Mark's Wildlife and Adventures Blog

Hi, i have updated my blog to nearly up to date, i went to Wales the weekend before but its a bit late to sort out 300 photos with only 3 days to go. Will post those another time, its nearly time to go now! Iam very excited as i have never been to Thailand before. Iam flying with my friend that i met at college 10 years ago. He is from thailand which helps with the language barrier and also to help me understand some of the culture before i go which is very useful.

We are flying Business class on Eva Air, my friend likes going on Eva Air because it suits his vegetarian needs better than BA or Virgin or even Thai Airways! He likes Business class because he dosent fancy being cramped in *cattle class* for 12 hours which dosent bother me, but then again i must remember iam quite short and my friend is quite tall so it would obvuously discomfort him more if we flew in Economy class.

I was amazed at how flying on Eva Air in Business class is much cheaper than an economy class ticket to Cape Town! This might be due to Cape Towns convienient time zones, only passing two and the school summer holidays and christmas holidays there at the same time. I think going to Thailand at Christmas might be equally expensive if we went at that time. October is like end of season so i guess its one of the cheapest times to fly.

Here is a photo of an Eva Air 747-400 source from google search.


And the Seating map here, i have seat 21C which is an aisle seat but not far from the window. As i take off at 21:35 Friday evening i donr really need to worry about a window seat and i can get out and move around more easily with an aisle seat.

I land at Bangkok, Capital of Thailand at 15:05 local time which is 6 hours ahead of UK time. Hopefully it will be on time.

Here is the seatmap i sourced from seatguru.com, i think its ok to post things if i say where the source is from hopefully! If its not i can remove it and just put the link.


Its really exciting and i fly back on October 18th, taking off from Bangkok at 12:50 local time and arriving back at Heathrow at 19:15 local UK time. Are you getting jealous of me now? lol

Here are my three Ratties having their favourite treats. They are doing really well together and Shadow and Sandy are nearly 2 years old now and going really well, i think Bella is about 8 months younger than them.

Bella.


Shadow.


Sandy.


Bella likes to pose with me on my shoulder.



Photos taken a couple of weeks ago, i washed their cage yesterday so that they are nice and fresh while iam away and i make sure they are going to get fed and watered and looked after while iam in Thailand which is good. I do miss my pets while iam away but always look forward to their cheerful faces when i return home.

I was going to say they have not been on my blog for a while then i realised they are always at the top with me on the top right side of the blog page

While i was in the garden the other week, i noticed this *eye* looking at me..... The Sunflower didnt get as much sun as it wanted but had a nice time and its still there, i need to collect its seeds soon for next year.


Hope you enjoy the photos.

This will include on the way back to Victoria aswell. We got to Greenwich Planetarium and found out that the shows are every hour on the hour and had 20 minutes to wait until the next show which was good. I had my photo taken outsidethis telescope thing which looked cool


The Planetarium was on top of a tall hill which is fun to climb, you get a bit tired but its worth it! From up here you can see the Millenium Dome, now called the 02 Arena but i think it was better known as the Millenium Dome.


This is a nice area of London, nice amount of greenery, sometimes you forget you are in a city! It has stunning views of Canary Wharf aswell and the London Eye can still be seen which was very cool. Here is a photo i took of the Greenwich wheel with Canary Wharf in the background. Its land name is the Isle of Dogs, iam not quite sure why its called that.


I like to pose for the camera a lot


Here is the Meridian Clock, it operates in GMT - Greenwich Mean Time, this is the place where GMT comes from which was very interesting. This clock has 24 hours on it instead of the usual clocks which have 12 which made it very interesting to look at.


The Planetarium experience was very good, we had a rather humorous Austrian person who was making jokes like * if you are afraid of the dark, hold hands wiith the person next to you!,...... If you do not know the person next to you, maybe now is the time to chat and get to know them!!!* This was very funny and i couldnt help chuckling a bit

The star projector was more advanced than the one in Chichester, our local one, because it had the ability to zoom into the stars and was more modern, the one in Chichester was older but still very good.

Afterwards, we made our way back down the hill, going down was much easier! and to the Greenwich Wheel. It was quite quiet here aswell and me and Mum got a pod to ourselves.


This wheel was faster but you get 4 rotations per go, that is you get to go round 4 times which was good. It was half the size of the London Eye but with fantastic views of the area too.


We can see the London Eye from here! It makes London look tiny but in reality, we only went a short distance from it.


When it was time to get off, we went under the Thames! You can go via this lift that takes you under a walkway and its quite fun! We did get a bit worried about the wetness in the middle with the drip, drip drip of water but it was fine and we made it,


At the other end, we got on the Docklands Light Railway to an underground station and went to St Pauls and got off and went to look at the Cathedral and i had my photo taken next to it. It looked very grand and i crossed the road very carefully to try and get most of the building into the camera frame!



After that, we went to cross the bridge that used to wobble a lot when it was first opened! No matter how i jumped to try and make it move, it didnt budge which was just as well really.


Then we went back on the underground to Victoria station and had dinner at Whetherspoons there before catching our train home. We had a really great time and it was an excellent Birthday treat for me. I took a photo of the train departure board at Victoria too.


I really enjoyed my Birthday treat and iam glad i went on the 1st as it was raining all day on the 5th which was my Birthday but i didnt mind as i had my treat earlier. Here is a photo of my Birthday Cake, it was VERY yummy!


Hope you all enjoyed that as much as i did. Its not long until my holiday now, 6 days to go!

For my Birthday treat, me and Mum went to London on the train as i wanted to go on the London Eye, i have been on it before when it first opened but didnt have a decent camera back then so it was great to go on it again. It was a lovelly sunny day and we got to London Victoria station at 10am and went on the underground to Westminster station. As it was September 1st, the main tourist traffic was gone so it was a good time to go.

After arriving at Westminster station, we got off and went to ground level and crossed Westminster Bridge and the London Eye was standing tall in the sunshine. We planned to go when the weather was decent too which was good.

Part of the London Eye, for those who might not know what it is, its like a giant Ferris Wheel although it dosent go quite as fast as one!


Me getting ready to go on, there was no queue which was great! When it first opened, we had to queue for about an hour as it was so popular.


Big Ben and the houses of Parliament, where they are thinking of new ways on how to take our cash more!


View from higher up.


The *flight* takes about 30 minutes as it gradually goes round and i took loads of photos and will show the best ones here, it was nice to see so far away in all diections, seeing major attractions such as Canary Wharf, Tate Modern, Battersea, Thames, MI5 and MI6 to the east, the Queen's Palace all from a nice skyview vantage point.

View looking towards Canary Wharf.


Nice view of Big Ben looking not so big.


Here is an example of that bus stop waiting saying, Three come at once on this Bridge below!


The Queen's residence, i couldnt see her peeking out the window though, maybe she was asleep!


London is really beautiful and its amazing from the air, the planes approaching Heathrow Airport can be seen flying close by which is cool.


It was soon time to get off again and we had our photo taken just as we were pulling in, you know like when a theme park ride reaches the top and suddenly plummets and your photo is taken> it was like that and i bought a photo and a key ring and fridge magnet of it too.

Here is a photo of the London Eye after we got off, i really enjoyed it. Now we are going to go on a boat downstream on the River Thames heading eastwards to Greenwich. This will be in part Two. Hope you enjoyed it so far!



I did do a little film but found out i only did about 10 seconds so wasnt really worth uploading but nevermind i really enjoyed my ride.

Wow after 10 parts the journey will soon be over and i will be back home again! I had such a great time and here is the return trip home. I took several photos of planes at the Terminal 3 stands before i went to my flight, here they are.

BMI Baby 737-300.


easyJet A320, this one was formerly with GB Airways/BA and i flew on this one long ago in 2004!


BA 737-400 being readied for its flight back to Gatwick Airport.


A Thomas Cook A321 landing on 23R.


A Flybe E145 pushing back, you can see the Aviation Viewing |Park and Concorde in the background.


When it was 15 minutes until boarding, i asked a flight dispatcher which gate will my flight BE7370 will be departing from, he told me it was gate 144, the gate i was currently at was gate 44 so i quickly made my way down to it. Then i found out my plane was a Dash 8 Q400, and one i have flown on before! G-JEDO, i flew it from Southampton to Leeds back in 2006 to a friends wedding, nice to see it again.

My plane G-JEDO.


The flight dispatcher in charge of my flight was very kind and took a photo of me on the aircraft steps as i boarded the plane, i said thanks to him.

Me about to board flight BE7370, G-JEDO.


The cabin on the Dash 8 is a bit wider than the E145, i took my seat and had a passenger next to me while i had the window seat yay! The flight attendats welcomed us on board and the captain thanked us for arriving on time and we were able to start up 5 minutes early which was good.

Video of the huge propeller starting up.



View of another Dash 8 from my window seat just as we begin to taxi to Runway 23L for takeoff.


Video of the takeoff, we had to cross 23R and wait a bit first, the two chimes you hear are the pilots signalling to the cabin crew that takeoff is imminent.



The takeoff was nice and fast and very quick and soon we were soaring in the sky towards the cloud layer and broke through to brilliant sunshine!

The huge propeller at cruising height above the clouds in sunshine.


The cabin is half empty which is nice.


Here is a video of Foxy enjoying his flight home!



And a photo of him too!


Also a photo of me on board aswell.


It was a very quick flight, only around 35 minutes again, nice and quick and soon we began our descent into Southampton Airport, leaving the lovelly sunshine behind above the clouds, aww, which i didnt see the sun again until the weekend!!!

Bye bye Sunshine!


Here is a video of the landing in Southampton.



It was a short taxi to the gate at Southampton Airport and we parked next to one of Flybe's new E190 jets which was nice.

Flybe E190 viewed from my window seat.


When everyone was getting off the plane, i made sure i had all of my things and took a quick photo of one of the flight attendants on the empty aircraft, they had to hurry because they had to fly to Edinburgh in 30 minutes!

Quick photo of the empty cabin and flight attendant posing.


I walked off the aircraft and through the Terminal gate entrance to the baggage reclaim area where i only had to wait a few moments for my luggage to arrive, very efficient i thought. I made my way to arrivals and met my Mum and i told her i had such a great time. We went back to the car and drove back to Bognor, it only takes about 40 minutes and then i was home again!

Being back home after being away on holiday feels strange because, i guess its that holiday feeling and the *back to normal now* reality of things, but i had such a great time and it was fun looking through all my photos and videos.

I hope you all enjoyed my 10 part Manchester Holiday trip report as much as i did! Next post will be Shoreham Airshow 30th August 2008!