Down To The Land of Macca’s

Here we are back at the airport in Abu Dhabi. This is terminal 1, the original terminal which is about 40 years old. You won’t see anything flashy in here like most of the other newer terminals in the Gulf states.

Quickly passing through border control and security (it’s a small terminal and thus never really seems that busy) I head to the Al Dhabi lounge which is for non-Etihad passengers and those with lounge membership/credit card access. The main area which I’ve been in before is entirely uninspiring and uninteresting, but they had this first and business class lounge in a separate room open this time which I was directed to use.

It was very quiet. Almost deserted. Curiously the smoking room in the middle was occupied by what appeared to be members of the Abu Dhabi border police enjoying a few laughs on a smoke break.

I went back out to the main area to enjoy that part’s only redeeming factor – a proper cappuccino made by a barista and not a push button machine.

After a 5 minute walk to the gate, I board my next, very short flight over to Doha. They’ve got a tasty and refreshing lime and mint drink that I always enjoy having.

We take off from Abu Dhabi with the brand new midfield terminal visible – still yet to be opened for use, it will greatly expand the airport’s capacity.

Flying over Ferrari World on a typically hazy/dusty Middle East afternoon.

Pretty good meal for a 35 minute flight !!

As is typical for these regional flights on smaller aircraft, we arrive at a remote stand in Doha. It’s so humid here that it feels like someone’s slapped you when you step out of the air conditioning into the outdoors to board the bus.

But it’s a really, really nice limo bus for those of us in “first class”.

Another quick stop through transfer security and I’m on my way to the Al Safwa Lounge, Qatar Airways flagship facility.

It’s an enormous space, more like a cathedral than a lounge. Just inside the entrance is dominated by this water feature.

I’m going to have a quick meal in here since it’s now been 6 hours since I had the McDonald’s and it’ll be another 2 hours minimum before they start serving any food on the plane. I have a delicious chicken corn chowder and a Wagyu steak. Yum.

My departure gate is reasonably far away so I take the indoor automated train to the far end of the concourse. It’s pretty cool to be on a train inside, I think!

Here’s how the main area at the end of the train looks. Busy, fancy, all in one.

There’s even an indoor tropical garden called the Orchard just behind the Duty free shop. It’s nowhere near as spectacular as Jewel and Singapore’s Changi Airport, but it is amazing nonetheless.

After a quick walk around the Orchard I head over to the gate, get my stuff scanned by security again (some destinations have specific requirements, such as Australia and the US), and after a couple of minutes of sitting, enter my home for roughly the next 14 hours en route to Sydney.

There are two very nice vintage champagnes on offer today.

I was actually quite surprised to see that first class was completely full. Actually, out of 8 seats, there were 9 passengers! I sat in 2A and the rest of row 2 was filled by an Australian family of 4 including a lap infant who seemed to be about 1-1.5 years old. There was an older boy who was maybe 3-3.5 who shared the middle seats with the Dad, and we can see here how he’s got Tom & Jerry and the huge IFE screen.

Here’s the beautiful, albeit a bit open, cabin.

There are no showers on this plane but the first class restrooms are huge. All along the wall is a leather wrapped bench as well as the toilet cover which if you don’t look too closely, blends into the bench. I saw one of the other passengers looking back and forth at both front restrooms and asked me, where do we go to use the toilet ? Because it was hidden so well.

The restroom also has a full length mirror – wow!

In between the two restrooms are the stairs leading down to the lower deck.

And a look back up.

Here’s tonight’s menu. I’m going to have a “light” meal right now, as I’m hoping to get a bit of sleep and reset my body clock to the time zone of the far east – 8 hours ahead of where I’ve been for the last week.

Moving on from champagne I have a lovely French red with my duck pho.

And have some more, with my little dessert – ice cream and berries. The ice cream was really frozen so I had to wait about 20 minutes before it was soft enough to eat.

On the moving map you can see that our endpoints are almost on opposite sides of the planet.

I’m still a bit hungry so I order a cheese platter. And more of that delicious red wine.

I head back to the lounge area to see who’s there. No one really interesting, so I just wait until they leave and then take some pictures.

Back up front I ask for my bed to be made, and then woken up in just over 2 hours for breakfast on Australian time.

At exactly the time I wanted, I had a cappuccino brought to my seat along with scrambled eggs, sausage, tomatoes and mushrooms.

And then this extremely fancy cronut.

We’re about halfway to Sydney. In a big blue space on the moving map, somewhere around where they were looking for the missing flight MH370 that never turned up.

I take another nap for about 2 hours and not long after waking up, we hit the coast of Australia.

Now that it’s “lunchtime” in Sydney, I’m going to have my main meal.
An amuse bouche.

Caviar, of course !

A nice white riesling to accompany the caviar.

Etc…

I just love the tail cam on aircraft, especially the A380.

The last dish is a Qatari chicken madhruba. It looked like porridge slop but tasted very good. Unfortunately, by this time, I was getting really really full from all of the food so I only ate half of it.

As we pass over Victoria, I can see a fire of some sort burning far below us.

And now we get the end of flight chocolates. Nice phrase inside, and very true !

A sunbeam pokes through the clouds as we turn around Sydney’s western suburbs.

There’s the harbour and Sydney CBD !

Finally, we’ve arrived. I was curious about the story of the family across from us, as it wouldn’t be that common to have a lap infant in first class on a premium route like that. The guy looked like he was in his 30’s and very athletic, so I assume he was an Australian football player or something. The lady had on a rock the size of my watch, and she did most of the work with the kids throughout the flight. I never caught his name, but when we landed he asked to come over to my seat to take a picture out the window. He said that his mate just messaged him asking where he’s at, and he said he was just going to reply with a photo of this 10 floor apartment building on the bay, of which the entire building was owned by said mate. I’m sure that building was worth many milliions of dollars, at least in the double digits of millions.

Anyway, after getting out of the plane I’m greeted with this very friendly advertisment.

It takes a very short time to pass through border control due to the eGate system (love countries that have this!) and then I hop on the Sydney suburban rail system “Sydney Trains” to head downtown to my hotel.

I stayed at the Swissotel in central Sydney. My friend Chantal used to work there, not anymore, but before she left she hooked me up with a sweet upgrade to this massive multi room suite!

Right across Market Street was a theatre for live performance.

I have to keep moving otherwise if I fall asleep now I’m gonna be screwed for the rest of the week. So I go out walking for a few hours. Here’s the General Post Office from the 1800s on Martin Place.

And the famous Sydney Opera House, lit up tonight in the green and gold colors of Australia for the FIFA Women’s World Cup which is being hosted at various locations in Australia and New Zealand.

The Fox Sports broadcast center for the event is right around the corner.

Looking the other way beyond the Fox pavilion, there’s the iconic Harbour Bridge.

I do some wandering through the area known as The Rocks.

A normally lively area full of pubs and restaurants, but it’s a cold (11 degrees) Tuesday evening so there aren’t too many folks sitting outside, or around at all for that matter.

I walk up on to the bridge halfway to see how good the view is. Not disappointed.

Back down for another look at the Post Office which looks beautiful at night.

More soccer stuff.

In a cluster of restaurants in Martin Place, the plaza in the middle is filled with apres-ski themed stuff. Such as these igloos that you could sit in and have a drink.

After all that walking, it’s after 9 PM now so I feel like it’s fair to retire for the evening and get some rest for a busy day tomorrow.