Brisbane: Christmas 2019
The final view of Brisbane's many bridges was sunrise over Story Bridge, which was... underwhelming. Not the bridge or the city's fault, the weather simple was not conductive to a beautiful sunrise.
Found out that if everywhere was closed on Christmas Day, everywhere was just as closed at 6am on Boxing Day. Breakfast plans were a bust, both Brunswick Mall and Bakery Lane in Fortitude Valley were completely closed. Fortunately the Brisbane Airport food court was in full swing, with a surprising variety of Asian restaurants inside. Roll'd was mediocre Vietnamese spring rolls and Upper Westside Deli was terrible meat pies, but the fact that the airport had terrible food was no surprise. *grins*
Uneventful BNE-SYD flight and an uneventful layover at Sydney International Airport. Turns out the food court options, especially pre-security in the international terminal, are a lot like a scaled-up version of BNE. The same Vietnamese spring roll place with the same mediocre spring rolls, sushi that looked even less appetizing than BNE's sushi, a Hungry Jack's, etc. Post-security at SYD, things get much nicer, with a massive duty-free and a high end shopping area close to the quality and size as Tom Bradley International Terminal at LAX. Individual gate areas out of the main shopping area even get small and depressing, like TBIT.
Same flight crew for SYD-SFO as it was for SFO-SYD the day before, albeit on a different airplane, 777-300ER #2134 instead of the newer #2140. And this time... United forgot to load paper menus-- the crew was very apologetic about that. The Tasmanian salmon was actually quite good for airplane food, as was the pre-arrival friatta and sausage. Unfortunately the flight today was even more bumpy than the previous one, with nearly 14 hours of turbulence the entire way across the Pacific.
That said the crew handled it well, and despite the turbulence, it was a surprisingly pleasant flight back. The Polaris lounge at SFO is excellent as always (do a u-turn from the escalator to sit in a non-crowded area), even if SFO itself was besotted by delays. The airplane for the final flight of the trip was so broken that United ended up pulling a spare from the hangar, although by that time I had already boarded an alternate flight home.