Holidays are great fun! Especially when it's your first time flying solo! So here is a new travel series
WanderLiews where you can read all about my latest traveling adventurers!
It’s probably going to take me a long time to write what I did on my trip this year but I’ll try to complete writing it before my next holiday. By the time you get to read this, a few weeks has gone by or even another month has gone by. So without further ado, let’s begin my recap of my
great adventure 2016.
Singapore - Manchester - Vienna - Salzburg - Budapest - Manchester – Singapore
For those people who know me well would probably know what a horrible flyer I am. I have motion sickness so I’m terribly sensitive to motion and thus riding in moving vehicles requires me to take some medication. The worst part is, in all my life I’ve never flown alone, this would be the first time.
So my flight was to take off early in the morning. I arrived at the airport with my parents and just waiting to board the flight made me nervous already. Thankfully I was feeling quite sleepy so I was looking forward to boarding the flight and catching up on some rest.
The first challenge I faced after leaving my parents was looking for a water cooler. I had to take my medicine and I didn’t have any water with me. The only available water cooler was situated in the priority seats section and so I carefully entered with the permission of the ground staff. I needed to take the medicine 30 minutes before whatever journey so I had to take it quickly. After awhile, they opened the gates for boarding. I wasn’t in the priority seating but the nice air steward allowed me to board.
The next challenge I faced would be getting my hand luggage up into the overheard compartment. It was a newer and bigger plane so they had compartments that were higher than usual. Oh boy, I had such a difficult time getting my luggage up there. There weren’t any flight crewmembers nearby so I thought I’d just do it myself. Obviously, the luggage was too heavy for me. Thankfully, the lady behind me offered her help and we put up the luggage together. I did ask for help for the second flight, realizing how heavy my hand luggage actually was.
Seems like I’ve faced quite a few challenges during my solo flight to Manchester but it’s not over yet. There’s this portion of air space that had pretty bad turbulence. The turbulence lasted for quite some time, from 30 minutes to maybe an hour. Thankfully it wasn’t too bad so I managed to sleep through most of it.
Most of you would probably be bored by now. This serves as like a dairy entry for me so I’m recording even the most boring part down. Bear with me for a little while longer.
Once the plane arrived in Amsterdam, I started to get worried again. I was worried I would miss the next flight plus research have shown that the Schipol Airport in big. The details are fuzzy but I do remember clearing customs quite quickly and finding the next boarding gate pretty quickly. Finally had some time to catch my breath and use my phone.
Of course, the classic shot of the plane. Was updating my parents, best friend and sister in Manchester (who was still sleeping at this point) of my whereabouts.
The second plane was much smaller than the first plane. In my opinion smaller planes are less stable and move more during take off and landing. I did not like the feeling. By this time, I was feeling rather sleepy due to the time difference and so with another motion sickness tablet, I managed to sleep during this flight. I don’t recall facing any challenges and considering it was a shorter flight, the plane didn’t ascend too high.
I arrived in Manchester about 10 in the morning UK time, totally feeling relieved I survived the 16 hour journey alone. 棒棒我真棒! While walking to the customs, I faced my next challenge. While filling out the immigration card, I realised I didn’t ask my sister for her address. So I desperately tried to connect to some wifi but no, there wasn’t any signal. Then all of a sudden I remembered a friend gave me his address and he stayed in the same block as my sister so PHEW I wrote that address down instead, then feeling very clever afterward.
Finally moving on to the more interesting part of the day!
My sister was waiting for me at the arrival hall and she laughed at me when I exited, mostly because I was struggling with them luggage. It's hard to pull or drag two at the same time, okay.
We headed to her place via Uber. Uber, seriously making life easy for us. We arrived at her apartment in about 30 to 40 minutes? It was a pretty interesting ride, looking and admiring all the different kinds of houses and just soaking in the different country feels.
I managed to take a quick shower, wash up before we headed out for some late lunch and shopping! I arrived just before lunch but it was like almost bed time back home. So I figured the only way to help me to stay awake would be to do some shopping. Let's hit the drugstores!
Since it was Good Friday, there weren't many bus services available, rather there weren't many of those magic buses available. Magic buses are literally those buses with a wizard on it, they charge a flat rate of £1.50 to travel anywhere. If I'm not wrong.
Back to the topic! We walked all the way while my sister gave like a quick tour of the place. We stopped by parts of my sister's school.
This is some part of her school. I took it for the pretty yellow flowers across the street. I think they're daffodils?
Of course, had to stop for a touristy shot as well. Nothing like taking photos like tourists. We had to wait for the other people to finish taking a photo first before I awkwardly walked over to stand.
According to my sister, the weather was considered pretty good. It was raining or something like that the day before. It's no surprise that the weather in the UK isn't always bright and sunny.
When we finally got to Moose Cafe, it was full so we had to wait for awhile. What did we do? Primark! Just went window shopping a bit. I think we headed back before the time they gave us and thankfully someone left at the same time, so we got a table.
I had Eggs Benedict and Caramel Macchiato. I was worried the coffee would be bitter like how it was in Boston but thankfully it tasted so good! It had like whipped cream on the top so it had this creamy taste to it and at same time it still had the fragrant coffee smell and taste. I don't know how to explain it, it was just really good. Even the Eggs Benedict was delicious. It was really a good first meal!
During lunch, the tiredness slowly sunk in. It was bed time or rather past bedtime back home so if it weren't for the coffee and the excitement of going shopping, I would've probably not lasted the afternoon.
We headed to drugstores, Superdrug and Boots and I got some things. Then went around the town area. I don't remember we shopped at Primark on the first day. I think it was on the second day.
For dinner we went to a Chinese restaurant. I didn't managed or rather remember to take photos but we had some chicken and salted egg tofu which was rather unique tasting.
By night time I was feeling even more cold, we dropped off the shopping before heading out again with a scarf. The winds were really no joke! I didn't expect it to be so cold. Nonetheless it was refreshing. Hehe.
That's it for the first day of our great adventure! Check back again for day 2 and more! Day 1 and 2 shouldn't be that interesting (plus was preoccupied with worrying about other stuff) but wait till we get to Vienna, Salzburg and Budapest! Oh boy, the adventure really begins!
