Wat Pho & The Grand Palace, Bangkok

I’ve been to Bangkok almost 10 times since I started flying, yet somehow I’ve just never gotten round to visiting any of the temples there! Whilst I’ve visited the incredible Chatuchak Weekend Market (which is over 35 acres in size) and tried my hand at cooking some delicious Thai dishes, I decided it was probably about time I go and see what Thailand is really all about.

Since we landed early evening, a group of us headed to dinner at a lovely little restaurant just a few minutes walk from the hotel – every crew knows it and inside was another group of crew who were on their first leg of the 9-day Bangkok – Sydney – Christchurch trip. After a delicious (but very spicy!) dinner accompanied by a fresh coconut and finished with mango sticky rice of course, it was time to call it a night.

A couple of the girls from economy planned to head to the temples in the morning, so I asked if I could join. We met the next morning armed with a map and some Thai Baht, ready to explore.

A quick tuk tuk ride later we were at the Chao Phraya river, from where we would sail on down towards Wat Pho, also known as the Temple of The Reclining Buddha.

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After negotiating with the man selling the boat tickets (and I’m certain we were ripped off, but no amount of bargaining would get him to lower the price!) we had our own little boat to take us up the river.

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Cycling Central Park, New York!

One of my latest trips took me to the wonderful city of New York, in the good old USA! I still can’t decide if I love NYC or am not too bothered about the city, but since it was just a 24 layover this time I wanted to make the most of my time there.

The weather forecast was looking great – a “cool” 33 degrees, compared to an average of 47 in Dubai that’s the perfect temperature! We departed Dubai around 2 in the morning, so not the best time to be awake. Luckily that meant our passengers were just as tired as we were, and the majority of them slept for a large portion of the flight. After 14 hours (with a 2,5 hour break to sleep in the crew bunks) we finally touched down in JFK, ready for some exploring!

Due to the time difference it was still morning, but by the time we navigated the terrible traffic in the city it was around lunchtime when we finally arrived at the hotel. Myself and one of the other business class crew, Bradley, decided to hire biked and cycle around Central Park.

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The weather was perfect, although I perhaps should have thought to bring some suncream! We found a place offering bikes for 20 dollars for the day, so were soon sorted out with a ride.

There is a huge bike path that’s as big as a road that goes all around the park, so we followed along with the crowd and cycled wherever we liked the look of.

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August Roster & Some Exciting News

My roster for August has just been published, so I thought I’d share it with you guys as I usually do!

I don’t have any new destinations next month, however I’m happy as I got a couple of flights that I bid for. Even though I’m actually at the bottom of the bidding seniority, somehow it seemed to work in my favour!

So in August I’ll be flying to:

  • LGW (London Gatwick)
  • HKG (Hong Kong)
  • BKK (Bangkok)
  • ZRH (Zurich)
  • LHR (London Heathrow)
  • HKG (Hong Kong)
  • LHE (Lahore – turnaround)
  • BKK – HKG – BKK (Bangkok, shuttle to Hong Kong and back, then back to Bangkok)

I requested Bangkok so I could get a good massage – yes, that’s what my life has come to, bidding for flights just so I can get a massage! 😉 I also asked for Hong Kong so I could catch up with my lovely friend and ex-flatmate Kirsty, who I haven’t seen in a while. I actually can’t remember what else I bid for, but it’s a pretty standard roster for me with good flying hours (and only one turnaround!).

In other exciting news … I’m moving up to First Class! I had my assessment yesterday and received an email this morning letting me know that I’d passed! Hopefully I won’t have to wait too long for my training and then I’ll be working in first class instead of business 🙂

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P.s. Follow me on Instagram & Twitter for more day-to-day updates of where I am in the world! 🙂

A trip to Harvard & Boston

So as you may have read in my previous post, I recently got back from a lovely 30-hour layover in Boston. I was originally rostered to fly to Singapore but since I had very low hours last month due to having short-ish flights and some leave, I decided to swap to get my hours up a bit.

I visited Boston once before, in January, when I was on reserve. It was freezing and snowy but still sunny, so I took the hop-on hop-off bus and explored the city. This time I was determined to visit Harvard university, as I ran out of time on the previous trip.

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After arriving at the hotel, most of us arranged to meet for dinner at 7. Since there were a couple of hours still to kill until then, I debated whether to have a nap or not, but I knew that if I did I’d sleep right through til 4am! Instead I took my time getting ready, then made my way down to the bar and met with one of the girls from economy. Finally a few of the other crew showed up, and we made our way to a seafood restaurant called Legal Test Kitchen. We had the table booked for 13 of us, but in the end only 6 showed! Slightly embarrassing…but that’s precisely why I didn’t take a nap, or I would have missed dinner for sure!

The next morning myself and one of the other crew met at 8:30 to head over to Harvard. I grabbed a coffee from the Starbucks inside the hotel, and we walked the 10 minutes or so to South Station to take the metro.

It didn’t take long to reach Harvard, and although it’s not entirely clear which direction to head when you step out of the train station, we soon found the main university buildings.

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A day in the life: long-haul flight

Most of my posts here on The Dubai Diaries are all about my layovers – what I get up to, if I go out sightseeing, where to eat and the likes. So I thought it was about time I did another post (click here to see the last one I wrote) detailing a bit more of my actual job, since that’s the reason I get to travel so much! It may seem like I spend all my time exploring new places and trying new food, but I work hard to get to the destination!

In fact, Emirates was just announced as the World’s Best Airline 2016 by Skytrax! That certainly makes me very proud and happy to be part of such a global brand.

I recently came back from Boston, and since long haul flights are a bit different to normal for us cabin crew, keep reading to find out why.

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