Sarawak Quarantine Food

Here is a run-down of the food I was given during my time in quarantine in Kuching.  I don't consider myself to be a particularly picky eater, but there are some things that I quite dislike. I will also note that this food was provided free of charge by the government, so was obviously never going to be gourmet stuff. 

Breakfast

The basic composition of breakfast was some fried noodles or rice + some egg (omelette or hard-boiled) + a small bread roll/muffin/pastry. Like this:

The exception to this was getting a couple of dim sum style meals:

and nasi lemak on a couple of occasions:

It wasn't the best nasi lemak, but I love nasi lemak, so I was really happy with this.

I also got a western-style breakfast once:

This wasn't great, but it was something different. I was grateful for the larger than normal amount of protein in the meal.

Breakfast was easily the best meal of the day. The portions were about the size I would normally have for breakfast and every single meal was at least ok (edible). Some of the breakfasts were quite nice. There was this garlic fried rice one morning that I would actually go out and pay money for. I usually scoffed down everything at breakfast because I knew that lunch and dinner were going to be a crapshoot.

Lunch and Dinner

Lunch and dinner were basically the same, and consisted of a protein (usually chicken or fish) + some vegetables + some rice + fruit. Like this:

The rice came in a generous-sized portions. This was the one constant in all the post-breakfast meals, and was actually pretty tasty when warm. I think white rice gets a bad rap among the health-conscious in Western countries. Sure, it's not super nutritious and it has a high glycemic index, but in general, populations where it is a staple seem to do okay, health-wise. I find it to be very comforting, so I wasn't going to complain about eating it twice a day.

The vegetables were generally okay. It would have been great to get a slightly bigger portion of them, but for the most part, they were fine. There was also a wide range of vegetables, which included some local vegetables that I don't know the names of. There was one that is like bamboo that was pretty good. The only downside to the variety of vegetables is the inclusion of bean sprouts (which is a reasonable, I just happen to hate them); and bitter gourd/melon. Including bitter gourd (on multiple occasions) is puzzling, because it is super bitter and quite an acquired taste.

The fruit was fine as well. Everything was all pretty fresh for the most part. I enjoyed it when I got melon or orange. I ate apple the first few times I got it, but after that:

Apples have to be the most boring fruit in the world. I kept them all and they are currently sitting at the bottom of the fridge (I am hoping my brother will eat them).

The protein component of lunch and dinner was very hit and miss (usually miss). The main protein offerings were:

- Curry. This was the best outcome, as it ranged from mediocre to really good. There were some weak-ass thin curries that were lacking in flavour, but these were still edible and serviceable enough to flavour the rice. The best curries were genuine delicious, with a deep curry and meat flavour and a satisfying amount of fat sitting on top. This curry was one of the best things I ate:

- Sweet and sour chicken or fish. This was could be fried or non-fried before being coated with sweet and sour sauce. While it did taste good on occasion, the sweet and sour stuff was mostly fairly bad. The sauce usually had too strong a flavour of the sweet or sour and not enough of other stuff (like tomato sauce or fruit juice or whatever they used to make it). This was one of the better sweet and sour meals:

- Fish or chicken in some kind of other non-sweet and sour sauce. The chicken was generally decent and the fish was usually pretty bad. Fish that has been deep fried and coated with sauce is mostly edible, fish that was not fried but sort of stewed (thereby releasing fish oil into the sauce) is probably okay for some people when warm. It is absolutely foul when it is cold, and there is a layer of cold fish oil coating everything. This was the worst meal I had:

This was some kind of fish curry (I think). The flesh to bone ratio was not that high and I had the delight of having to deal with some scaly bits. Of course, it was cold when I got it, so it was like sucking tiny bits of cod liver oil covered fish off of scales and bones. I tried to eat it for a bit, but I nearly hurled, so I gave up on that.

- Deep-fried chicken or fish. This was the best fish, because it was crunchy and not super fishy. All of these were competently fried and didn't taste too bad when they were cold. The only downside to this option is that there was not enough sauce to accompany the rice. Fried chicken:

All in all, lunches and dinners were okay. I kind of wish there weren't meals that were adversely affected by being eaten cold, especially when meals were often delivered early. I can understand the lack of a consistent delivery time, as the staff probably had a lot to get through and wanted to deliver them all by the promised time (12 noon for lunch and 5.30pm for dinner). However, this meant that sometimes lunch would arrive at 10.45 and dinner at 4.15. You can't really make the choice to wait until later, as there was no way to heat up food. So I basically ate everything as soon as it arrived. 

Finally, the portion sizes were a little lacking when it came to the protein component of the meal. A lot of the fish and chicken was quite bony. This is fine, I am not one those folk who can only eat boneless chicken breast and fish fillets. However, if the food is quite bony, then it means there is less that you can eat. A pile of ribs looks like a lot, but you are really only eating half of what's there. There just wasn't enough meat included in these meals. Once again, I get it, the food is paid for with tax money and protein is expensive. Also, I have higher caloric requirements than your average Malaysian person and can't expect the government to budget calories for a 90kg dude. It just sucked to be hungry a good chunk of the time and have to rely on rationing the outside supplies I got sent.

Drinks

All meals were accompanied by a Yeo's brand drink, usually jasmine tea or soya bean milk. I did get ice-lemon tea a couple of times, but not after the first few days (maybe they ran out). Here is the range of drinks:

Room service

On a couple of occasions, the food was so bad I decided to supplement with room service. I got a burger and brownie both times. 

They were good. The brownie even came with a couple of macarons on top, which tasted fine.

Wrapping up

My biggest piece of food-related advice to anyone who is going to be quarantining in Sarawak (and intends on eating the food provided) is to let your quarantine hotel know your dietary preferences. Halfway through my stay, I told my hotel that I didn't like eating the fish, and they noted that down. I still got served some fish, but I probably avoided other fish meals. Also, eat your meals as soon as you can, as sometimes the meals taste a lot worse when cold. You could try to survive off of what is provided, but unless you have low caloric requirements, you will probably be hungry quite a lot. I tried to hold off ordering other food for as long as I could, but it is probably better for your well-being to eat the stuff you want to eat (especially since, you know, there is the whole thing of not having freedom of movement and the mental health risks that come along with that.)

The different colours of the view from the Riverside Majestic Astana Wing

The view is not something I normally consider when selecting a hotel. Hopefully, I 'd have something better to do than sit in my hotel room staring out the window. Normally, I just choose the cheapest room that that hotel offers, which means that I get a view of a parking lot or the building across the street. However, after spending two weeks stuck in a hotel room, I can see why some people are willing to spend a little more to get something pleasant to look at. I didn't get to choose my hotel or my room, but out of all the possible outcomes, I probably got really, really lucky.

My room looked out West over the Sarawak river, so I got some some nice sunsets. It also got extremely bright and hot between midday and 6pm. The view (including the window) looked mostly like this during this time:

It really was too hot to have the curtains open. Also, the sun reflected quite a bit off the river, which was not great for your eyes. So, most of my photos were taken in the morning and evening. 

One of the positives of having small windows was being able to be consistent in taking a photo of roughly the same area each time (even if the angle of the skyline was not always the same). There was only a limited range where I could avoid getting some window frame or the next door Hilton hotel in the shot. This is what my view of the Hilton looked like:

Not super interesting.

I am not the world's greatest photographer (in fact, I suck). Also, my phone camera isn't all that great. However, I hope that at least the general mood of the scene comes through.

Day 1, 6.41 pm

Quite a nice and subdued sunset on the first full day of quarantine.

Day 7, 9.24 am

This photo shows the positive effects of reduced commercial activity on the river. It was looking greener and clearer than I have ever seen it before. In the past, it could look pretty brown and muddy. The colour of the water and the reflection of the trees is something I would only expect further up in the less populated areas the river runs through.

Day 9, 7.04 am

The mountain (Mount Serapi?) in the distance is mysteriously shrouded with fog. 

Day 9, 6.58 pm

This was taken just as the sun disappeared into the horizon. The lights were just starting to get switched on.

Day 9, 7.07 pm

I like the difference between this shot and the one before. This was just 9 minutes later, but the street lights and building RGB have already taken effect, leading to the river having a dark blue colour.

Day 11, 6.20 pm

I like the long reflection of the sun in the river.

Day 12, 6.43 am

This was a peaceful morning. The sun was not visible (as it was on the other side of the building), but it was nice to get a hint that it was there.

Day 12, 3.13 pm

The clouds were magnificent, and seemed to enhance the sunlight. The picture was taken just as the weather started to change.

Day 12, 4.59 pm

Those beautiful bright fluffy clouds suddenly turned dark and we had an impressive tropical storm that set in really quickly. There was thunder and lightening and it was bucketing down with rain. This was taken when that was finishing up and we got some sun peaking through the dark clouds.

Day 12, 6.53 pm

The sun continued to come through and we got a very nice orange and yellow sunset.

Day 13, 6.34 pm

This was taken the last night before freedom. I accidently caught a tiny piece of the Hilton on the left side.

This might sound a little cheesy, but it really did help a lot to be able to look out of the window and see that the world outside still existed. The level of activity outside did drop after the movement order came into effect. It was a little surreal to see the river devoid of larger boats. I wonder how much better the fishing was for the folks out there in their little dinghies. 

Travelling in 2021

Boy, travel is a lot different than it was two years ago, huh?

Recently, I did the unthinkable and travelled from one of the safest places in the world right now, to a place that is in the middle of another wave of Covid cases. Apart from not being able to travel outside of New Zealand easily, life there is pretty normal. There are no restrictions on domestic travel, people don't really need to wear masks (outside of on public transportation) and signing in to places is optional. Sarawak is different. Masks are mandatory everywhere. Everyone needs to sign in and take their temperature before being able to enter into indoor public places. Currently, the state is under a movement control order where intercity movement is restricted and there is a 10pm curfew in place. Needless to say, I wouldn't have made the trip if it wasn't vitally important to get here. I was prepared for how shitty and stressful travelling would be, but even still, the actual thing was far worse than I expected. 

Booking tickets

I began looking for tickets in January. I booked flights on my two preferred routes to Kuching, one via Singapore on Singapore Airlines (SIA), and one via KL on Malaysian Airlines (MAS). Between these two tickets, there were a total of 8 changes, which included MAS cancelling their flight. At least they had a simple refund process and I eventually got my money back. 

I was more hopeful for the SIA flight, as Changi is a bigger hub and presumably there would be more travellers from NZ who would be transiting in Singapore on their way to other destinations. More worrisome was the flight from Singapore to Kuching, which is a once a week flight that did get rescheduled once. I also needed to do an emergency last minute rescheduling from the almost empty food court of the international terminal of Auckland airport, after my entry into Sarawak was denied for the third time. I booked my flight back to Christchurch while eating comfort McDonalds at 10pm.  

Getting permission to enter Sarawak

Sarawak is one of two Malaysian states that have autonomy when it comes to immigration matters. This meant that I needed to meet the requirements set out by the state government not the national government. These requirements are listed online in English, but are not super detailed. While the requirement for the validity of Covid tests done for entry into West Malaysia is specified in hours before the first flight of the journey, Sarawak's requirements were expressed in days before entry into Sarawak. This is important, because before I could enter into Sarawak, I needed to travel for 26 hours (10 hour flight, 11 hour transit in Changi....plus 5 hours getting up to and waiting in Auckland). This made timing very tight for getting a test in Christchurch and have it meet time criteria. I called the government helpline and was informed by a very insistent lady that I needed to take the test on Friday if I was entering Sarawak on Sunday. This gave me a window of about 34 hours from when I could first take the test until the time I flew out to Auckland. All the places in Christchurch where pre-flight tests were available gave a time of 24-48 hours for the results to be ready. So, I basically made my decision on where to get my test done on the basis of the one that advertised that they could quickly email out the results. This was a mistake, as I should have based it on if the test was signed off by a doctor, as this was a requirement (but was not listed anywhere on the official website). So while I got my first test results in time, it came in the form of a bodgy-looking word document that could have been easily falsifiable, and was just signed by some random person without a title. I was pretty dismayed when I saw it, but it did have all the information about the test and the lab it was done in, plus it was obviously too late to get another test done. I tried to apply three times using that crappy fit to fly certificate, but was rejected each time (at least the applications were reviewed quickly). The last one came after I had already arrived in Auckland, so yeah, that really sucked. I rescheduled my flight for three weeks later. It would have been safer to have tried to fly again as soon as possible, but I was pretty drained and didn't want to face all that again straight away. 

Long story short, three weeks later I went to a better place, which provided a certificate that met requirements. I actually had to call them up and beg to get a hard copy of the results on time, which I scanned and sent off. I was successful, which was great. However, just a reminder that at that time, there were no cases of Covid in the community in New Zealand. I would not have been able to get Covid if I tried.  

I am partially at fault for not trying to get more detail on what constituted a valid test in the eyes of the Sarawak government, and for assuming that a medical clinic in Christchurch wouldn't take $180 of my money and provide a really piss-poor service. My test results from the Riccarton Clinic did meet requirements and looked professional, so I can recommend them for that. Obviously, I am somewhat salty at the other place, and attribute some blame to them. Finally, I think the Sarawak government could have done a lot better with setting entry requirements. There is a tendency to be overly restricted and heavy-handed in the absence of greater research and understanding. Their policy was obviously designed primarily for people travelling from other parts of Malaysia to Sarawak, which is fine, but you can't make it almost impossible to travel from further away. Also, a more compassionate and reasonable response to my first application would have been to accept that there was basically a 0% chance I contracted Covid in New Zealand, and grant me entry, despite the crap test document I had.

Getting to Singapore

Checking in to the flight to Singapore was fine. I don't have airline status anymore, so needed to line up to check-in with everyone else. At this point, I was still riding a wave of supreme relief that I had entry permission granted, so I wasn't too fussed about that. Someone came around and took a temperature scan of everyone. Listening to the other folks waiting in line, it seemed like most people were travelling on to the UK. I listened in amusement to a pretty self-entitled middle-aged Caucasian lady insisting that she should get on an earlier connecting flight to the UK, because she didn't want to wait in Changi. The request was fine, but the way she expressed it was fairly rude. I feel for the staff dealing with air travellers during normal times, it must be much worse now given that travellers have to deal with more hassle and stress travelling. There is also the small matter of potentially being exposed to the virus on a repeated basis. There was a friendly young staff member at the head of the queue who was asking everyone where they were headed off to and making some small talk. When she asked me, I said "Kuching" and she had a look that was surprised and amused. There was no further chat after that. The rest of checking in was fine. I got both of my boarding passes and headed up to immigration.

Immigration was fine too. The staff at the security check were friendly and in good spirits. This is not normally the case. My bags were tested for explosives, because they always are in New Zealand and Australia. It really is a funny coincidence that I always get "randomly" selected. Again, I was too relieved to actually be travelling to be too annoyed about it. Plus, it was a non-Caucasian young man that did the testing. Can't be mad when the person doing it is probably subjected to it themselves.

I get through the security check and find a place to wait out the time before boarding. I notice another Caucasian/non-Caucasian split among the travellers there. Basically all the non-Caucasians were wearing masks and almost all the Caucasian folk weren't. 

My flight was fairly uneventful. One of the benefits of a global pandemic to a long-haul international flight is the airline occupancy rates. I would guess that the plane was at about 10% capacity. So I got a row of seats to myself (almost everyone did). I managed to get an hour or two sleep in a relatively horizontal position. The hour or two of sleep is usually pretty important, as there is a huge difference between some sleep and none, especially when you need to spend several hours waiting for your next flight. Which takes me on to:

11 hours in zombie Changi

I have written about my love for Changi airport before. It is hands down the best airport I have ever been to. Normally, a several hour layover in Changi is at worst, an okay experience and at best, a very enjoyable one. This was not normal Changi. This was Changi during Singapore lockdown, where there had been Covid clusters at the airport not long prior. So most of the airport was closed down and empty. Interestingly enough, it had the same smell that Kuching airport sometimes has, a musty smell of the carpets not being vacuumed often enough. I was pretty hungry at that stage, so I went off in search of food. That proved to be very difficult. Only two of the four terminals were in use, and there were only a couple of places in each that were open. Terminal One looked like this:

If you have ever been to Changi, you would know that this is bizarrely empty. 

There was a big catch when it came to trying to get something to eat. One needed to digitally sign in at food places first. This involves using the Singapore tracker app to scan a QR code to sign in. Fair enough, that is reasonable. However, after downloading the app, I found out that you needed to have some sort of immigration status with Singapore in order to register. This was punctuated with an exclamation mark in the app. "Please enter Singapore first!" (or something of that nature, I am paraphrasing). I took the exclamation to be friendly rather than hostile. But, this didn't help me. I couldn't register because I hadn't entered Singapore, and I couldn't enter Singapore. So I couldn't get food. This is a far cry from previous trips where you could enter into the country for a few hours just to eat at the excellent Changi staff food courts that are landside.

I was very grateful that Jane-o had the foresight to pack stuff to eat in my bag. I ate a bag of 12 mini-peanut slabs and 6 mini beef jerky sticks. Of course, all that sugar and sodium made me feel ill, but it was better than starving. It also made me aware of another objective I had in Changi, which was not to get sick before my next flight. You don't need to get Covid to get a fever and a cough, and having those would have been extremely problematic at that point in time. Thankfully, despite my elevated stress levels and a lack of sleep and proper food, I managed to stay healthy.

Flight to Kuching 

I thought my flight to Kuching would be almost completely empty, and it would have been if it weren't for a reasonable number of Mainland Chinese workers also taking the flight. Overall, this flight was probably about 10-15% full. Some of the Chinese dudes were wearing full-body protection, like plastic covering every part of their body, wearing both a face mask and a face shield, while also donning goggles and gloves. 

I was hoping for food on the flight (it was a Scoot flight, so this wasn't guaranteed), and I was treated to a strawberry croissant (bad croissant with really artificial-tasting jam inside), which I wolfed down. There was also a can of coke and a cornflake Ritter Sport. I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of European chocolate, but after a day of peanut slabs, I was in no mood for more chocolate.

Nothing else much to say about the flight to Kuching. Once I was on the plane, I was fairly relaxed. Regardless of what happened from that point on, I was going to be in Kuching. 

Going through immigration in Kuching

I was sitting near the middle of the plane, but I managed to pass several people by power-walking and ended up near the front of the queue. They separated us up into two lines (local and non-local) and hooked us up with a wristband with a QR code and got us to scan in using the Malaysian tracking app. The whole thing was a slow process. I won't go through all the details, but it seemed like everything was being done thoroughly. I also noted how just a few new physical barriers can change a very familiar place into somewhere that feels very different. I was given a few instructions and filled in some forms. I signed something and then went through immigration. I always feel really happy coming back to Kuching as a Sarawakian. It is a completely different thing from entering into the country as Malaysian in Kuala Lumpur. The Kuching airport staff are generally a lot more friendly and happy to communicate in English, rather than be annoyed that I don't speak Malay.   

I didn't have any check-in luggage, so I was the first to exit landside. I was instructed to start another queue to get on the buses to go to the hotels. This was around 8-9 pm, and I was hoping that I would get dinner (was still starving). We had to wait a while for the buses to leave, which they did in a convoy with a police car (police lights on) leading the way. For some reason, there were only 6 people on my bus, and we stopped by 3 hotels, of which mine was the last.

Arrival at the quarantine hotel

The super friendly bus driver took a picture of me in front of the hotel as proof that I had been delivered. I checked in, which involved more signing in to stuff. I got my room key and headed up to my room. When I arrived, I was very happy to see this:

and this:

and this was a nice bonus:

That last photo doesn't do the view justice, but I have plenty more that I took over the ensuing two weeks that I will post. 

After failing to make it to Kuching three weeks earlier, I had been having dreams about lying on a hotel bed and feeling relieved that it was over. Every time I would snap back to reality, so it felt pretty surreal to just be there and have that great weight lifted off of me. It is a feeling that I hope I will always remember, as I don't think I have ever felt that grateful for something in my life.

2017 Airline travel in review

Now is as good a time as any to recap and review my airline travel for 2017.

Singapore and Kuching
So in April, I did a trip to Malaysia and Singapore for a couple of weeks. I managed to get a sub-$500 NZD one way fare on an Air New Zealand flight from Auckland to Singapore, and used my Airpoints dollars to purchase it (I also purchased my Christchurch to Auckland fare this way). My return fare was a Singapore Airlines Saver redemption on a journey from Kuching-Christchurch (Silk Air from KCH to SIN). So I ended up paying less than $300 NZD (Airport taxes etc) for the long haul part of this trip, which had the best choice of flights each way. The Air NZ flight from Singapore to Auckland is awful if you live outside of the 09, as it gets in after all the domestic flights have left, so you need to overnight in the airport or somewhere nearby if you have a morning connection. So overall, I was really happy with the arrangement. The only bummer was that the flight from AKL to SIN was completely chocka, and my status upgrades didn't come through (and they expired and I lost them for nothing).

For my other flights between Singapore and Kuching (via Kuala Lumpur), I opted for Malaysian Airlines (MAS). Yes, MAS hasn't had the best time of it in the not too distant past, and it isn't a great airline (the food is awesome though). However, the price difference was not considerably more expensive than Air Asia, and it was considerably cheaper than Silk Air. Plus, MAS is in the Oneworld Alliance with Qantas, so I was able to accrue some Qantas points for those flights. I did upgrade my flight from Singapore to KL to first class, which was nice but ultimately not something I would do again. It wasn't quite as underwhelming as flying first class domestic in the US, but it was just a slightly bigger seat and slightly nicer food.

Tokyo
In September, I went to Tokyo for a week and a half. I have to admit that a good chunk of my choice in destination was trying to hit the mileage distance I needed to qualify for Diamond on Asiana Airlines. The Singapore Airlines fare that I purchased was about $200 more that the cheapest one I could have booked, as I had to the right fare class. Amusingly and *unexpectedly, Air New Zealand ran a sale on flights to Japan not long after I purchased mine, which would have saved me $600. That would have been a tough choice. Spending an extra $200 to get nearly 3 years of Star Alliance Gold status is completely justifiable, but $600...that is a bit of money. Tokyo was fantastic and I have no regrets about my choice. The other contenders that would have gotten me the miles at the right price point were Beijing and Seoul. I discounted Beijing, because while I love China, I have been to Beijing dozens of times and actually dislike the city quite a bit. Seoul would have been great too, but there were some tensions with North Korea. I mean the chances of something happening while I was there would have been minuscule, but it was enough to act as a tie-breaker.

Alice Springs
In October, I flew Qantas from Christchurch to Alice Springs to visit family. This was a sales fare that cost me about $1000. It also involved an overnight stay in Melbourne, and I elected to redeem some Agoda points to get an airport motel rather than sleeping in the terminal (Melbourne airport ain't Changi). I got some good Qantas points off that, and I transferred those to my mum. Alice is charming and I am really glad I got to see mum and Susie's world.

Domestic trips
I didn't have the variety that I have had in years past. I did 4 trips to Auckland and 3 to Wellington. These were basically all on Air New Zealand that I booked with my Airpoints dollars. Status points are meaningless to me and I basically only buy Grabaseat fares now, and those don't accrue any Airpoints dollars (plus there is the whole thing of saving the booking fee if you use points). This led me to discover the problem (of the first world variety) with having Star Gold status on a non-Air NZ airline. Basically, because I was using Airpoints accrued by my Airpoints account, I wasn't able to attach my Asiana frequent flyer number to the booking. So my bookings had my Air NZ number and Silver status (which has almost zero benefits). I could have gone up to the lounge and given them my Asiana number and explained the situation, but domestic lounges are no big deal and it wasn't worth the hassle (Yeah, I realize I sound like a spoiled douche). But, pretty soon I will run out of Airpoints and will book flights with money, but even then I still won't be able to use the Air New Zealand app for the digital boarding pass. This is a pain, because the Air NZ app is actually good, and it is super convenient not to have to print out a boarding pass.

Conclusion
I was pleased with my use of Airpoints dollars. I think I comfortably saved more in booking fees than I would have accrued had I actually paid real money for them. Plus there is the whole not having to use real money thing.
I was also happy that I used up a good chunk of Singapore Airlines miles before the program was devalued. They recently removed the 15% discount on miles required when booking online, which is not cool, but completely understandable and predictable given that so many other airlines are devaluing the miles/points in their frequent flyer programs.

What's next in 2018
Man, Qantas has some fantastic deals. It is super tempting to get the $700 to Beijing or the $1700 flight to Johannesburg. It does blow to not have status on Qantas, and not to be using the Star Gold status I paid a premium to get. But otherwise I will keep stalking the Air NZ and Singapore Airlines sites. There was an $850 Auckland to Houston return flight on Air NZ that caught my eye.
So we'll see... maybe I will change jobs or get a girlfriend or another commitment that prevents me from travelling and this will all be moot....but not Moot. Moot moot moot!


*Air New Zealand's "deals" are usually nothing special, and in a lot of cases still more expensive than a normal fare from the competition

The ramen I ate in Tokyo

I recently visited Tokyo for a bit and ate a lot of ramen. Below are some pictures of the ramen that I ate, and some commentary. This was actually pretty tough to write, as there are only so many different ways you describe something as being delicious.

Ramen #1 - 久留米らーめん 金丸

This hearty bowl of tonkotsu ramen was found just down the street from my hotel. I got into Tokyo at 6am after an overnight flight and was tired and dehydrated and feeling like crap. After a very light sushi breakfast at Tsukiji fish market, I was in need of something substantial for lunch and I was not disappointed. The soup was richer than tonkotsu ramen I'd had before (I can see now that these were all just poor imitations). The ramen egg was on point and the yolk perfectly gooey. This ramen had regular sliced chashu pork, but also some chunky chashu (like red-braised pork), which was oh so fatty and velvety. The noodles were thinner than I was expecting, but perfectly cooked and a great vehicle for delivering the pork fat to my stomach. This totally hit the spot and was probably my second favourite bowl of ramen on this trip. Click here for more pictures.

Ramen #2 - Gottsu (Akihabara)

This was another bowl of deliciously greasy and fattening tonkotsu ramen. It was great having all the spring onions on top to cut through the richness of the soup. It did have a shit ton of bean sprouts in it as well, but you know, I can't knock a place for my own personal vegetable preferences. Raw bean sprouts are actually a little less offensive than the cooked stuff, so my strategy was just to eat all the bean sprouts before they reached the limp semi-cooked stage. I got a combo, so the ramen came with rice and some dumplings. This was way too much food, but I ate it all anyway. I had been intending on getting some ballpark food at the Giants game, but there was no way I was eating anything for the rest of the day.


Ramen #3 - Not sure

This was a bowl spicy pork tsukemen ramen I got from another place that was near my hotel, which doesn't seem to appear on Google map. I really appreciated the fatty pork in the dipping sauce. The flavour was suitably intense and the sauce coated the noodles well. It lacked a little depth of flavour compared with the Rokurinsha ramen in entry #9, but was still quite delicious.

Ramen #4 - Kizo

This was the first ramen I got from Tokyo train station's ramen street. This is a shio ramen with beef tongue and lots of spring onions. The beef was good and the soup was clean and light. The wood ear mushrooms were a nice touch, and the spring onions added a bit of body to the otherwise mildly-flavoured soup. My only complaint was the ramen eggs being over-cooked, as you can see from the solid yolks in the picture. Shio is probably my least favourite ramen soup flavour, so I did end up dumping a bunch of chilli flakes into the soup to increase the flavour a bit.

Ramen #5 - Harukiya

I had a bit of a wait between checking out of the hotel I stayed in Ginza and the one I would be staying at in Shinjuku. I decided to ride the Marunouchi line until Ogikubo (which is apparently famous for ramen) and try something there. I found one of the most highly regarded places and joined the queue outside. There were maybe 5-6 people in front of me, which is manageable (the Rokurinsha queues were more like 15-20 people).
This is a Chuka (Chinese) shoyu ramen, and it was pretty epic. The soup tasted like Foochow chicken noodle soup when you add just the right amount of soy sauce. There was quite a substantial amount of umami there. The bamboo was top-notch as well, I wish I'd got more of that. The pork was tasty, despite being quite lean. The noodles were thicker than average and felt more homemade. Overall, a fantastic bowl of ramen. Check out this blog for more details on this place.

Ramen #6 - Senmon Hirugao

This bowl of shio ramen is another one from Tokyo train station's ramen street. This was nice enough, but probably the ramen I enjoyed the least on my trip. This one was more seafoody than the previous bowl of shio ramen I had. If you look closely you can see a small prawn on one of the ramen eggs. I didn't eat that. The wontons were decent. Yeah, I have to admit that I dumped a bit of soy sauce into the soup to make it a little more savory.

Ramen #7 - 九州らーめん 艶まる

I got this ramen in Nakano, after visiting the Nakano Broadway mall. I'd been walking round for ages trying to figure out what to eat, when I just decided to duck into the next place that looked like it served tonkotsu ramen. Click here for pictures.
This also had the chashu pork cut into chunks rather than slices. My god I love that pork. I will have to experiment adding it to my own ramen. Overall it was very nice, I just love tonkotsu ramen, so this was always going to delight.

Ramen #8 - Oreshiki Jun

This is the third bowl of ramen I got from Tokyo train station. After the usual check to see if the Rokurinsha line was not insanely long (it was insanely long), I joined the relatively short queue for this place. I got the tonkotsu  ramen with all the toppings. This was a slight mistake as I got some blocky pink thing that made me want to hurl as soon as I bit in to it. I am not sure what it was, but it was slightly seafoody and had a gross texture. I managed to force it down with bean sprout chasers. Yeah, you know it is bad when you end up eating something you hate to dilute the taste. I figured I'd get all the unpleasant stuff out of the way first. The rest of meal was impeccable, but I would still rate it below the other tonkotsu ramens I had. Perhaps the worst 2 minutes of my trip to Tokyo contributed to this relatively low ranking for a place that has a big reputation.

Ramen #9 - Rokurinsha (Haneda Airport)

Okay, so I finally had some Rokurinsha ramen. No, I did not have the patience to wait in a queue for ages to get the good stuff at Tokyo station. However, even the not as good version at Haneda airport was still mind-blowing, and the best ramen I had on my trip.
My expectations were fairly low, because after all, this is airport food court food. Airport food court food is usually not all that. This was all that. The dipping sauce was intense. It was seafoody in the good seafood way. The seafood that brings the extreme umami. It almost tasted like there was some citrus in the soup. I did a little googling and this blog has more about Rokurinsha at Haneda and has a better explanation of tsukemen and some nicer pictures.
Next time I go to Tokyo, I am going to queue up. This ramen is worth waiting for.

My learnings and final thoughts

Ramen in Tokyo is amazing. All the ramen I had was very good, even the ones I didn't like as much. The noodles were always perfectly cooked and the soup was always wonderfully flavourful (for the type of soup it was). I hope to go back someday and (if my cholesterol allows) eat many more bowls of tonkotsu and tsukemen ramen.

More on Air New Zealand Airpoints

I suppose this will be the second post in a series on air travel and frequent flyer (FF) programs. This is an old school "lots of text and no pictures" kind of post. So TLDR - Join Airpoints if you live in New Zealand and have flights on Air NZ coming up. If not, then don't bother.

There are two main reasons why people participate in airline FF programs:

1) For free or discounted flights (or upgrades)
2) To achieve a level of status within the program that confers benefits like lounge access and priority boarding

The Airpoints program is actually quite poor on both these counts. That is not to say that it is not worth joining, it is just harder to obtain benefits than it is in some other FF programs. If you don't live in New Zealand, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to join Airpoints and credit to Air NZ. If you do live in New Zealand and do most of your flying domestically, then Airpoints or Qantas' FF program are your two best bets. If you live in New Zealand and do a reasonable amount of international flying, then you might be better off looking elsewhere. Singapore Airlines' Krisflyer is pretty good for earning miles and redeeming for flights. Asiana Airlines' Asiana Club is probably best for achieving elite status cheaply.

Why is Airpoints not very good?
First of all, Airpoints is a revenue-based system, which means the amount of points you earn is roughly based off of the amount you spend, rather than the amount of miles you fly. While there are some inconsistencies that can be exploited, it isn't really possible to game the system in a major way. In the Airpoints program, you earn "airpoints dollars" instead of miles. These airpoints dollars are worth exactly the same amount as New Zealand dollars. You can use these to buy any flight you can buy with real money. So Air NZ pumps up the fact that airpoints can be used to buy any flight, not like other programs where award fares are limited. However, because you use them just like regular currency, you don't actually get any special benefit from having airpoints dollars. That super cheap Trans-Tasman fare? You could get it for 179 airpoints dollars, or you could get it for 179 regular dollars. At the other end of the scale, the super expensive fares are still super expensive. With a mileage-based program, it usually costs the same amount of miles for the same route regardless of when you are flying. Take Singapore Airlines as an example, a one-way flight from Chch to Singapore costs 21,500 Krisflyer miles + 200 SG dollars, even during the school holidays (when flights cost a lot more). Yeah, availability can be limited, but I'd rather at least have a shot at using the frequent flyer program to get cheap flights. With airpoints dollars, your best bet is to spend them on Grabaseat or other cheap domestic and Trans-Tasman flights that don't earn fuck all anyway. The only benefit to using airpoints dollars is that you save on the credit card fee when booking flights.

Airpoints is a little bit better when it comes to earning status, and it is Star Alliance status (which is nice). But, as mentioned above, there are better programs for this. You earn "status credits" for flying and once you have obtained a certain amount of these, then you get some status. This is fairly standard. You can read more about it here.

So what type of traveler benefits from Air NZ Airpoints?
Someone who flies a lot on the super cheap Air NZ domestic and Trans-Tasman fares that aren't able to be credited anywhere else. Actually, it's not even the super cheap fares that can only be credited to Air NZ. Unless you want to pay $400 for a full fare Y-class Chch to Auckland flight, then basically no domestic flights can be credited to other Star Alliance programs (I haven't looked too closely at crediting to Virgin Australia, because I think Virgin Australia is a horrible airline).

So you have joined Airpoints. What now?
Not much you can do with the crap earning and burning rate. But here are some tips to achieve Air NZ status (relatively) cheaply:

1) Buy Grabaseat and domestic sales flights - All domestic flights earn a minimum of 8 status points. You can regularly get a $39 flight from Chch to Wellington, or a $45 flight from Chch to Auckland. These flights usually earn 0 Airpoints dollars, which is not great if you don't care about earning status, but $5 for each status point is actually pretty good.

2) Fly US domestic first class and business class flights on United Airlines - First class on US domestic flights is not actually that much of an upgrade over economy. It's basically just a slightly bigger seat, a beverage and some crappy snacks. On short flights, it's not massively more expensive than economy, certainly not 4x, 5x, 6x you get on long-haul first class. You still get the 4x, 5x, 6x status points earning on these flights though. To put things in perspective, I paid about the same amount for an economy fare from New York to LA as I did for a first class fare from Orange County to Seattle (via San Francisco). The NY flight earned 25 status points, the OC flights earned 130 status points. I probably should have credited the NY flight to Singapore Airlines Krisflyer (which earns 100% mileage on even discount economy United fares).

3) Live in a city that is not Auckland - If you are flying long-haul out of Auckland, but your starting point is somewhere else in NZ, that domestic flight from Chch or Welly to Auckland usually doesn't cost you any extra, but it does give you extra status points each way.

4) Get a platinum Airpoints credit card - Having a status point-earning credit card really helps quite a bit. The Kiwibank card has the best earning rate, with 1 status point for every $200 spent. I would recommend getting this one, because you also get the ability to buy any amount of Airpoints dollars for a $5 fee. Also, there is the whole supporting a New Zealand bank which doesn't take profits off-shore kind of thing as well. By the way, I don't got no links for you to click on so you can sign up*. You can click here to go to the Air NZ page that does a card comparison.
*I despise how some travel sites hawk credit cards to get commissions (but I would probably do it too).

I will write some more on this later. In my next post, I will go over the things I like about Airpoints. Air New Zealand is a pretty decent airline, it just has a crappy frequent flyer program. But with some airlines around the world (most notably big US carriers Delta and United) moving to revenue-based systems as well, the Airpoints program may not look so bad in a few years (unless it gets watered-down too).

My year getting to Air New Zealand Elite

I wrote most of this in September last year, once I got back from the US. Just pretend you are reading it seven months ago (or however far in the past September 2015 is from the date you are reading this).

I have been fortunate enough to have done quite a bit of travelling over the years, but up until quite recently, I never bothered with airline frequent flyer programs. I don't know why. Maybe I was just young and dumb, I guess? But that changed at the end of 2014, when Air New Zealand had a spate of pretty decent deals on long-haul flights to places I wanted to go to. So I snapped those deals up. Plus, I was talked into purchasing a Koru membership, which incentivized me to fly almost exclusively with Air NZ. I was also fortunate enough to get an expensive last minute return flight to the US paid for by my employer. All this convinced me to try and go for Elite (the top tier in Air NZ's Airpoints frequent flyer program).

I managed to get there in the end. Below are some statistics for my qualification period (September 3rd 2014 to September 2nd 2015). I only listed flights that counted towards my Air New Zealand Airpoints status qualification.

Total flights flown:
63

Distance flown:
Just over 78,000 miles

International flights:
Christchurch to Singapore (via Auckland) return
Christchurch to San Francisco (via Auckland) return
Christchurch to Beijing (via Auckland and Hong Kong) return (Air NZ and Air China)
Christchurch to Los Angeles (via Auckland) return
Christchurch to Brisbane return
Brisbane to Christchurch one way
Vienna to Valencia (via Zurich) one way (Swiss Airlines)

NZ domestic flights:
Christchurch to Wellington return x8
Christchurch to Auckland return x4
Christchurch to Invercargill return
Christchurch to Hokitika return
Christchurch to Nelson return

Non-NZ domestic:
Beijing to Dalian one way (Air China)
United flights x9 (distance-wise about the equivalent of flying across the US 3 times)

Total status points from flights:
1399 (the rest came from credit card spend)

Total cost of plane tickets:
About $11,600 NZD

I imagine most people who achieve Elite status do so by flying in premium cabins and racking up a lot of status points per flight...or maybe flying heaps for work. Not me. Apart from two first class and two business class flights on United, I always bought the cheapest ticket I could. I had been hoping not to have to do any points running (miles running), but a closer read of the eligibility requirements for Elite revealed that I was about 40 points short of the amount that needed to be accrued on Air NZ flights. Which meant I needed to take 3 Christchurch to Wellington return flights. So all up, going for Elite cost me an extra $1000, one day of my holiday in the US (taking 4 flights to get from New York to Seattle), and three workday evenings (those Chch -Welly flights were not fun).

Was it worth it? I'd say so. So far, being Air New Zealand Elite has gotten me (or will get me):

- an extra year of Star Gold status/Koru, which is about $430 value (how much Koru costs with a platinum airpoints credit card)
- the ability to gift Koru equivalent to one person (another $430)
- a short haul upgrade that got my mum upgraded from premium economy to business on a trans-Tasman flight (about $600 value)
- a free upgrade to Economy Plus on a United flight from Sydney to Los Angeles (coupla hundred bucks?)
- moved to a Skycouch row on a flight from Perth to Auckland (maybe $1000 value over the top of my ticket)
- status matched to Alitalia Freccia Alata Plus, which gives me Skyteam Elite Plus. This also gave me the ability to gift Freccia Alata (Skyteam Elite) to someone. This is of questionable value, because I am unlikely to fly Alitalia or any other Skyteam airline (but the membership card is cool)

There was also the thrill of trying to get to Elite as cheaply as possible. I am slightly bummed out now that status points are essentially useless to me for the next year. I am not going to fly enough to re-qualify as Elite and Air New Zealand has a soft landing (so it doesn't matter if I get 0 status points this year, I will have Gold status next year).

I guess I should try and save some cash and not blow all my disposable income on travel.