Friday, October 21, 2005

Online around the world

Ten days now since I left Singapore on my 10th around-the-world trip. First time travelling West, by the way. So now I can recommend everyone: if you do this, travel East - much less jetlag.

Anyway, one has to stay online. What did I do to achieve that? A small list of the last few days:

1. Departure on Singapore/Changi Airport: excellent wireless connection. Paid access, unless you're in the Singapore Airlines lounge where it's free. They use the same network but provide you with a user name and password.
2. Netherlands: staid with Marcel, a good friend. Marcel has broadband, I travel with my wireless travel router. So within 5mins of arrival Marcel's house had a wireless network.
3. Singapore Airlines flight 26 from Frankfurt to New York: SIA is rolling out internet on board, and this flight is one of the first ones that has it. SQ26 is a daytime flight so this is a Godsend. Quite a decent connection, too. Can't wait till the whole SQ fleet has it!
4. "W" Hotel, New York: terrible hotel with dcesigner interior featuring black walls in the corridors. Suppose it goes well with the Madison Avenue clientele's wardrobe but it's a hellhole to wlk into. Decent broadband in the rooms, though.
5. La Guardia Airport: took a temporary T-Mobile subscription. They have a lot of hotspots and I have some destinations to go in the US. Not terribly fast but doable. Needed it, too - flight delayed for seven hours!
6. Atlanta Marriott: you can't send faxes abroad (see previous post) but at least they have broadband in the rooms. As always, wireless router enables me to move around in the room. Terribly slow connection, though.
7. Atlanta's Georgia World Congress Center: big convention center, paid access. No T-mobile, unfortunately. Too bad.
8. Chicago's O'Hare International: T-Mobile once again. Nice and fast, too. I also finally send my fax, the one the Atlanta Marriott couldn't dial abroad, three pages: $10.45!
9. St Paul, Minnesota: great connection at local Dunn Bros Coffee Shop. Glorious sunshine, fresh tang in the air, trees in dazzling autumn colours, good coffee, speedy wireless: what more can you want?

Next stop Denver, Colorado. Then LAX, and the new nonstop SQ plane to Singapore. To be continued.

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