My visit to Australia and New Zealand - II

The flight from Hyderabad to Singapore took about 3-1/2 hours and thereafter I had a halt for about 2 hours in Singapore airport before taking my connecting flight to Auckland. This was a 9-1/2 hour flight. I didn't expect such a long flight. Anyways, as luck would have it the flight was quite empty. I grabbed the opportunity and moved over to get a middle row of seats which were empty.

After a little while of the flight taking off I prepared myself to stretch and have a good nap. However, my nap was interrupted very early by a flight attendant asking if I wanted my meal. My request for serving my meal after a few hours was turned down with a answer that 'we cannot reserve the meals for so long'. I said what the heck, get me my meal right now. I scrolled on the menu options on the in-flight entertainment system and was happy to see the Hindi movie options. Me being me, I couldn't resist the urge of catching a Hindi movie and so postponed the nap by a little. The movie I saw was Dasvidaniya. I am glad that I did as it was truly a very nice movie. After that and my meal I did manage to get a nap. The cramped seats, seat belts and the partition handles didn't make my nap easy but it was certainly better than keeping myself seated on my single seat.

I manager to get a couple of hours rest and got up to realise that we had another 4-5 hours left. So it was movie time yet again. I watched Quantum of solace this time after which it was the Hindi movie EMI. I almost manager to finish this movie bu the flight attendant asked for the head sets prior to our landing. They even turned off the in-flight entertainment systems about 15mins.to landing. Wonder why the have to do such things. Can't we be entertained until we reach the gate after landing. I think it is Emirates that even takes the blankets away before landing. To hell with the cold!

Anyways, we touched down New Zealand soil pretty much on time. I was expecting a very posh looking airport but was surprised that it was a very ordinary looking simple airport. Guys coming from Auckland into Hyderabad would be expecting an ordinary airport and would be taken aback at the beauty of our airport. Well....getting back to New Zealand, the immigration was quick. However, there was a little delay in the customs as they wanted to check my sample box. This damn box always gets me delayed. Unfortunately, it is a must to carry this everywhere. I exited the airport in search of the hotel shuttle but found none and therefore took a taxi (with an Indian driver) and headed for my hotel.