Heaven with a superjumbo

[skyring]

Departures,
originally uploaded by skyring.

Saturday, 4 October 2008

4 October 2008
First Lounge, Sydney

A quick walk through Terminal 3 to the transfer point. I love that Metropolitan Museum of Art shop full of fascinating stuff, but I'll likely see the real deal next week and can get it cheaper there and not have to lug it around. Must bring something good back for the wife, and the usual block of exotic chocolate may not do it this time.



I usually contrive to arrive for the inter terminal transfer bus just after the previous one has left, windows full of happy faces smiling back at an anxious one pressed against the glass. This is important, because every moment spent here is one less moment not spent in the FLounge, and there is simply no comparison between the two places.



But I'm in luck this time around, and there's only a few minutes in those padbare seats before we're loaded into the bus, smiling at the cranky person waving his fist and left behind. I always like this journey, through the back areas of Qantas. What delights are hidden away in hangars, teams of sweating engineers tinkering with mighty jet engines, belting furiously with hammers and wrenches at balky video systems, or just having a quick fag at the back.

Quick flick through immigration (I've got a priority card for this, but traffic density is low and it confers no benefit) and then there's miles of duty free shops, none of them selling what I really want, which is a set of MacAir international adaptors. In addition, my camera has been sending me low battery signals since Canberra, and I buy some rechargeable batteries. And a charger. Sealed in hard plastic.

Isn’t airport security wonderful? They take away your knives and scissors and nail clippers and toothpicks. I’ve got no chance of ripping through the packaging with my freshly clipped nails.

Oh well, I'll deal with this later. I think I have a USB key that will take an edge if I can grind it against something hard for a bit.

Here's the sign for the Qantas lounges. And a discreet door with "First" on it.

My third time in this lounge, and I’m well over my initial sense of wonder. Time to savour the details. That incredible living wall as you walk in – greenery climbing and curving around to the escalators taking you up in the world. The doorman smiles as I pull out my camera, suggests the best place to stand, and moves a floor sign out of the way. Maybe others have been here before, and maybe they have paused for a picture.



It’s the details that make this lounge. The sense of clever design is everywhere. I never thought I’d find an airline lounge to rival Cathay Pacific’s exquisite Wing in Hong Kong, but it is here, now, setting a new standard.

There’s a departure board at the entrance. Not a video screen, but a retro clacking board straight out of the Sixties. My flight isn’t even listed – I’ve got a good two, nearly three hours here.

First things first. I have a private request for the lady on the desk.

“You’re not the first person to ask me that, sir. Let me look after it.”

Breakfast. Or second breakfast, if I count that muesli biscuit and plastic mango juice in seat 27A. First coffee anyway – I didn’t even get to taste the cup I poured in Canberra when they switched my flight, and the turbulence ruled out hot drinks in flight

Here it’s the coffee they drink in Heaven, not something out of an autoespresso. This is the cup of delight, made by a barista smiling out behind a bunch of exotic flowers.



And breakfast to match. I don’t often get perfect eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. Mushrooms and the ultimate grilled tomato. It’s tender and juicy when I get it in my mouth, but cutting it into bites with my plastic knife is a sweet struggle. I’ll never order steak in this restaurant.



There’s a smiling presence beside me. The young lady from the front counter with my battery recharger, freshly released from its plastic prison. And a nearby power outlet to plug it into.

I look up for a moment, and there’s Qantas’s newest toy, the massive Airbus A380, just pulling into a gate outside the panoramic lounge windows. I’m in planespotter heaven.



I could stretch breakfast out until lunchtime, easy.

But I take the last of my coffee to a workstation near the library. As a BookCrosser and ex-bookseller, I have a duty to release one book each day, and this one’s an easy themed release: The Power of Pleasure. Look for it in the Flounge library.

The library itself is exquisite. All those coffee table books you could never afford? Well, they are here. Sit down with a coffee and leaf through them, sighing with happiness.

I recognize my limitations. If I settled down with these books, I’d surely miss my flight, no matter if it was next week.

There’s free wireless internet and I catch up with emails, pausing to watch now and then as a jet rolls down the runway, soaring up over Botany Bay with amazing grace. Even the A380, the size of an office building, makes it into the air with ridiculous ease.

All too soon my time in heaven is done. I retrieve my recharger, take a last glance around this superb lounge, pose beside my flight on the departure board, and I sink slowly down the escalator, back to the world of normal people.