Hi,
Some of you may know, I recently embarked on a very quick flying visit to Asia to take in a few sights and do a bit of shopping. Christened the Mandarin tour, as at each place I stayed at the respective Mandarin Oriental hotel, so the original Hong Kong Mandarin Oriental, the Singapore Oriental and the Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur.
I wont bore you all with my trip report of the Virgin flights in UCS, but there are some photos of the new LHR CH that I took uploaded to the gallery section (along with photos of the rooms and HKG Clubhouse)
Hong Kong (2 nights)
Hong Kong was very cool to visit, a very vibrant cosmopolitan city well worth visiting. Many thanks to GraemeK and Sean for their great hospitality we went for an amazing session of Dim Sum on my first day, certainly an experience and well worth doing (and it was really cheap too!). In regards to the hotel, it was very nice and the service is really good, but in comparison to the other MO properties it needs updating, and so it happens it will be closing in December for a major refurbishment. I stayed in a Harbour Suite via the AmEx Centurion Fine Hotels and Resorts program.
Some great tips that were passed on and that I learned take the Airport Express train; you can get a tourist 3 day Oyster travel card for $300HKD that includes a return on the Airport Express, 3 days of unlimited travel on the MTR system, $20HKD of credit towards other transport or Starbucks (yes they take Oyster!), and a $50HKD refundable deposit. The train takes about 25 minutes and then you can get a taxi from there. The Airport Express stations offer check-in facilities, so you can check your luggage in early for your flight home and not have to worry about it again until you get back to LHR. There is also a left baggage facility if you want to drop off your hand luggage!
Once you have been to HKG airport, you will realize what a dump LHR is it is immaculate, the shopping is great and there is plenty of places to eat and its all reasonably priced too!
Singapore (2 + 1 nights)
After a very quick stay in HKG, it was time to move on to Singapore. I flew from HKG to SIN with United, which is part of a longer flight from Philadelphia via Chicago and Hong Kong to Singapore. It was about 150 pounds for Economy, but having United Premier status got me an upgrade to Economy Plus which was very comfortable for the 3 hour flight. Very strange to be sat on a 747-400 for that short a flight, but even stranger to go back to an IFE of a single large screen at the front of the cabin! The flight times are not exactly fantastic, you land around 1:30pm at night, but you arrive to the wonder that is Changi airport. This place defines how an airport should be. The ground transportation options are very clearly displayed, I opted for the taxi to the city for $15SGD which is about a fiver. Extremely friendly, clean and efficient taxis are de rigeur for Singapore. I really enjoyed Singapore and it was my favourite out of the three places. Its very, very clean and you feel really safe. There are quite a few things to do, and I found the shopping to be great. Food is really cheap too. I stayed at the Oriental Hotel, and having just completed a huge renovation last December it shows. I was in a Deluxe Harbour Suite (again with AmEx FHR) and it was really good DVD players in the lounge and bedroom, two bathrooms etc. Breakfast was included, and it was by far the best hotel breakfast I have had for a very long time there was so much choice of cuisine for breakfast, you could really lard up! The FHR amenity at this property was afternoon tea for two once during the stay, so I opted for this on my second day and it was very nice indeed with a lovely city view out from the lounge area it is served in.
Kuala Lumpur
After two nights in Singapore, it was time to fly on to my 3rd stop, which was Kuala Lumpur. For this transfer, it was back to the wonderful Changi airport and a flight in First Class with Singapore. Its only a short flight of less than an hour, so nothing too taxing. Passengers flying in SQ F are given a voucher to use the Premium immigration line at Kuala Lumpur airport which does save you time as the queues can get very large. In regards to check-in, this is how check-in should be done! So I am approaching the airport at SIN, and the driver asks me what airline so I told him Singapore (SQ), and he then asks what class, so I tell him that its First (F) so he pulls over to the concourse for SQ F and someone is there waiting to help with your luggage, and they then walk you through to the completely separate F check-in area/lounge for F. They tag all your bags up and do the usual check-in for you whilst you are sat down! You can also check-in for your return flights too if need be. And then you can exit the area to the right and skip past the main immigration line into a premium area which has a very short queue and you are then into the main departure area. A short walk to the left takes you to the escalator that takes you to the SQ KrisFlyer lounge complex, with Business class on the left hand side and First Class on the right. The lounge at SIN for SQ is very nice, large facility with showers, business centre good selection of food and some hot dishes to choose from. Flight itself was very good, good service and a good insight for me to SQ. Upon arrival to KUL, again I opted to take the express train option which works out to be about 10 pound return, and is clean and efficient. Upon arrival you can then get a taxi to your destination, the strange thing si that you have to queue up at a desk to get a ticket to your destination and you pay there and then and it was silly money, for my 12km trip to the Mandarin from the station it was under 2 pounds. As a person that likes really clean and tidy, modern cities I was a bit worried during the taxi transfer to the City Centre area, but once you get close to the Petronas Towers and KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre area) it all gets really clean and modern. The Towers are an amazing sight, and at the base of them is a fantastic shopping centre that you could spend days in. If you want to go up to the skybridge you have to get there early (from 8:30am and queue as only 1300 tickets a day are issued they are free and are done on first come first served basis). I stayed in a Park Suite which was again very nice, and plenty of room for a small person like me to roam round in! Breakfast and afternoon tea were included as before, breakfast was again very good with a good selection but not quite up to the same array as at the Oriental hotel.
The return
After my two nights in KL, it was time to fly back to SIN for the night as my flight home to HKG was very early in the morning (6:45am), so it was back to the lovely Oriental again for the night. After an early start, I arrived to check-in at 5:30am, and checked in very quickly at the Star Alliance Gold area, and onto the lounge which was moderately sized but very busy with passengers as this was the return flight that was going back to Philadelphia via Hong Kong and Chicago. Another 3 hour flight that I slept most of and then I was back at Hong Kong International airport. Now it was around 10:30am and hadnt really thought what to do for this day but had no luggage to worry about as I had checked it all the way through, so I went on the Airport Express again to central HK, and had another walk round taking in the sights. Then on the way back, I made use of the downtown check-in and got on the train back to the airport and cleared through departure immigration and into the wilderness of shopping and food that is at HKG airport. The HKG Clubhouse opens at 9am due to the sharing arrangement that they have with Eva Air, so I made my way up there and spent a fair bit of time looking round and making use of the facilities. To me its another lovely Clubhouse up to the high standards that I had encountered at JNB late last year. There are shower facilities if you want to freshen up, wireless internet, office facilities (3 PCs), nice bar and plenty of seating options. Menu on offer when I visited are below, the VS menu is offered from around 4:30pm before that it is the Eva Air menu:
Dinner
Lighter Bites
Clubhouse Salad seasonal leaves with roast duck breast, cherry tomatoes, plum sauce and black sesame seed dressing
Deep fried sugar cane prawns served with Thai sweet chilli dipping sauce
Roasted pepper, aubergine and sour cream soup served with fresh bread
Bigger Bites
Grilled beef loin with scallion mashed potato, mixed vegetables and port wine sauce
Ricotta and porcini mushroom tortellini with tomato and Parmesan cheese
Thai green chicken curry served with steamed rice, Thai aubergine and red chillis
Flying club sandwich triple decker chicken, roast ham and tomato sandwich served with coleslaw
Naughty but nice
Selection of cheeses with accompaniments
Strawberry shortcake with vanilla sauce
Ice cream with cookies
Selection of wines available
Classic cocktails Champagne cocktail, Mojito, Daiquiri, Bloody Mary, Martini, Caipirnha, Long Island Iced Tea, Margarita, Cosmopolitan, Singapore Sling
Cappuccino, espresso, or selection of herbal/fruit infusion blends
Summary
A very quick visit to each city, and to be fair not enough time to do each of them justice but I enjoyed my trip and will be most definitely going abck to each of them to do some more exploring. For SIN and KUL, I wouldnt hesitate at stopping at the MO proerties there again. For HKG, I would look at stopping at the new sister MO property, the Landmark as that looks really trendy and my kind of place with Plasma TVs in the rooms
If you have any questions about any of my trip, please let me know!Thanks,
Richard
