I am now safely ensconced back in England. Apart from the day after arrival I have been working back in schools here. The weather has been much wetter than in Mongolia, though luckily my home village avoided the deluge that clobbered the rest of the "Geordie Land" last night. I have re-instated my Facebook pages and added all the links there. Some likes are required before Facebook admin does something with the author page so that would be appreciated.
Exiting Ulaanbaatar's Chinggis Khan Airport, via its' single gate, the checking in and boarding and exit visa all went smoothly. The flight to Incheon with Korean Airways was a bit bumpy with some quite severe turbulence. This didn't bode well for the return over Asia the next day to London. 3 hours after leaving UB we touched down in Incheon and found our way to the transfer hotel desk, collected the vouchers for the Airport Hyatt Hotel and hopped on the bus to find the roads smooth, the drivers courteous and 15 minutes later the doors of the hotel. Check in was easy and the rooms such a change from the Khabu Hotel in UB. I managed to sleep from 5am to 830am before being awoken by the automatic wake up phone call. Again such a change to be in a place where things worked as they were supposed to. Breakfast was beyond compare with the hotel in UB, which didn't even have a star rating as far as I'm aware. The food choice was phenomenal and of exceptional the Incheon Hyatt. After breakfast it was back to the airport to check in for the flight to London (Heathrow). The flight was delayed in its take off due to air traffic control over China airspace issues. Taking off It was pleasant to see in the glorious sunshine the islands and long suspension bridge to the airport from the mainland before the Boeing 777 inched up into the clouds and turbulence for 11 and a half hours of flying across China, Mongolia, Russia and Northern Europe.
The time on the watch had edged into Monday morning (Seoul time) by the time we landed at Terminal 4 and I had to rush over to Terminal 5 for the half-filled British Airways connecting flight to Newcastle. This was on time time and I was back in my home at 1130pm local time to a rapturous welcome from family and dog!
Exiting Ulaanbaatar's Chinggis Khan Airport, via its' single gate, the checking in and boarding and exit visa all went smoothly. The flight to Incheon with Korean Airways was a bit bumpy with some quite severe turbulence. This didn't bode well for the return over Asia the next day to London. 3 hours after leaving UB we touched down in Incheon and found our way to the transfer hotel desk, collected the vouchers for the Airport Hyatt Hotel and hopped on the bus to find the roads smooth, the drivers courteous and 15 minutes later the doors of the hotel. Check in was easy and the rooms such a change from the Khabu Hotel in UB. I managed to sleep from 5am to 830am before being awoken by the automatic wake up phone call. Again such a change to be in a place where things worked as they were supposed to. Breakfast was beyond compare with the hotel in UB, which didn't even have a star rating as far as I'm aware. The food choice was phenomenal and of exceptional the Incheon Hyatt. After breakfast it was back to the airport to check in for the flight to London (Heathrow). The flight was delayed in its take off due to air traffic control over China airspace issues. Taking off It was pleasant to see in the glorious sunshine the islands and long suspension bridge to the airport from the mainland before the Boeing 777 inched up into the clouds and turbulence for 11 and a half hours of flying across China, Mongolia, Russia and Northern Europe.
The time on the watch had edged into Monday morning (Seoul time) by the time we landed at Terminal 4 and I had to rush over to Terminal 5 for the half-filled British Airways connecting flight to Newcastle. This was on time time and I was back in my home at 1130pm local time to a rapturous welcome from family and dog!
