Moscow 2011: Istanbul to Moscow

Moscow 2011: Istanbul to Moscow

• Introduction
• The low-cost part of the trip: Penang to Hong Kong
• Hong Kong “forced” layover
• 1^st time in first class: Hong Kong United and Thai First Lounge
• 1^st time in first class: Hong Kong to Bangkok
• The Thai F experience in Bangkok
• Bangkok to Dubai
• Dubai Layover
• Dubai to Istanbul
• Istanbul Layover
• Istanbul to Moscow
• Moscow
• Moscow to Frankfurt
• Frankfurt Layover
• Lufthansa First Class Terminal
• More 1^st Class – Frankfurt to Cairo
• Cairo Layover
• Cairo to Istanbul
• RIP THY 1^st class: Istanbul to Hong Kong
• Conclusion

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On reaching back to the airport, we had about 2 hours before our flight to Moscow. We hoped over to the lounge while we waited for our flight.  At this point, we were REALLY tired after not having any real sleep for the past ~24 hours.  The food and beverage selection was kind of ok and not too impressive - a couple of wines, beer and liquor with hot soup, sandwiches and a couple of local Turkish dessert and pastries. The shower was a disappointment as well with "paper disposable towels" being used instead the proper cloth towers (yuck!).  Lydia also had to endure the lights going on and off in the bath a couple of times.  What I did like about the lounge though was the design - it was big and airy.

Turkish pastries:

 Lydia in the lounge:

The departure gate for our flight was a 10 minute walk from our lounge.  We would also be bussed to our plane on this flight.  The flight was scheduled to be a A321 when we booked and I was surprised to see a 737-800 when the bus pulled up to the aircraft.  Looks like a last minute aircraft swap.  The seats on this plane were the Euro style business seats (the center seat is left empty) but were adequate for this 2.5 hour flight.  We were walking zombies when we got to the plane and we nodded off before even take off.  We woke up as we found menus being left for us and dinner was going to get served shortly.  Both of us were not too hungry but decided on eating anyway for "the experience".  After dinner, we went back to sleep and before we knew it, we heard the captain coming on the PA announcing that we will be arriving in Moscow shortly.  I woke up to views of white snow at the airport and after a ~24 hour trip with multiple stops, we were finally in Moscow tired but happy :)

Some pictures of food on this flight (sorry for the lack of pictures but as mentioned, we were too tired to take many pictures at this point):