Monday, June 10, 2013

RTW Trip: Day 104-(half of) 105 (6/7-6/8) - Singapore and Its Airline



Day 104-(half of)105: The Long Haul

One of my favorite parts of this trip before it started was that in my first United mileage iteration, I saw that I could potentially get basically a full day in Singapore as I went home. Many people have asked me, as I told them that I was flying Singapore back to the US from India, why I would do such a thing, why I would intentionally select the far, far longer option (one of my alternatives was a United direct flight from Mumbai to Newark, but there were options on Swiss and Lufthansa, airlines I regard quite highly, as well as Turkish (an airline I haven’t taken), and a slew of United/Lufthansa combinations. Anyway, I chose this Singapore jaunt because, first, I was given the most glowing recommendation possible about Singapore Airlines from my Dad. Secondly, like Hell I was going to take United to end my trip. Talk about ending on a low note. Third, who would pass down a day in Singapore? Fourth, I would never pass down an opportunity to take an A380 (although, Lufthansa would have given me my 2nd favorite plane, the A340-600). Fifth, I don’t want to take United (I can’t stress this enough – and I think United is the best of the three main US airlines). Sixth, this is the one time in my life (as far as I know) where I can laze my way back to the US. Time was no constraint. It was either get in Friday afternoon, or get in Saturday morning with a day in Singapore. If I can risk a day, I’ll take the latter every time (of course, it helped that because this was on mileage, the Mumbai-Singapore-Frankfurt-New York route was not a single mile more than the Mumbai-Newark route. When I can get a day in Singapore, take one of the best airlines in the world on the world’s largest plane, and do it all for no more cost than it would have been to take United on a different, less exciting plane, I’m doing it.

Of course, I didn’t know then that when I decided to combine the two trips (the Australia-Japan part was originally its own trip from the US), I would get another quasi-full day in Singapore on the way to Melbourne. Still, I love Singapore. It’s about as far as any place can get from the US (a place like Perth would be farther, but no one’s clamoring to go non-stop to Perth), so getting to go to Singapore twice is just the cherry on top of this whole thing. I had one image in my mind when I first booked the first mileage ticket (New York-Johannesburg/Johannesburg-HCMC via Bangkok/Mumbai-New York via Singapore), and it was on the final day of my trip, eating a messy but incredible black pepper crab at the East Coast Seafood Center in Singapore, and then going to the cab driver at the Taxi stand and telling him ‘Changi Airport’, and while I told him that, I would be telling myself ‘Home’. That was the ppicture, that was the goal, and while it didn’t go exactly as planned, that’s what happened, and I can’t thank enough the weird mileage rules that United has enough.

Before I get to Singapore, I still have to, in the literal sense, get to Singapore. That flight was on Singapore Airline’s B777-300ER. I still am questioning myself why I decided to take Singapore Airlines fewer times than Thai Airways. What I should have done is take Singapore from Japan to Bangalore, instead of the All Nippon/Thai combo, but the allure of taking ANA weighed too heavily. Singapore’s plane for some reason couldn’t gate at one of the jetbridges in Mumbai, and instead set up shop in the (for now) unoperable section of Chhatrapaji Shivaji. The airport itself is going under a massive rebuild that is about 75% complete. It’s a daunting project, made even more so because they are basically building the new airport around and through the old one. This was my first good look at the new airport, and it looks great. I’m sure, being India, it won’t turn out to be as nice as it looks from the outside, but it was about time that the International Airport at CSIA got updated.

The Mumbai to Singapore flight is only 5.5 hours, which is squarely in that too-long to stay awake the whole time but too-short to get a good sleep, as you only have about 4 hours by the time the meal service and drink service is done. I chose the Indian option of meal of Chicken Biryani. It was very well cooked. It wasn’t the Lamb Biryani I once had on Etihad, but that’s lamb and this is chicken – it would have been impossible for the chicken to win out. One of my favorite parts of my experience on Singapore Airlines is they put out a good product even on the out-of-India flights, which are notoriously filled with lesser crew members and generally lesser service (this is a bigger problem in the into-India flights – there’s a reason I got the Lamb Biryani on the New York to Abu Dhabi leg, and not the Abu Dhabi to Mumbai leg), but the Singapore product was great. They even have one of their better planes on the route. I’m actually (for once) writing this in semi-real time, so I’ll see if the true’ Long Haul’ from Singapore to JFK confirms my opinion of Singapore Airlines enough to raise it above Etihad.

The plane arrived in Singapore around 8:00 AM, and since I didn’t get a lot of sleep and since this wasn’t my only day in Singapore on the trip, I decided to sleep for a bit. I was busy walking around Terminal 3 to find a capable sleeping spot, and right around the time where I was getting dismayed, I saw a sign for a ‘Snooze Lounge’ which was on the second level. The ‘Snooze Lounge’ is exactly as it seems, an area on the upper floor that has about 20 lounge chairs perfect for sleeping in, with a view of the airport beyond. If I could design a perfect thing to put in all airports, this would be it. Man, is Changi pretty much the perfect airport.

I finally awoke from my slumber around 11:00 and again went through immigration as the only person. This time, the immigration lady remarked on the fact I was going through immigration three hours after my plane landed, but I told her simply that I needed my sleep. She asked me why I chose to come through Singapore on my way home from Mumbai, and I gave her a less wordy reason than I did at the top of this piece. Soon, I was out of the airport, just after I checked my carry-on bag for a scant 3.21 SD for the entire day (is there anything this airport isn’t great at?), and was off on my way.

The one negative of doing my days in Singapore like this is I can’t really experience nighttime in Singapore proper. Because of this, my various plans of what to do was somewhat limited. I decided first to venture to Holland Village, a largely expatriate area of Singapore that specializes in food of various international cuisines, all of high quality. Somehow, I settled on Mexican, as it was the most crowded, and had my prawn enchilada, which was as good as any I would get in the US, and a San Miguel draft, which I assumed was some strange Mexican beer they were importing, but was instead a strange Filipino beer that they were importing. Suffice to say, I have no more reason to go to the Philippines after drinking the beer than I had before it. The food was delivered quickly and soon I was on my way to do the only tourist attraction I wanted to do a second time.

I don’t know what it is about animals, but I’ve spent way too much time on this trip at Aquariums and Bird Parks than anyone normally would. Of course, I like these places. Aquariums were attractive partly because they were air conditioned (that was one of the largest selling points in KL), but I had already been to the Jurong Bird Park in West Singapore on my trip in 2012. Still, I knew I wanted to go back. That bird park is just so well organized, so well set up, that it was a surprising highlight of my first trip. The one problem with the Bird Park is it is located on the total opposite side of the island as the airport, and I have to take a cab from the nearest MRT station, but none of this put me off.

I arrived just as they were starting some show, but as you might imagine, the show was aimed at kids who are far too young for me (but the perfect age for the park, I would admit). The last time I went to the park I ended up walking uphill for much of it, so this time I decided to do it backwards, and my sweat glands thanked me greatly for that decision. The park was as nice as I remembered. It didn’t have the free-for-all birds-all-over-the-place nature of the KL Bird Park, but there’s a certain calmness and trueness in separating the birds into their normal places. The one notable section was seeing the Emu area. These Emus, kept inside a medium-height cage, were far less feisty and, to be honest, scary as those on Phillip Island. When I was done, I took a cab back to the nearest MRT, and headed back into town proper.

My plan was to walk around the waterfront, where the Lionhead statue and bridge reside, and all the main financial buildings, which creates an imposing little skyline towering above. After that, the plan was to hop over to Boat and/or Clarke Quay (it’s really hard to tell where one begins and the other ends) for a brew or two. Well, because of the intricacies of MRT pricing, it was cheaper to go to Clarke Quay first, which helped because it would space out my afternoon Irish Tea with my dinner at East Coast Seafood. I was going to go back to Brewerkz, the craft brewery I went to last time, but was stopped cold with a buy 1 get 1 free draft beer deal at this other place on the way.

 They had a nice selection of draft beer from different smaller European breweries (the most mainstream was Hoegarden, the least mainstream was bizarrely mainstream, called Berekdter, which is of course what I got). Going with the half pint options, I was able to try two of the Berekdter and two of the Cider they had on tap as well, and added that a small portion of Lamb Kofta Kebab (one of their happy-hour mini plates), and it was a great late lunch early dinner. I’m eating way too much today, and have already reserved myself to that fact.

From there, I went on my walk, partly to sober up and partly to get some exercise to make me the slightest bit hungry by the time dinner comes around. The walk to the heart of Singapore is quick, but still impressive, as most things are in Singapore. I saw a deal a travel agency was giving for a reduced rate on the Singapore Flyer. The Singapore Flyer is the large Ferris Wheel that Singapore uses as its competitor to the London Eye. The Singapore Flyer is not really affordable in general, but the deal made it slightly more so. I had quite a bit of Singapore dollars that remained from my unfortunate turn at the Singapore Hold ‘Em table, so I decided to go for it. The view atop the flyer was incredible, but the most haunting, and most ominous, part of the view was the dark storm clouds brewing overhead.

Storm clouds happen basically all the time in Singapore, but they gave me caution for my planned dinner on the waterfront at the East Coast Seafood Center. From the flyer I walked back across to the City Center, near the infamous Raffles Building, and went inside the MRT. Bedok was the destination, the second to final stop on the East West MRT line. I knew Bedok because it is the closest MRT station to the East Coast Seafood Center. Almost directly above it, the map gave me the impression that it was sort of walking distance. I learned later how stupid and uninformed that notion was, but it is still the closest MRT station. With the popularity of the East Coast Seafood Center, I’m surprised there isn’t one that is closer, but that’s the way it is.

I got into the cab over to the East Coast Seafood Center, and made a beeline for Jumbo and Long Beach Seafood, the two most famous places at the Center. I decided to start with Long Beach, as the last time I was in Singapore I gave Jumbo my business, but Long Beach told me I would have to wait at least an hour for an outdoor table. No way was I going to go for that, so I headed over to Jumbo where the accommodated me immediately. Of course, it started raining and they ushered all of us that were seated outside. Somehow, they were able to conjure enough seats to fit all of us, and soon I was under a roof, but still with a good view of the Harbor in front and the planes descending into Changi overhead.

Because I wanted to get rid of my remaining Singapore Dollars, and because it was the last meal of the trip, I decided to order a Grilled Whelk appetizer as well as the Black Pepper Crab, and while the Grilled Whelk was good, the crab was something special. I’m not sure how they make it so good. It shouldn’t be that complicated, but somehow it is so that only that one place in the world has it at that quality. Somehow I was able to not make any sort of mess. Some of it was me sucking the black pepper sauce off of my fingers at steady intervals, but the other part was that they don’t douse that in gravy. I tried to take as long as I could with the crab, savor each bite, and make that meal last forever.

It didn’t of course, but I did get to say ‘Changi Airport’ to the cab driver, and tell myself “Going Home” in my head. Before I knew it, I was in Changi airport, and past immigration and walking around their beautiful T3. 25 minutes earlier I was finishing paying the bill at Jumbo. I thought the process at Changi would take more time, so I had a lot of time on my hands. Not the greatest thing when you have 22 hours in a plane to come. Soon enough, we boarded our A380-800, our home for the next day. I settled into my seat (after getting switched to make room for a family of 3), and we were off on our flight to Frankfurt.

Singapore Airlines is about as good as I could have imagined, in the end. Their service was constant and impressive, with two full meals and a large snack in the middle of the twelve hour flight to Frankfurt. They mixed a damn good scotch and soda as well. Their seats recline more than most, and their movie selection was great as usual. I slept through about half of the twelve hour flight to Frankfurt, my last night flight of the trip, and around 8 am we reached Frankfurt. Because of the fact that the US loves to check people’s feet in security, the handful of us that were continuing on to New York had to deplane, go through security and get back in with all the people flying just the Frankfurt-New York leg. I was shocked how many people weren’t continuing to New York (easily 80% of the plane). I guess there are just as easy ways to get to New York from Singapore on other airlines (going through Dubai takes less time, even), but everyone on the plane seemed to speak German. Before entering the transit lounge, I was asked to step aside and have my bags checked. I immediately felt that this was some profiling, but most of the people they chose to rummage through their baggage were white. Soon I was entering the plane, the final of my thirty flights and the final part of my trip.

About Me

I am a man who will go by the moniker dmstorm22, or StormyD, but not really StormyD. I'll talk about sports, mainly football, sometimes TV, sometimes other random things, sometimes even bring out some lists (a lot, lot, lot of lists). Enjoy.