Flight from JFK to Zurich and Bangkok with 7 hours layover, January 25th-27th:
Our flight from JFK was scheduled for 9:10 pm on Saturday night (LX 15). We live in Crown Heights with 2 cars and we didn't want to ask from family members to keep moving our cars for alternate side parking. I made 2 round trips to the
Ohel in Queens the previous Thursday and Friday to bring the 2 cars and park them there and ask also a blessing from the
Rebbe for a safe trip. We could've gone on Saturday night first to the
Ohel with the 2 cars and then to the airport but then it would've been too stressful and we'll have to rush after
shabbos.
All our luggage were ready before
shabbos. After
shabbos, we quickly made
Havdola, showered and packed the last items including YO Yogurts for my daughter from the fridge. All other food items were dry items.
We took an Uber to the airport and arrive around 7 pm at JFK. They quickly printed our boarding passes, took our luggage and we went to the TSA pre line that was emptier than the priority line. I don't have myself TSA but always make sure to put my daughter under my ticket and I usually get it automatically.
The Swiss lounge was under renovation so they told us to go to the Etihad lounge instead.
We ordered 2 Mojito but I drank most of both
We saw already a few
Chasidishe Yidden in the lounge so we knew that there will be
Yidden in the business cabin.
I reserved in advance the bulkhead seats 6 D-G and at my right (6K, maybe you read this
) it was a
yid. (the best seats on the A333 and B777 are 4 & 5 as they are together with First but it's reserved for Senator & HON circle members or 24 hours before departure).
We flew on the A333 which is a bit different and older than the LX B777 but overall it looks the same.
They brought us some toys for the baby (We got also in the 2nd leg so I kept 1 aircraft for myself
)
We slept a good portion of the flight, my daughter slept together with my wife.
The KSML was Borenstein (VK) on this flight, the meat from the main dish was good.
Before they served breakfast pretty much everyone davened in their seat, the Europeans didn't seem to like it, but who cares.
After landing we went to buy train tickets to the city and we headed to
Maadan Bakery.
We sat at a table and ordered a few items; 2 coffees, a smoothie, a salad, a bread, and a croissant sandwich for $43. I asked the lady there to warm up my lox croissant and she refused, then when she saw that I'm insisting she grabbed it from my hands and gave me a bad attitude. Unfortunately, I'm too used to the bad European service but this was surprisingly bad, thankfully, that was the only bad service we got during our trip.
I have a T-MOBILE family plan with unlimited 2G data and text in 210 countries so I had minimum data wherever I went. Enough to use the map and some texting.
We then went back to the train to go to
Uetliberg which has trays and nice lookouts to the whole city. We took the small tray and went to the top. Our daughter was sleeping comfortably in the yoyo and it was a sunny day. It was interesting to see many small families with children coming there for a Sunday outing. You could've seen the family values they have and how well behaved the children are, things that you observe only when you're a parent yourself.
We took some pictures and headed back to the train station that will take us to the airport.
It was still 3 hours before the flight and we went to the Business lounge E. It's a very spacious lounge with floor to ceiling glass windows on both sides of the lounge and an outdoor area that you can watch the planes.
I had some phone calls to do to my customers and the time was perfect to call NY in the morning. I went to one of the call room and had some work done.
We went then to take a shower, you need to give them the boarding passes and they give a key to one of the showers room. The shower was large and very modern. One sure thing is that it was the highlight of Swiss air for my wife.
We then went to our flight and had the seats 8 D-G. I selected months in advance the bulkhead seats but in September they change the flight schedule by 5 minutes and that caused the removal of my selected seats. I realized only a month before the flight what happened but it was too late. Luckily I got at JFK 2 seats with direct aisle access as the flight was full.
The B77 was more modern and seats were a bit more spacious but I could've felt the smaller legroom (I'm 6'1).
My daughter got more toys.
Sometimes I'm wondering if the toys were for my daughter or for me
The food wasn't good but I got a small Barkan wine and smoked fish that made me very happy.
Breakfast with some French cheese.
Second
Shacharis after only 12 hours.
We landed in Bangkok and saw that everyone was wearing a mask because of the virus...not so reassuring but there was no way I would change my trip as I spent so much time and energy to make it perfect (and I went to the
Ohel also).
We cleared immigration pretty fast and took our luggage. I knew I had to withdraw cash for the taxi so I went to the nearest ATM and withdrew 1500 Baht. I used my Sofi card that I transferred money from my checking account a week before (I opened in October and made a few $100's in referrals) and they automatically refunded me the 220 Baht ATM fees I was charged. It was my first time trying Sofi for an ATM and I was very impressed by how fast they refunded it.
I opened the grab app and ordered a taxi SUV (I checked before the trip how can I pay and the only way was to top up with AliPay, that's why I needed the cash, and the app lets pay in cash at the end of the trip).
I was pretty impressed by how everything went very smoothly on a continent that we're visiting for the first time.
The taxi arrived after 5 minutes to our arrival gate, it was a nice Toyota SUV and we drove to the St Regis Bangkok. The trip cost was 619 Baht.
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