there are many modes of transport to get you out of the airport.

You can also take a taxi which will cost you quite a bit, which will probably cost more than your air ticket!
Budget travellers will usually take the bus or the express train.

I prefer to take the train because I don’t like to sit on the 1.5 hour long bus ride with no internet connection. (haha, yup, Internet addict!)

If you are taking the train you would still need to take a shuttle bus to the Train Station, but it’s a much shorter, around 20 minute ride. It’s also quite a comfy bus and someone helps you with your luggage. It costs only MYR12.50 (SGD5 / USD4) for the whole ride. The train station to catch the express train is the Salak Tinggi KLIA Transit station. The train portion of the ride comes with free very fast wifi too!

View of the tracks from Salak Tinggi KLIA Transit Station.
Love the view of the rail tracks!

The KLIA Transit trains are clean, fast and silent!
It’s similar to the HK Airport Express.

A note of difference between the KLIA Ekspres and KLIA Transit trains.

If you land at the main terminal, the KLIA Ekspres takes only 28 minutes to KL Sentral.
If you land at the LCCT, the KLIA Transit from Salak Tinggi station to KL Sentral takes around 35 minutes. The bus shuttle to Salak Tinggi is around 20 minutes. So the journey is an hour or so, if you don’t miss their schedule.

Another reason why I like to take the train is the super fast Free Wifi on board.
The train’s managed by YTL. The Malaysian conglomerate that also operates YES 4G, an internet service company in Malaysia that offers very fast internet. Their SSID is super long!!!

Just enter your name and email when a screen pops up when you get connected to their network.
The 35 minutes will pass super fast when you are checking your emails, whatsapp, facebooking etc.

(For techies, most ports on this service is open so you can whatsapp, skype or make VOIP calls using this free service)

I took a photo of their schedule on my phone and refer to it when I travel.
I don’t want to waste time waiting for the train, so I refer to this timetable.
Let me warn you, they are super punctual, a minute late and the bus leaves!

Hope you find this useful.

Dorsett Regency is right next to The Ritz Carlton and 5 minutes walk away from JW Marriott. It’s also quite near the big huge new mall called Pavillion KL. The location of the hotel is quite good.

We had 2 rooms here, one of the rooms had view of the Twin Towers.

We could also see the nicer and newer JW Marriott from the windows.

Dorsett is the cheaper cousin of the surrounding hotels with an international brand name. It’s about time to refurbish the hotel and air the place a bit. It has a bit of the ‘old’ hotel smell now. If you have sensitive nose, when you are the lobby area of each floor outside the lifts, you might sneeze a bit. My sis thought that I was falling sick, I told her I am not, it’s the air that is not clean. Guess what? I think I am right. When we waited for the lift, we spotted two times, young children sneezing too!

The lobby is busy as this seems to be a popular hotel with tour groups because of the cheaper rates.
We had rooms on the 14th and 12th floor. Our room on the 14th floor had neighbors who have booked 5-6 rooms together. They left their doors ajar and the kids were running in and out of different rooms.

The rooms looks a bit dated. Older style furnishing and carpeting. The instructions and room service menu are laminated. Yup, it’s that era!

The sheets are clean. The beds are comfortable, not saggy.

It’s clean, just a bit dated. When in the rooms, I don’t seem to sneeze though, so the rooms have cleaner air.

Free bottles of water and a new kettle to boil water. Yup, a Philips kettle. No fancy coffee maker or teas.
It’s Nescafe sachet.

Notice the piece of glass over the table and all the laminated instructions, menu, etc below?

You can tell the TV console had large TV on it before, it’s now being replaced with a Samsung flat screen TV. You have extra space to put stuff, e.g., the phone

The usual local TV plus ESPN, BBC World, NHK and AXN.
There are four Vision 4 channels (Malaysian Hotels all have Vision 4, sort of like a in house Malaysian wide hotel channel)

There’s still a bathtub, which I don’t use in most hotels.
No rain shower, the shower is not too bad. Hot water was sufficient. Basic toiletries and not from some fancy brand. It’s the hotel’s own name on it. The fragrance was tea tree.

Ironing board’s already in the room so you don’t need to ask for one.
There’s a safe in the room too.

Like what I always do, I want to know the bed I am sleeping on.
They use Sleepmaker Miracoil mattress here. Never slept on one before, it was all right. As I mentioned, it was not saggy.

I did not try out their Wifi service here, as a techie, I notice they use Cisco routers here. You can see the routers outside the rooms. That’s for you to know if you want to know the rates.

We booked through hotels.com and prepaid it online. No frills, not fancy, a bit dated. The location was superb though. It’s minutes away from Pavillion shopping mall which has lots of restaurants and shops.

The nearest train is the monorail at Lot 10, which is around 15 minutes walk away. If you have luggage, not advisable to drag it around. Hail a taxi. If you are here with only a backpack and are used to walking, it’s OK to walk.

Our stay details:

Name of hotel: Dorsett Regency Kuala Lumpur
URL: http://www.dorsettregency.com/kualalumpur/
Date of stay: May 2012
Rooms: 14xx and 12xx (2 rooms)
Rate paid: SGD105.35 per night. (booked via hotels.com)

Happy Birthday Oasia Hotel. This was their special cake made from so many delicious macarons!
The 1st Year Anniversary is also to promote the Club Rooms.

If you have not heard about it, the Club Rooms and Suites Guest in Oasia has it’s own private-access swimming pool and sky deck. For many other hotels, it’s only the private-access food area / Executive Lounge.

Oasia has raised the bar by introducing gourmet style coffees (from local artisan roaster, Coffee Culture), artisanal chocolates (from French chocolatier house Monbana) and organic teas (from German premium tea brand, Naturalis) for the Executive Lounge.

The above drink is the White Chocolate Cocktail. (I happen to have the same brand of chocolate drink at home, but never made it that way.) It’s white chocolate shake with red Martini or in the case above, it was curacao.

For those who like an interesting mix of tea with some alcohol, this is the Summer Bouquet. The Naturalis tea brand has their own Singapore Sling Tea mix and this tea has been mixed with Elderflower syrup and vodka and some lemon.

Another drink which I can’t remember the name, it’s a greenish white chocolate milkshake with also a tinge of alcohol. You can always request a non alcohol version of all the drinks above

These delicious chocolates are what you can get from executive Lounge called The Living Room.
Quite a few flavours of white, dark and milk chocolates.

The area in the Living Room that mixes other good stuff that most of us can’t live without. Coffee and chocolate drinks.

For those who prefer organic teas, the Naturalis flavours.

The Club Room

This is my second visit to this hotel. The first time I was here, I knew I like this place because it has lots of ‘wood’ elements in it. Designed by award winning Japanese designer, Takashi Sugimoto from Super Potato, he uses a lot of ‘wood’ in the whole hotel.

Always check the fire escape plan to orientate yourself, I always take a photo of it with my phone. It’s put to good use in this post to show you how the hotel looks like. It has a very very long corridor!

The King size beds that the wife and I slept on. It’s quite a comfortable bed. The wife and I have been having mini honeymoons since we got married last May. We either have staycations or take a short trip overseas and we have been sleeping around. (Oooii! I mean the hotel beds! Don’t think other wise.)

The wife thinks I am crazy, but I have taken photos and mark down all the brands of mattresses I have slept on! Hotel Oasia uses Simmons Beautyrest. Even if your partner moves, you don’t really feel it for this mattress.

The view of the hotel is the usual Singapore skyline. You won’t get Singapore Flyer or Marina Bay views from this hotel. But if you go to the private pool for Club Members floor during sunrise or sunset, it’s quite beautiful.

See the switches near the telephone, it’s for the automated blinds. These switches are easier to use and less confusing than the ones in MO Landmark Hong Kong where we stayed recently.

Pardon the blur photo, at the other side of the bed is a see-thru glass to the bathroom.
There’s the rain shower and other bathroom by Toto.

If you love to shower, this ToTo rain shower is superb.
Tip: If you are renovating, this is a good place to try it out if you were looking for Toto stuff.

Soap, shower gel, shampoo are from Thai brand, Thann. The lemongrass based bathroom amenities smell really refreshing and its non drying too.

A welcome fruit platter. Yes, it’s wooden too!

I thought this was rather interesting. Their safe is the newer models which opens to the top, and it comes with electricity supply too! By having it open upwards you can see exactly what’s left inside. I took note of this because I have left my passport in a hotel before and I was on my way to the airport!

There’s a Nespresso machine and also a mini bar that fits in around 8 cans of soft drinks. Things in the mini bar are complimentary.

There’s the iHome to dock your iPhone if you are using one.

I realised it’s the same model of phone used by the Far East Hospitality group residences.
Some hotels use IP phones that can store messages etc, but I guess they have all incorporate those features into their IP Television instead!

For TV addicts, 32 channels available.

Everything you want to find out about the hotel if you are those who are shy to call the Reception is available on their interactive TV. I like it that only a simple remote control was used, not some gadget that is hard to figure out.

We even tried to order room service from the TV!

I felt like having a soup, while the wife loves to test out club sandwiches from almost everywhere!
The hotel does not have their own kitchen, so the food if you order from room service comes from the restaurant that’s on their ground floor, Zaffron.

The club sandwich here is not the usual brown or white bread, but they used focaccia bread instead which according to KopiKosongGirl a nice touch, nice herb bread. The other ingredients were ordinary. The other thing that make KKG happy was the wedges instead of fries.

The Seafood Tomyam soup I had was a bit on the spicy and choking side, but after a few mouths, I grew to like it.




The Executive Lounge: The Living Room

The Living Room is the name of the Executive Lounge. It’s where you can get complimentary breakfast, cocktail, and all-day coffee, tea, juices, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks. This was our breakfast that morning.

Some very crispy bacon, chicken sausage and some what some people call breakfast noodles.

The eggs are made to order. I had two kinds of eggs that morning. Sunny side up and some roast tomatoes from the buffet line.

My other egg is a semi boiled egg. My hands got itchy and I decided to decorate my egg.

The all day drinks that they serve here. This is KKG’s mocha. Instead of a biscuits they serve you a piece of Monbana chocolate.

My cup of hot chocolate.

There’s a range of bread and pastry, but I only took a croissant.

I was too tempted by the teas, so I had a Wild Berries tea by Naturalis as well.
We checked out after breakfast. It was an enjoyable stay at Oasia Hotel.

Interested in a staycation here? You probably have read that hotel prices are going up in Singapore on the last two weekend’s newspapers. Are you interested to enjoy 10% off an Oasia Hotel Singapore Weekend Package?

Here are the details:
__________________________________

Everyday in Singapore, both of us wake up to the view of Bukit Timah, Singapore’s tallest hill / natural structure. For the 2 mornings that we woke up, we woke up to this magnificent view instead. A gorgeous view of the Singapore’s Marina Bay and view of Singapore’s tallest buildings too!

We had the Bay View, and just from the windows, we would just pull our chair and sit down and admire it.

Far away, we noticed we could see Bukit Timah (Hill) too!

Let me tell you the story of our stay. Hope you will enjoy it.

We were checked into the Club Room at the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. There are 3 towers and we stayed in Tower 2.

Our room at Level 36 of Tower 2.

With our electronic keycards we opened the door and saw how wide it is inside!

We just moved towards the light. The wife was more excited and had walk straight to see the view.

I was pushing our luggage in and taking photos with my phone and tweeting it.

Those curtains are electronically controlled. Press a button on the wall and it opens. We noted that the curtain only opens maximum to what you see. At any time, half the glass is blocked by the curtains. I understand it is to prevent too much heat coming into the room, to be greener, less electricity is used to cool down the room. The whole building’s glass outside!

The King size bed that we opted for. You can have 1 King, 2 Queens or 2 double beds.

This room is 62 square meter big!

Oh yes, I have a habit of finding out what mattress I sleep on for all the hotels I go to. They use Sealy mattresses that are made exclusively for them. It’s the Grandeur Firm Pillowtop if you are interested.

If you want two Queen sized beds, I guess they would move this aside and put the bed here and you would still have space. If you want to enjoy a big bedroom for a few days, you know where to book a room.

For those of you who use iPhones like us, there’s the iPod dock beside the bed that you can use to charge your ever draining phones.

There’s also an executive work desk and a 42 inch flat-screen TV above the cabinet that hides the bar fridge, tea maker etc. Oh yes, a Nespresso machine is also available in the room.

Oh, the bathroom is huge too. Unless you stay in GCB or premium condominiums, the bathrooms in the mass market condos or HDBs are small. There’s another section for the WC and also the standing shower that at least 3 very huge man can shower comfortably in. The WC is the comfortable wide top Toto WC. You can sit down very comfortably for quite a long time.

There’s a nice bathtub too. We have been trained to ‘save’ water so much, that both of us actually did not fill the bathtub up.

The toiletries are the Paiza-branded. Paiza is their in house brand. It’s also the name of their high roller’s club.

Two huge sinks. Notice there’s lights below the mirror that illuminates the vanity top. The busybody me noticed it was LED lights.

For the caffeine addicts, there’s the Nespresso capsules. 3 flavours but KopiKosongGirl’s favourite was not there though.

If you are not a Nespresso coffee person, they have Robert Timms and TWG Teas as well.

That’s the review of the room. We slept rather well the two nights. We could adjust the air-conditioning to the temperature we liked and it stayed there.

The Club rooms have complimentary access to The Club on the top of hotel, beside the famous infinity pool. You get complimentary American breakfast, afternoon tea, evening cocktail and canape hour, and also all day non-alcoholic beverages here.

Kopikosonggirl is a gym rat. She visited the complimentary gym everyday we stayed there. The gym here is managed by Banyan Tree. It’s called the Banyan Tree Fitness Club. It’s on the 55th floor and she said it has the latest gym equipments like the ones in her gym. Very few ladies she said was in the gym, mostly hunky Caucasian men.

What we liked was the free internet access here. One of the few high end hotels that does not charge an exorbitant fee for internet access and provides it free. We had 1 notebook, 2 iPads and 2 iPhones with us. All except an iPhone could not connect into the hotel’s wifi. A call to the IT Help solved it rather quickly.

We liked this room and the things this Asia’s Dining Destination package has to offer.

This ultimate gastronomic discovery offers:

• a 2-night stay in a Club Room or Orchid Suite
• an exclusive behind-the-scenes kitchen tour through a selection of Celebrity Chef restaurants
• a 5-star dinner at the Celebrity Chef Restaurant of your choice
• daily breakfast
• complimentary Afternoon Tea
• complimentary Sunset cocktails at The Club at Marina Bay Sands and more
• complimentary Airport Shuttle Bus on arrival

While you are walking on Champs-Élysées, you can’t possibly miss Ladurée. The famous luxury cakes and pastry shop.

Look at the lady in the next photo! She looks so ecstatic. Did she finally found Ladurée?
(ahem! or did she notice me?)





People always say people in Singapore are ‘kiasu’, well, they have not seen the Europeans beside us!
The table next to us were 2 ladies in the forties each with their husband. I guess they are most probably French but from outside Paris. (I can understand a tiny little bit of French)

They saw these paper liners for the table and guess what they did? The ladies rolled them up and said I am bringing them home! They happen to sit at a corner which had a round table. To cover the round table, they had 4 pieces of the paper liners to cover it completely. After the ladies rolled up two pieces, they spread the other 2 to cover the table pretending nothing happened. The table around looked at them, and everyone just smiled.





My sis and I were only interested in desserts and cakes here. So we just ordered desserts and cakes!
First, we had the 4 mini macrons au choix.
We did not order the ‘original’ size ones. Come to think of it, we should have!





Aren’t they absolute darlings? Probably have to bring Momo here one day!





I was taking photos and sis said, now, offer these to your readers!





Each macaron was absolutely mesmerizing. Taking a bite and let the macron shells and the creamy ganache or jam melt in your mouth. We are not very good ‘cutters’. We were trying to cut so each of us can take half of it.





Next, we ordered the luscious Carre Chocolat. What’s that? It’s dark chocolate macaron biscuit, dark chocolate crispy thin leaves, dark chocolate smooth cream, dark chocolate soft biscuit and chocolate zabaglione mousse.

A mouthful just to describe them. But putting it in your mouth brings joy – jubilance, obsession, yummy!





We were not going to stop at just two desserts. The tables around us, everyone was being polite by just having macarons and a drink. We seemed like gluttons! (or we were thinking silently, thank God the SGD to EUR is only 1.7 for this trip!)


We had the Millefeuille Praline. In Singapore, we have ‘gao teng ker’ (9 layer cakes) and also Kueh Lapis. Well, the French have Millefeuille. (translated as Million leaves)


Ah… caramelized puff pastry, praline cream, almond praline and crispy hazelnuts. Oh gosh! Every mouth brings delight!
It’s really sweet, but it’s really good too!





Sis had hot Green Tea to go with her desserts.





I ordered the Ice Chocolate with Cream. Wrong decision! It was a slightly chilly afternoon and we were sitting at the Al Fresco area. (What we called ‘hiao hiao’ in Singapore – joining everyone else sitting open air, people spotting) Drinking the ice chocolate was way too cold to be comfortable!

It was lovely. Absolutely lovely indeed!

When I saw this pack of Kinder Panecioc, I put it into my shopping basket!

If you living in Malaysia or Singapore, you would know the “Apollo” layer cakes in similar packaging. Just this week, I bought from the supermarket in Singapore, cakes in small little packaging from Kraft’s Oreos. Currently the most advertised and famous brand of chocolate rolls will be London Choco Roll. Their advertisement that has been repeating on TV is driving me insane.

When you open the packaging, you can see the rolls in clear plastic. The checkered box design looks so cute too! Sis and I both like the taste too. The chocolate flavour taste good. Similar to the chocolate flavour in Kinder Bueno.

If you have bought London Choco Roll, you know how it sticks to the wrapper, this one doesn’t! The Oreos brand I bought this week sticks worse than London Choco Roll.

I just hope the suppliers will bring this into Singapore. I did not bring any of them back. I kinda miss it now. Yes, I do miss junk food!