Posted on June 9, 2008 - by trisnadi
Let the holiday begin! Bye bye Sydney
Our flight to Singapore/Japan was scheduled to depart at 8.30am and we decided to go to the airport rather early so that we wouldn’t have to rush. It rained quite heavily that morning and we watched the storm clouds from the foodcourt window as we ate our breakfast (Raisin toast & coffee from Krispy Kreme – sad, i know).
We were very excited to be on board the A380 and loved every minute of it. My eyes were hurting because we’d been lacking sleep for several days, so I couldn’t watch the movies for too long. I tried to read the Nikon D80 camera’s manual but found myself falling asleep after a few pages. Luckily the inflight entertainment system also features “educational” stuff, so I decided to learn Japanese language and read information about Japan. T on the other hand made the most out of the in-seat power supply and did some last minute work stuff before switching to “holiday” mode.
We arrived at Changi International Airport – Terminal 3 at around 2pm. We got off the plane and took some photos of the plane from the boarding ramp before entering the terminal. We saw other passengers were taking similar shots. I guess they were impressed too! Changi Terminal 3 is huge and has closer resemblance to a shopping centre than an airport. The ceilings were designed to utilise natural light during the day and yet keep the heat out. Exclusive (read: expensive) stores also at the ready to serve you should you wish to shop for items like Vertu, Chopard, Mont Blanc, etc.
The terminal is so huge that it has its own monorail inside the terminal running every 3 minutes to take you to departure gates located towards the end of the terminal (in our case it can take up to 16 minutes to walk there – by using monorail we got there in 5 minutes)
I loved the koi ponds – HUGE koi fish kept coming up to the surface with their mouth opened wide. They probably thought we were going to feed them because we visited the pond close to their feeding time. You can easily find resting areas, free internet connections, yummy foods, glorious shops…and the toilets…ach, the toilets…some have views to the tarmac area, and there’s one in the centre (for ladies) which features a section that looks like a salon but without the hairdressers and equipments, plus 2 change rooms. Nice!
We had several hours to kill before our next flight to Japan, so we decided to go to the city to meet up with T’s friend. We took the MRT to Orchard Road and ate prawn mee (recommended by H). At first I thought it would be tasteless because it looked bland, but it turned out to be delicious! A small serve was enough for both of us. I can’t imagine how big the large serving is. We sussed out several shops as we waited for T’s friend, then we went to a cafe in Borders (it’s much nicer than the usual Gloria Jeans counters we have in Sydney) for a quick meal before heading back to the airport.
The next flight to Narita was at 11.40pm. We were extremely tired by then and my eyes were sore, so we slept as soon as the plane took off. Mind you, the flight was on the ‘normal’ 737-400 airplane (ie. small sized monitors) so we couldn’t be bothered to watch any movie. I was a bit annoyed as a stewardess woke us up at around 1.30am for “light refreshment”. Breakfast was served around 4 hours later and my stomach was confused.
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