Contact the Guinness Book of World Records! I just completed a 5000 mile run in 24hrs!

Mileage Running is not for the faint of heart. You have to be flexible, you have to do research beforehand, you have to account for down time and probably the most important, you will have to know how to deal with airline customer service. So during my 1st mileage run this past weekend, I had a great learning opportunity to perfect the art of mileage running.

United Airlines 504, LAX-DEN, 757
Friday, April 16
Depart: 8:00PM
Arrive: 11:24pm
Duration: 2hr24min
Seat: 6B (First Class)

The run started with a glitch, causing me to sweat out the 1st leg of the trip. On the drive to LAX I got a text from United saying that the departure time for my LAX-DEN leg will be delayed for 20min. In airline terms, 20min could mean anything from 20min to 5hrs, especially if it was mechanical. Since I had a 1.5hr connecting time in Denver, I was praying that the delay would last no more than 1hr.

Well it turns out the delay was due to the late arrival of our plane from Chicago. So we were able to takeoff without any further delays, crisis averted! Thanks to United's new Unlimited Upgrade policy, I was upgraded once again to 1st class. I enjoyed a couple glasses of Bloody Marys and worked on some Chinese characters. My character recognition is really improving, I can almost decipher anything handed to me. Hehe...

After getting some excellent tailwind, we had a smooth ontime landing at Denver International. A quick 5 min taxi later, we were at the gate, I exited into a completely empty Concourse B. It was kind of disheartening knowing that Denver is United's 2nd largest hub and it was completely empty at 11:30pm. Where was everyone? Maybe United was in a more dire situation than we originally thought.

I quickly made my way to the train that links the 3 terminals at Denver, since US Airways gates were located in Concourse C. Did you know that Denver International Airport is the largest airport in the US? Well I snapped a few pictures on my way to my gate.

Completely Empty Terminal, all the shops were closed

Empty Train Station

I made it to my US Airways gate with about an hour to spare. I was not looking forward to this leg of the mileage run. US Airways is perhaps the worst carrier we have in the US. They are a low cost carrier stuck in a legacy carrier's body. I mean, this is the same airline whose CEO Doug Parker decided to charge for water and soft drinks in Economy class. 2 years ago, I had to fly DCA-PHX, a 5hr flight without anything to drink. I will flip if these guys merge with United. However, I digress...

Boarding commenced right on schedule, I lined up waiting for Star Golds to be called up for boarding. Well they called 1st class passengers first, then zone 1, then zone 2 and finally Star Golds with Zone 3. Zone 3? Are you flipping serious? I will shut up before I get in trouble with Doug Parker.

US Airways 498, DEN-CLT, A320
Saturday, April 17
Depart: 12:59am
Arrive: 6:06am
Duration: 3hr07min
Seat: 5D

When I got on board, I took my seat and the captain came on the PA announcing a flight time of3hrs. Awesome, only 3hrs of sleep...

Before I knew it we were on final approach into Charlotte. My original plan in Charlotte was to head into town get some breakfast at Mert's Heart and Soul Restaurant and walk around a bit before taking the bus back to the airport to standby for the 11:49am flight to Dulles.

I headed to the United check-in counter to take care of my standby before heading into town. Well, it turns out the 11:49am flight to Dulles is actually a US Airways flight and since I was on a United Ticket, I could not standby for that one. The next United Flight to Dulles was at 10:03am. Meaning, even if I were to go in town, I would have about 1hr to walk around before I've to get back to the airport to catch my flight. Not worth it IMO. So I decided to spend the morning at the airport.

I remember seeing a Bojangles on my way from the gate so I decided to try it out for breakfast, since they were advertising their world famous chicken and biscuits. Bojangles is very similar to Chick-fil-a out here in Cali, amazing iced tea, good chicken biscuits and amazing hash browns.

My breakfast from Bojangles

Although, the chicken biscuits were quite tasty, I can't get over the fact that Bojangles uses chicken strips rather than chicken breasts. It's a shame cause the biscuits were pretty darn good.

>After gobbling down my breakfast, I still had over 2 hours to go till boarding, so I decided to walk around and kill some time. Let me just say, southerners are all around very nice people. I mean, even the TSA guys and the gate agents were nice, cracking jokes and always willing to help.

I got on my standby flight to IAD, luckily, there was only 1 seat left and I was the only one on standby.

United Airlines 7236, CLT-IAD, CRJ700
Saturday, April 17
Depart: 10:03am
Arrive: 11:35am
Duration: 1hr11min
Seat: 11C

The friendly gate agent gave me an exit row seat and I was looking forward to stretching my legs and taking a nap. Well throw the nap out the window because we encountered pretty good turbulence throughout the entire flight. There was a couple instances where I thought the plane would actually flip over. The turbulence was due to the 50mph wind blowing at the high altitudes, the little CRJs just can't handle that kind of wind. But we made it safely and on our way to the gate, we saw 7 birds from various European Airlines(SAS, KLM, Air France, Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian, British Airways) lined up on a remote taxiway, unable to return home due to the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland.

Upon landing, I made my way to the United customer service counter to standby for the 5:25 flight to LAX. I wanted that exact flight because it was going to be on a international configured 777 with seat back TV screens and a high chance of an upgrade. I asked the agent what my standby chances were and she told me the flight was only half full, so I will definitely make it on...Everything was going according to plan.

I had about 5hrs before my flight back to LA so I had time to check out the new Lufthasa lounge at IAD(Thanks Flyertalk!). The lounge is located near gate B51, which is quite a hike from the C&D concourses, where United flights depart from. First you have to take the train to the A concourse, and about a 5 min walk from there. Either way, it’s a nice walk since it’s past all the fun airlines, like British Airways, South African Airways, ANA, Korean, Ethiopian, etc. The B concourse is beautiful, compared to the massive trailers known as the C&D concourses. Everything was sparkly clean, reminds me a bit of Incheon. Since the lounge didn't open for another hour, I went around plane spotting. BTW, B Concourse at IAD goes down as my favorite terminal in the US, they have a Chipotle and Potbelly's!

Korean Airlines

South African

ANA

Ethiopian!

Nose to Nose with a BA 747

Entrance to the Lufthansa Lounge

The nice thing about this lounge is that you can use it as a Star Gold traveling domestically.As 1pm rolled around I made my way to the lounge and was promptly admitted by the agent. I was happy to see that the lounge was completely empty, mainly due to the flight disruptions in Europe.

Empty lounge

The food and selection was absolutely amazing... definitely trumps the Asiana lounge in Incheon and ANA lounge in Narita.

Salads, Pasta Salads, Sandwiches, Deli meat

Alcohol, soft drinks, they have Becks on Tap!

Hot food selection, the sausages were delicious

They even have German Soft Pretzels!

Ahhhh, I love Becks...

3 Becks and 5 plates of food later, I was ready to make my way back to the C Concourse. I bid adieu to the lovely ladies working in the lounge and caught the train back to C Concourse. After getting to the gate, I asked the gate agent about my standby situation and she told me that they will announce standby's shortly. I inquired about the possibility of a complimentary upgrade since the flight was only half full, she kindly said there was no chance. Eh, you win some you lose some...

My name was the 1st one called off the standby list and at 1st, she assigned me to 33K! 33K is not even economy plus! I told her as a premier exec, I at least should get economy plus. She asked me to produce my premier exec card and even though she could have just taken a look at the boarding pass she had in hand. I mean come on, some people are just tooo damn lazy!

I knew on the 777, there are about 5 rows of seats on the right side of the economy plus section designated as crew rest area. These seats have exit row like leg room with multi adjustable business class seats. Since this was going to be a domestic flight, the crew did not have a need for these seats, so I asked the gate agent if she could seat me in those seats. She obliged and I was happy to at least get something out of the entire ordeal.

United Airlines 947, IAD-LAX, 777
Saturday, April 17
Depart: 5:25PM
Arrive: 8:09pm
Duration: 5hr44min
Seat: 18H

Shortly there after, we boarded and I made my way to my seat. I gotta admit, the 777 is my favorite aircraft and I always feel United is wasting these beautiful birds by flying them on domestic routes. I understand that this flight is usually full on weekdays, but I felt sad seeing all the empty seats in Economy Plus. I think we had a total of 10 people filling over 75 seats. It's a shame...

Empty Economy Plus Cabin

View of Business Class

Multi Adjustable seats

The seats were very comfy especially with the footrest up and I slept very well for almost 3 hours. The 777 produced a wonderful ride and by the time I woke up, we had 2 hours left in the flight. I decided to fire up the personal TV and ended up watching half of "the Blindside". Although I am not a big fan of Sandra Bullock, I enjoyed her acting in this one.

The 777 is the only plane in the United Fleet to have these in Economy class. We are soo behind times...

We finally touched down in LA and after 13hrs of flying over a 24hr period, I was exhausted but very satisfied with the outcome of my first mileage run. Till next time...

我爱中国，中国爱我！（续集）

本人是应该学习的，但是没有毅力。感叹。。。

回到家乡以后，我很努力的练华文，进展还不错吧？哈哈。。。
Continuing on to Day 3, 我们回到我的公公，婆婆的家乡，在潮州的小乡村。We visited my grandparents' old village - the place where their romance begins. They lived in neighboring village, which sounds close but the car ride was about 10 minutes. I cannot imagine them having to walk that few miles to each other's house. Yikes!

First stop, to my grandfather's old village.

I don't know why but all their houses have these four letter words on their ceiling.

The older generation still live in the villages, leading really simple life. They used to grow different variety of vegetables and rear animals, but today, they focus on carrots. According to them, carrots are easy to take care of and are very profitable. Duh! Look at their carrots! Their carrots are as big as the two ladies' faces. We munch on them on the spot and it was so juicy. Why I love China #5 - (this might be bias, since I live in little island Singapore with not much agricultural opportunities) Their vegetables are fresh, sweet, juicy, definitely change the minds of all green haters. Quoting my brother, 绿油油的青菜，原来不是书上才有，终于被我尝到了。He thought green leafy vegetables are described in books, but he has finally tasted them in China. Heavenly.



Moving on to my grandmother's village, we were taken aback by all the changes. They used to be dilapidated, dirty and full of flies. Today, everything has changed. My grandmother's family (whoever they are) are living in huge houses, with office space and a huge garden to keep their pets - the chickens. They have about 20 over chickens running around. It was crazy.

This is remnants of her old house. Dad said we used to have feasts at this supposedly huge "front porch".

For lunch that day, my uncle treated us to another feast at 新梅园. Gawd! Almost all of us were raising our white flags to our fatten-up regime. We don't just do three meals, in between, there were always desserts shoved into our mouths. But every food that came our way were irresistibly delicious. You just can't stop!

But this is highly recommended although prices can be quite steep according to the standard in China. I love it because they serve fantabulous almond milk! I drank almost 5 glasses throughout the 15 course meal. 15 course, WTFISH. My apologies for the lack of photos though, we were busy eating that I forgot. =X However, these are a few sumptuous pictures to entice you.

This is crab sashimi. Doubt anyone of you have had this before but Erik will love this. To remove the smell and lower the risk, it is a must to eat it with a little chili sauce and vinegar.

Since shopping was expensive in Shantou, we decided to pamper our bodies instead. We went for leg massage, hair cut and manicure/pedicure services. This is the result of our hair for SGD 30 bucks each. My vain brother got a hair treatment, cut and wash. Mom did hair treatment with blowing service while cousin and I dyed our hair.




The hairstylists gave us a 70s blowing style, claiming it was trendy in the city. I do like it but its hilarious when the three of us sat together. As for our manicure and pedicure, whoaaaa, it was superb. My first time having acrylic nails and also a male manicurist attending to me. He is voted the best manicurist in the shop and yes, quick, meticulous...great service!


Day 4




One of my uncle took us to explore the neighborhood. We went to the famous river in Guangdong province. - Han River 韩江. Honestly, it wasn't much of a good sight see but we unraveled a fact. My uncle (the one that looked like a gangster) actually owned part of it together with a few friends. They cordoned part of the river sides to built a personal clubhouse with bathing facilities and tea house. Speechless.






We all know Asia is a food haven and they all come from the small hawker stalls by the streets. So, we were brought to this famous chao mien (fried noodle) hawker stand. They had the city's best pig trotters also. Everything tasted awesome despite the rundown look. We were eating in the small brick house in the middle of nowhere. I wonder why they don't want to renovate their stall since they should be rich because we met Caucasians even.


This is one other lunch we had - Shantou's famous beef steamboat 牛肉火锅. This originates from their unique beef balls, even better than Dodo meat balls. I can't describe, but you can imagine that I have them for lunch every time I am home alone in Singapore. We shipped three bags full of beef balls about 50 of them back home. I read up on this cuisine and found that the beef here actually went through manual beating process to build its bounciness. Loads of oil were also added for the flavor.

This is the private parts of the cow. Hohoho! Erik's favorite. It was believed it could increase the male's libido?!

Coming to the end of our holidays, short yet rewarding, we celebrated on our last night with a huge family gathering. (But we do have that every night, haha!) This was different, these Chinese never fail to make us miss them so much. They will end our last night on a high note. I really love their closely-knitted family, something many Singaporeans do not have.

We tried toasting the Singaporean way.

Gosh, this handsome boy... At 2 years old, he has learn to flirt with all the aunties around. Soooo cute! His mom and dad had a beautiful love story, that inspired me quite a bit.

Final photo of the day: My brother suffered from eye irritation and he was given Chinese treatment... Hahaha!