Vietnam 2024, December 05

I was up at 6:30am again for breakfast on the top floor of the hotel, but here it was rather empty. There was a mix of Vietnamese and western options, with much better croissants and yoghurt.

Afterwards I had to fight my through a few streets of very busy traffic to reach Saigon River to start my running at 7:30am. After only about 2 kilometres north I reached a dead end at the bridge, which I planned to cross anyway, but thought it might also be possible to keep going straight ahead as an alternative. To my surprise on the other side there was a lot of deserted or abandoned roads, some with a bit of building construction going on. I had many kilometres of empty road all to myself, an unexpected bonus.

Back to the hotel to get ready for the day, I didn't leave until about 10am since I still had to map out my locations for the day. Started off walking across to Tao Dan Park since it was on the way to the War Remnants museum. It was just a small park but a good break from the streets full of traffic.

Continuing on to the museum I got a ticket for 40,000 VND, it was the first time I had no option but to pay cash. Starting with the outside area, there was some aircraft, artillery, and tanks - a bit too much like a Call Of Duty game. The next section also outside was about the imprisonment system, and the very bad conditions that prisoners of war were subjected to.

The ground floor inside then had a temporary exhibit about the war protests in the USA and all the badges and slogans they made. A second section was showing posters and news reports covering how other countries around the world reacted to the war.

Up to the first floor and it was extremely hot and stuffy, some rooms didn't have air-conditioning and just a few portable fans. The first floor had some more sections on how the community were treated, in particular the horrible agent orange. The second floor had a great section with lots of war photography, but the other two rooms were temporarily closed.

Overall I spent a couple of hours walking around, but was a bit tired by the end. The small museum gift shop had a couple of good small, cheap magnets.

My next stop was a bit further north at the Turtle Pond in the middle of a roundabout. Since it was 2pm I stopped at a convenience store to have a drink and ice cream at the pond.

Continuing to walk east until getting to the Vietnam version of Notre Dame Cathedral, but it was undergoing major redevelopment on the outside.

I missed setting the big Central Post Office that was close by, and went down Nguyen Van Binh Book Street instead, although most of it was Vietnamese books as expected.

I thought Little Tokyo / Little Japan was also nearby but it was actually a few streets away. Once I got there it had some nice quiet small streets with mostly Japanese style restaurants and bars, but not much was open yet. Now heading south I found the Saigon Opera House which was another nice building.

Near to that was the large Vincom Centre shopping mall which had about eight floors. What I liked about this was that it was more of a vertical layout, so less walking and you could see most stores while you were going up or down on the escalators. Down in the basement I found a good snacks store, a great supermarket and another Bread Talk for some food and drinks for later on.

My feet were getting a bit tired by late afternoon due to walking all day, so I started heading back towards the hotel. On the way I happened to come across City Hall and the Ho Chi Minh statue.

There was also some setup being done for this weird sport, the World Teqball Championships. It was supposed to be starting from the day before, but nothing much was happening at the time.

I stopped in at a more upmarket souvenir store close to the hotel, I didn't get more magnets or anything else yet, but may come back if nothing else turns up. That was it for a long day of walking, so back to the hotel for a bit of rest.

Steps = 24,666 with 12km running

Vietnam 2024, December 04

Had the same routine again for the last morning in Singapore, 6:30am breakfast and 7:00am run for an hour. It felt more humid than previous days so I was sweating at the end.

For a change I took a different route along the river to the west, which was alright except having to wait at a couple of road crossings. Then it was back to the hotel to pack up and leave around 10:00am for a 1:50pm flight.

The airport train left just before I was able to change over, but I had plenty of time and the next was less than ten minutes. The boarding pass and visa check was quick, then I changed my 100 SGD I never used for VND at the currency exchange counter. Lines at customs were empty too, so I had plenty of time left to walk around inside terminal two.

There wasn't much too see though, a small sunflower garden upstairs and outside but it had just started raining. For lunch I got some cheese wedges from Go Pizza that were good but a bit small for the price, and some snacks from 7-Eleven.

The departure gate with another security checkpoint opened one hour before the flight. Opening up my laptop started some Windows updates, but lucky it was just a quick process this time. My Garmin watch had been refusing to detect as a USB device at the hotel, and again at the airport it wouldn't even charge the battery via the laptop. Possibly the sync option from the watch face works over blue tooth to the phone instead, so I could at least keep the satellite data updated.

There was still no sign of staff starting to boarding the plane, and finally they announced a 30 minute delay, but at least it didn't get extended several more times. The flight was pretty quick once we got going so made up a few minutes. Meal options on the flight were chicken with mashed potato or egg rice with prawns. The kid in the next row was complaining his rice had prawns in it, which is just what I was thinking.

In the HCMC airport the lines for passport control was the stupid lucky dip process where you have to hope you pick a good line out of about twenty choices. My line had two people get held up so five or more minutes each, while people either side were going through every minute or so. Finally after thirty minutes I was able to head down to collect my suitcase, which had already been taking off the conveyor belt since it had been so long.

I got the Grab app open on my phone, and I still had mobile data working, so was able to book a trip to the hotel. Initially the app still thought I was in Singapore so had to mess around with it for a bit to change location. Finally I got something booked and chose the more spacious car option, which was like 8 Australian dollars instead of 6. The only problem was again it was difficult to find where the pickup spot was, I thought it was in the middle traffic island but it was actually all the way across the road and near the car parks. While searching for the car number plate I had numerous other people trying to sell me a taxi ride, which was annoying.

The car trip was less than 10 kilometres but very slow due to the afternoon traffic, particularly lots of motorbikes cutting through traffic. We made it to the hotel at last and I received this little tea set while they complete the check-in, then got taken up to my room.

I had a spacious room on the sixth floor with about 25 different light switches, and a Japanese heated toilet. The only problem with the room was that it was at the very front of the hotel, so I already could hear lots of noise coming from the street traffic below.

While unpacking the rain got heavy so I was stuck in the room for a while working out where to get some quick food from. Scanning the TV channels I found a few movie channels but didn't see much sport. After the rain cleared I did a quick lap around the local streets and stopped at some convenience stores, got some bread, drinks, and ice cream. There was also a much better variety of drink options this time, and all for about one Australian dollar or less. I walked down one aisle of Ben Thanh market but didn't find any quick hot food to get, just had aisles full of clothes.

Steps = 19,063 with 12km running

Singapore 2024, December 03

My last full day of Singapore had come around already. Only a small breakfast at 6:30am since I was a bit bored of the same stuff and not feeling too hungry.

Another run in the same general direction but I crossed the bridge before Boat Quay and went around the northern esplanade side instead. There was a bit of construction detour onto a narrow footpath for one section, but overall it was a better way to get to the gardens. This time I also went a bit further across the Marina Barrage bridge to a new Gardens East section that is still being built. Today's total was about 12.5km but it glitched again going through the esplanade section this time.

I didn't have much planned for the day since I had decided not to go to Universal Studios for the day. My reasons were I wasn't sure about all the standing and walking, and some reviews have some rides aren't always running lately. My basic plan for the day started off by going Bayfront on the MRT and walking over to the Gardens By The Bay entrance.

The first stop was a Floral Fantasy zone with a temporary Disney theme, I wasn't interested in getting a ticket for that but bought a couple of things from the shop next to it.

It was quite a long walk to get across to the rest of the main attractions, but I didn't plan to do them all, and some I'd been to previously but I wasn't certain of which.

I was pretty sure I'd done Cloud Forest but not so sure about Super Tree Observatory, but got that combo ticket since it wasn't much different in price. The person at the counter said I had to do the observatory first due to weather.

I found that a bit strange since it was only 11am and it didn't rain all day either, with only a bit of rain possible in the late afternoon. Following the advice anyway I walked down to this observatory first and took the elevator up to a viewing deck above the tallest of these artificial super trees. The views of the gardens and the rest of Singapore was good, but that's about all there is to do on two levels. After baking in the sun on the roof for a while it was back down and over to Cloud Forest.

I definitely remembered coming here previously, and it didn't seem to be much different, but I suppose there isn't much they are able to change since it is a fixed structure. Following the recommended route takes you up to the top and then you work your way back down, the waterfall at the beginning is probably the highlight of the visit.

The scheduled mist shower began just as I got there, but it was quite light and didn't add much to the experience.

It took a while to end up back down at the bottom, then I was in another gift shop but didn't get anything else.

There was another Shake Shack nearby so I stopped in for lunch again. Sitting outside there was a incredibly aggressive bird trying to eat people's hamburgers out of their hands.

It was quite a long walk all the way back to the MRT near marina bay, then continuing on the same downtown line to Rochor. There was this giant old shopping centre of six levels with nothing but computers, phones, and similar discount technology stores. I came specifically for this retro video game store that looked good, only it was closed from December 1st to 4th.

With that idea quickly over I walked on to the next station over at Bugis again, for a different line down to Raffles Place. Just made a quick detour on the way out of the station to visit the marina bay and the merlion, even though it meant more walking.

There wasn't a quick way to get back to the hotel without one or two more train line changes, so it seemed walking would be about the same result.

There was a Marks And Spencer back near Raffles place, but most of their items were very expensive British imports. Back towards the hotel I also found this large Don Don Donki supermarket in the basement of Clarke Quay Central selling mostly Japanese products. In Japanese tradition there was lots of flashing lights and recorded messages running on repeat around the store, felt like being in Osaka or Tokyo. Unfortunately since it was my last night I couldn't stock up on more items.

Finally the last of the walk back to the hotel and my left foot was killing and in need of rest to hopefully recover for the remaining few days. After some dinner I packed up most of my stuff for the morning, which was quite easy since I still had half of the stuff in the packing cubes.

Steps = 26,706 with 12km running

Good

• Daily train prices were very cheap
• No rain
• Trains run often at all times of the day and night, and never saw any delays
• Warm and humid but not too hot

Bad

• Half marathon result
• Lack of new activities close to the city
• Limited drink options at convenience stores and supermarkets
• Lots of walking around MRT stations underground

Missed Out

• Hotel pool
• Some hiking trails and nature reserves, each a long distance from the city
• Universal Studios

Singapore 2024, December 02

Another early morning, getting up at 6:30am for breakfast so I'd be back in my room in time for the Gold Coast half marathon registration at 7:00am. It was probably a bad decision by the organisers to open every race distance at the same time, as it took nearly 30 minutes to register due to repeated page errors.

From what I heard later the marathon distance sold out in a few hours like Melbourne, and the half marathon wasn't too far behind. I don't know why the marathon is still increasing in popularity so much every year, but I suspect most of those people would be just walking or jogging as a novelty. While the mass participation opportunity is great for everyone, I think they also need to provide some better access for serious runners to qualify based on time. The elite runners never have a problem gaining entry and all the other benefits that come with it, but the people at the next level below that get no help at all, even as good as the top 100. Additionally a public ballot might be necessary now with races selling out in a few hours when people might not have access to a computer.

After all of that was taken care of I went for a morning run across to Gardens By The Bay and back via Clarke Quay, Boat Quay, and Bayfront for about ten kilometres. A good run except I had to cross over the road once via a staircase connecting two buildings.

The morning travel time to the Art Science Museum was much less than I expected, so I had to wait a while for my 11:00am booking time to arrive. The museum had a special Word Of Studio Ghibli exhibit running for the summer.

Inside was a bunch of set creations for many of the animated movies, and a limited amount of background information to read on the walls.

Strangely they only got as far as Spirited Away and they it all ended at the gift shop, I figured at least Howl's Moving Castle would be included. There was some good stuff on display, but overall it wasn't really long enough or detailed enough. I didn't find any particularly good magnets in the gift shop, they were mostly selling badges and pins instead, and most of other stuff was like four times what you'd expect.

As per usual my legs were tired from lots of standing and shuffling, so it was time for lunch and somewhere to sit down for a while. It was quite a long walk back to the MRT station and then again to transfer between lines, which is the only real problem with the otherwise great Singapore train network.

I got out at the Promenade station to go to Suntec City. Perhaps I purposely forgot from last time but this place is a horribly confusing arrangement of shops split between 3 or 4 tower buildings. To make things worse not all floors are connected properly, so sometimes you have to up, down, and around to get from one section to another. Finally at probably the opposite end of the whole place I found some food stores and went to Jamba Juice and Shake Shack.

It was another long walk all the way back to the MRT again to travel a short distance to Bugis. The plan was for a quick walk around near the Little India area with some good street art, souvenir shops, and such. Instead I spent like 15 minutes walking underground trying to find the best exit, but ended up almost all the way back at Promenade station by the end instead. Finally walking to my intended destination, Haji Lane was the most popular location but I didn't see much street art or other nice buildings, but did find a good magnet though.

Learning my lesson from last time I walked back to Bugis Junction shopping centre and MRT station the shortest way this time. The shops in the basement here were incredibly similar to the first time I visited Singapore and stayed near here, which was all the way back in about 2013.

My last plans for the day were to go back towards the city hall and marina area but it was 4pm and I was quite tired so just headed for the hotel instead. Feeling a bit revived after dinner I got a quick 10 minute train to Bayfront to see the new version of Sands water light show running at 8pm.

There was already a big crowd right in front, which I think has a better view of some illumination that you can't see much of from a side angle. The show went for about fifteen minutes and was alright, but didn't have much variety to the water elements and colours.

Steps = 26,983 with 10km running

Singapore 2024, December 01

Got a good early sleep to be up at 3:30am with plenty of time to walk to the start. It took a bit longer than planned but I got to the entrance by 4:10am instead of my estimated 4:00pm, already sweating a lot. There was still a very slow, narrow security point that took nearly 10 minutes to get through because about fifty lines of people were merging into five from three different road entrances, so I only just got into Pen B before it closed.

The delay at least meant I only had to stand around on the spot for fifteen minutes or so before the race start. As our starting group got to move forward I wasn't too far from the front row, and once we took off it thinned out pretty soon.

Not having run in conditions like this I had set a rough target of about 4:00/km but was just behind that during the early kilometres. My race plan was also to get two drinks at every station and a gel at 7km and 14km, which all went perfectly. Even though I was always closer to 4:05/km I was regularly passing people and knew the bridge climb was still coming up at 10km.

I survived that bridge challenge really well and made more overtakes, then on the way down the other side the course split into two with the marathon runners going a different way. There was an extremely dark section that came next, heading back to the marina but without many cones, limited lightning, and no signs or course marshals. Then we reached this weird fork in the road at 14km with only one person just ahead of me.

I saw one orange cone straight ahead in the far distance, but also a whole line of cones to the right every ten metres or so, so I followed the guy who went that way. The cones continued along the middle of the path, which felt normal to be dividing traffic, but then incredibly we just reached a dead end of cones arranged in a "T" shape. The guy in front and a couple more behind were all really annoyed and confused once we realised we must have being going in the wrong direction for like two minutes.

I still have no idea after the race why there would possibly be all of these cones laid out in the wrong spot, while there was almost none on the actual course, and also how more people didn't go the wrong way. Having to loop back around to the start of the unexpected detour cost another two minutes and lost a heap of positions.

I was hoping everyone else had taken a shortcut instead perhaps, but soon found out I was over 15.8 kilometres on my watch when I hit the 15 kilometre marker. I lost attention and motivation in my race after this and really can't remember much of the rest of it. Later on I started looking for opportunities to take a shortcut to make up for lost time, but it was not possible anywhere with the way the course was arranged.

It was annoying afterwards to keep seeing so many volunteers at useless places on course where they already had a complete line of metal barriers in place, yet neither of those things were in place earlier where it was really needed.

What would have been an enjoyable race morning was pretty much ruined by that error. I didn't really enjoy the final stages of the race either, like crossing the bridge to the finish line. My overall position was something 48, 32, 57, 48, 45 at each split, and I would have been placed well under 30 before being sent the wrong way.

At the end everyone received a medal, bottle of water, refreshing wet towel, and a few other things I wasn't too interested in due to being annoyed still. There wasn't much activity at the recovery zone yet, it looked like they were still getting things setup so I just went straight to the exit.

The walk back to the hotel was shorter due to the finish being at a different location than the start. I got breakfast at the hotel before 7:00am but still there was quite a lot of people around, with the same stuff being served as yesterday. Back at the hotel room I didn't have a big plan for the day yet since I didn't know how tired I'd be after the race.

My legs didn't fell too bad since I'd run at a slower speed and intensity than usual, and had rehydrated well enough afterwards. Getting on a train on the Downtown Line I arrived at Botanic Gardens some time after 9:00am. Walking around the park I saw some good scenery but not heaps of unique plants or animals, although did see one big lizard on the footpath.

I paid for the entry to the Orchid Garden, which was a bit disappointing as most plants were just scattered around without too much special arrangement. Only a few special ones inside the cold room were more worthwhile.

Walking back to the train station I was feeling a bit tired now, with a couple of hours of extra walking added on to the morning race. I went a couple of stops back on the Downtown Line then switched over to the North East Line to Dhoby Ghaut, around where many shopping centres are.

The train station came out inside Plaza Singapura in particular so I looked around there, with a big variety of food and shops. Initially I was going to get Five Guys but it was like $12 each for chips, a basic toasted cheese sandwich, and a milkshake, which was crazy. After looking some more I found a CoCo Curry house instead, I got the vegetable curry again as they didn't have a tofu option here, and the prices were more reasonable. Afterwards I had a look in a variety of stores but didn't find anything, just some food from Bread Talk and Dunkin Donuts for later.

Getting back on the train it was just one more stop to Clarke Quay to head back to the hotel. Checking Google Maps I found there was actually another Cold Storage supermarket close by, so checked that out but was a bit of a smaller store and the range wasn't as good. They have a strange mixture of local products and imported stuff from Australian and elsewhere that is like 4-5 times more expensive as a comparable product. I just got some more drinks and lollies and finally made it back to the hotel.

On the Singapore Marathon website there was a stream of the race but it didn't have any half marathon coverage at all, since it started at the same time as the marathon. The commentary wasn't the best either and the race was dominated by some Africans I'd never heard of, but at least they didn't keep cutting away to commercials. The coverage confirmed what I had experienced, due to the race starting at 4:30am there was hardly any spectators along the whole course route.

Steps = 37,761 with 22km running

Singapore 2024, November 30

I had an alarm set for 6:00am and checked again when I got up that no rain was scheduled for the morning. Leaving for my parkrun round trip at 6:15am, the walk to the station was quite long but there was another very long walk underground to actually get to the platform from the entrance.

Luckily I was able to take one train the whole way, then just a bit more walking to get across to the start line, but that had already added up to 3000 steps and I was trying to limit my walking for the day. Similarly I didn't do any warmup as I wanted to keep my legs as good as possible for the half marathon tomorrow.

I was getting a bit worried during the briefing as my watch took nearly five minutes to get a GPS signal, probably due to the new location, but finally it cooperated. After the briefing the start line was a whole 400 metres away, so it took another five minutes to get everyone there.

From the start I went out at around five minutes per kilometre, I didn't really care about time or finishing position. A big group of school kids as well as many other low twenty minutes runners went ahead, much more than usual according to the results history. I finished off my race in around twenty-five minutes, still very sweaty due to the humidity, and then walked back to the station.

To save on walking, and since it was nearly 8:30am, I decided instead to get off at Marina Bay and switch trains for one stop to Bayfront to go straight to the race expo when it opened at 9:00am. The expo entrance was close to the train station exit which was good, and there was about fifty people already lining up at around 8:45am when I got there.

The doors opened at 9:00am and it was a quick process since there was about twenty different lines to collect your kit. I probably could have turned up at 9:05am instead and all the early arrivals would have been and gone already. I picked a large singlet during the registration process since the medium is always too short, but this Puma brand is the one time I should have ordered a medium. A small backpack and the race bib was also provided.

Next there was a long line of running related stands to walk past, I didn't think the official race shirts were worth buying as they were quite plain. There wasn't much else of interest but I did see they were advertising for the other big Singapore race in late April, the 2XU compression run.

Getting back on a different train line to Chinatown for a similar distance to walk back to the hotel compared to Fort Canning. It was after 10:00am once all that was done, but still the breakfast area was busy - no idea why so many people still haven't had their breakfast yet. After going back to my room I came down for breakfast around 10:30am and finally it was a bit emptier with the breakfast closing at 11:00am on weekends. There was a pretty standard choice of breakfast options, although the cereal bowls where tiny.

After breakfast I packed for the day and walked over to Fort Canning station to head to Expo station, which has nothing to do with the marina expo, this is back near the airport. I figured I didn't want to do much walking, or be outside in the sun, so instead chose to sit down on a half hour train out to the Changi City Point outlets.

For once it wasn't too hard to find all the sports stores thankfully, but there wasn't much good on offer. Many of the Nike shoes were still $200 SGD so closer to $250 AUD after exchange rates and fees were applied. They had a 30% off for 3 items deal, but I wasn't sure if you could combine clothes and shoes for that deal, but I only found one good pair of shoes anyway.

The other shops Adidas, Asics, New Balance, and Puma were all a bit disappointing, even with their Black Friday deals still going. I got some quick food and drink from the supermarket for lunch before heading back to Chinatown once more. Back at Chinatown Point I got more food and drinks for dinner and the evening, then walked back to the hotel to rest and have a very early night due to the race in the morning.

Steps = 18,939 with 5km running

Singapore 2024, November 29

 The standard extra long trip from home to boarding a plane:

• 6:20am train
• 7:00am bus
• 7:45am check-in
• 8:15am waiting for 9:15am boarding
• 9:30am boarding

On my way through the airport I picked up some Singapore money from an ATM for emergency, otherwise to convert to Vietnam money later. Once business class had boarded the premium economy line was full of idiots with standard economy class tickets, they were even trying to get their boarding passes scanned.

We left about on time, this being my third experience with premium economy after Emirates to Europe and Qantas to Hawaii. This was definitely the smallest section of the three, with only four rows and the primary difference being the seat size, the toilets were down in economy too.

The first couple of hours went along fast, then the first meal service came. Often lately I've risked not choosing the vegetarian option because:

• You get served early so get stuck with a tray table forever
• You often get a stupid vegan meal instead which is worse than the regular options

I think with Singapore Airlines there is more customisation available, so I should have looked into that. Being left with the default options it was a choice between meat and other meat, but the chicken came with a large side of rice so that was quite good.

For a change since it was a day time flight I started watching a bit of the Boston Strangler movie but was still a bit tired and fell asleep for a while towards the end, since I'd been up from 6am. Once the movie was over about four hours had elapsed, so I listened to a couple of podcasts and slept a bit more to use up the rest of the time of the eight hour flight.

We had to do the customary circle around the airport a few times before being allowed to land, but still arrived slightly early. I got through immigration quickly since I filled in the entry form online as required, but lots of other people had forgotten or didn't know and had to leave the line to go back and do it. The bags took a little while to come through but nothing too bad, then it was straight through the "nothing to declare" line.

I had to walk forever to get to the underground train station that was underground between terminals two and three. That train only went for one stop before having to change to another line, then it was a slow trip with many stops for about 30 minutes to arrive at Fort Canning. The walk was a bit less than one kilometre to the hotel, but I didn't go the quickest way I found out later. The ground was still wet but luckily the rain had cleared.

Soon I was able to check-in at the same Holiday Inn Express as the last visit several years ago. I usually choose the Holiday Inn for reliability, the only downside of this one was being just a bit too far from the closest trains and shops. After dropping off all my stuff I took a quick walk down towards Chinatown for some food, I guess it was overdue dinner time by now.

A compact room but enough space to move around

Luggage compartments survived the trip

I got some donuts from Bread Talk (not Bread Top) and a Singapore version of a burrito that was more like a toasted wrap, but still good. I was disappointed to find there wasn't many good drink choices in the convenience stores.

Back to the hotel it was 6pm local time but 9pm Australian time already. My old power adapter still worked to charge my phone, the same plug as for the UK. Had a quick check through the TV channels but it had no guide. There was lots of news channels and a few sports channels with one even showing the A League.

I still had to get a quick plan together to make it to parkrun and back in the morning, and decide what to do about the marathon expo afterwards. I decided for now to come back to the hotel first and get changed, then have breakfast before going out again to the marathon expo.

The hotel room was quite cold with the cooling system running, like usual I couldn't made much sense of the operations panel with vague icons and no words.

Steps = 8,632

Hawaii 2024

August 26

August 27

August 28

August 29

August 30

August 31

September 01

Hawaii 2024, September 01

Already the last morning in Hawaii. Another breakfast and slightly shorter run around the canal again, doing a full loop for the first time, then back to to hotel for the last packing and check-out.

I got an uber ordered which took about 10 minutes to turn up, but I wasn't in a hurry. Had a pretty easy ride to the airport and through check-in and security, so I was left with about 1.5 hours to spare afterwards. There wasn't much happening in the international terminal so just got a drink and rested before the flight.

The flight took off on time, I had an aisle seat in the centre section of three, but nobody next to me. Although it was a day flight I still tried to rest due to the duration and the time change coming into Australia. After listening to some podcasts for a few hours, and with meals service, the first half of the flight had gone pretty quick.

I was getting a bit tired and the flight was dragging on, so just loaded up this Angry Birds game on the monitor to kill some time. Finally we landed a few minutes early, even though Sydney was using only one runway instead of two due to wind. The early landing also meant the 90 minute transfer to domestic wasn't going to be such a hurry.

I'd heard bad things about the smart gates at Sydney but they actually worked without incident this time. It probably helped being in premium economy so there was no crowd in front of me. The luggage was very slow like usual, but then a small line through customs.

Next it was off to another line for Qantas domestic transfer, more security, and a bus to the domestic terminal. Once I switched on my phone with local SIM card installed I got a notification the flight was leaving at 8:30pm instead of 8:00pm. That extra time also meant there was definitely no risk of running late, so I got off the bus with plenty of time but very tired, being midnight Hawaii time already.

I walked around and got some food, then less than 10 minutes before boarding we were told the departure was now 9:35pm at another gate. We had to wait for a Brisbane flight to offload from that plane, so we weren't seated until about 9:55pm but still not taking off. We got an announcement we had to wait for the catering truck for another 20 minutes, which seemed quite unnecessary at 10pm. After we finally left they said they actually gave up waiting for catering.

I was extremely tired on the flight, and we didn't land and get baggage until almost midnight eventually. The sky bus was still running until after 1pm but the trains stop at midnight and there's no public bus either, which is useless. So the only other options were taxi or uber at 1.6 normal rate. Eventually I got home around 12:45am or 4:45am Hawaii, having been awake since 6:30am - nearly 24 hours.

Steps = 17,000 including 9.5km running