I read about the merger of JetStar Asia and Valuair over the weekend.
Corporate types are excited about it. But when that happens, passengers usually lose. Less flights and more expensive tickets.
Look at UAL for example. Each time their union bosses announce a “good thing” (such as being able to purchase “good food” on flights or having “special service” between SFO-JFK), it raises prices on travellers. The end result of this is that now if you fly on a connecting flight from SFO to the East Coast, you don’t get food unless you buy it. I’ll accept that if the fares come down to compensate, but they’ve gone up, especially to JFK. This is because the SFO-JFK run are now served by PS flights. Great for bigshot flyers who don’t have to pay for their own travel, bad for everyone else.
But back to the topic at hand. Does that mean that the brief sunshine of cheap travel in SE Asia is at an end? I rather liked my experience on JetStar Asia on my recent trip to BKK…
Brrrrr…
I was in Los Angeles last weekend.
Went for a fren’s wedding.
Met up with a bunch of old frens from my LA days who are all married also.
I know that once a person gets married, there’s change in the air. And based on my recent experience, the guys change more than the girls.
It’s almost like the guys are forced to close the book on the “single” part of their life and discard everything from that so they can begin the “married” part of their lives. It’s more of a bummer when they were once your “homies”.
The worst part is that I’m now one of two “Last Men Standing”. Disturbing…
Of course if the right girl comes along, maybe I’ll be transmogrified too…
Las Vegas Still Life
There are hawkers all over the sidewalks handing out business cards advertising “services” (heh heh heh, nudge nudge, wink wink).
They used to loiter in front of the hotels until the hotels went legit and wanted them gone.
But they are entitled to hawk their wares on the sidewalk, as long as they don’t block it.
Walking down the strip at night, you collect a lot of these.
One creative way to dispose of them…
Great Combo!
Seen at the Bellagio last week…
High stakes gambling. High carb food. Put the two together…
DANGER!! =P
Continuing the ice cream theme
So I went with my flatmates to dinner and then to Ghiradelli (say Gear-a -delli) Square for dessert. Well, actually we went to the Ghiradelli Chocolate shop. The flagship shop!
This is called a S’more sundae. It has caramel sauce, hot fudge, marshmallow creme and oh yah, a caramel chocolate square and a maraschino cherry. And there was vanilla ice cream too.
It was soooo loaded that it began to melt just from everyone looking at it.
But I was the one that ate it. Geez, I’m sooooo bad!
Mmmm Coffee!
This makes sense for some reason…
| You Are Coffee Ice Cream |
 You’re doing a million things at once and doing them well. You tend to motivate others and raise spirits. You are most compatible with chocolate ice cream. |
So tired Lah!
I walked all the way from New York New Yourk to Paris via Monte Carlo!
And boy are my feet tired! Yeah, weak attempt at humour…
Granted these are casinos on the strip, but they’re still a looong ways apart!
So I was walking through the Bellagio and saw this.
Now what is it you ask? Well, 
Apparently, it’s the worlds biggest chocolate fountain. That’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen out here so far…
Can you imagine being smothered in that stuff? Waaaah! Just thinking calorie-filled thoughts here…
LA Culinary Adventures!
Well, that’s kind of misleading…
It’s more of a “redux” kind of tour. Follow:
I had Tommy’s for dinner. Mmmmm, Tommy’s breath!
I went to Manny’s (AKA Chano’s) for lunch. Hot sauce!
And yesterday, I had to do the obligatory In n’Out run since I AM in Southern California now.
This is gonna blow my diet out of the water. Thankfully, I’ve been having light breakfasts to compensate…
On da road again…
Yup, I’m “itchy scratchy” and I’m down in Southern California for a few days.
Actually, I’m in LA for a few days and then I’m hightailing it to Las Vegas for a few days more.
And naturally, since I’m going to be down here longer than a weekend, I decided to drive down (since it’s great to have a car down here).
Normally, I wouldn’t do the drive if I was staying here for just a weekend. Any period of time longer than that would be prohibitively expensive, since I gotta rent a car and all that.
It’s not too hot down here so far. They’re still going through “June gloom” down here. However, the weather in Vegas is extremely hot!
40+ degrees!!! But thankfully no humidity like BKK. It’s still hot though.