Welcome!
This is the first of my weekly posts chronicling my trip to Singapore. Now, this post includes an introduction, while the others will just include a date and day at the top. Just wanted to warn you of the change in format from here on in.
I traveled from Omaha to Singapore to take a nine day vacation with my girlfriend, Nicole, and to visit with my sister, Ruth, who lives there with her husband, Norm, and two children, Winnie and Jasper. Given that this trip was part visit, part vacation with quite a few names to throw around, I figured I would give you a quick ‘who’s who’ in the situation room. Expect to get a few of my internal thoughts, as this was essentially a journal I kept as we went along, and some pictures to go with this expedition to and through Singapore.
But, this is the boring part. The interesting bits are below, beginning with day one: the flight.
Day One: August 25th, 2015
The day of travel. Nicole and I are up at the asscrack of dawn (also known as 4am and 4:30am) for a shower and finding the last minute stuff we needed to do/pack/prepare for our trip to Singapore. We leave with my former Roommate a touch earlier than intended and arrived at Omaha’s airport right close 6am (3 hours before our departure). This is a call I made wanting to make sure we have time to get through check-in and security with ample time for our international flight. I severely overestimated the time required.
A couple of teddies we picked up for my niece and nephew.
Twenty minutes later we’re sitting by our gate waiting for the plane to come around. Our flight from Omaha to Chicago is nothing really worth writing about. As smooth as can be expected and we’re up and down in an hour and a half. We mosey our way through O’Hare and are required to leave the terminal and reenter the international terminal, and a second trip through security. A minor headache (and anxiety for Nicole), but nothing truly worth stressing over. We’ve nothing to hide and no real worries about being caught with anything we shouldn’t have. We breach security with practiced ease and meander our way over to the departure terminal for Seoul Korea and wait once more. The flight arrives on time and we board.
They’re traveling with us.
Whilst waiting in line, two lines even, a woman in the opposite line of us took a spill. She was wearing an extremely heavy hiker’s backpack and her leg (one she’d injured ice skating 6-8 months earlier) just gave our under the strain of standing with such a burden. I hopped out of line and helped her to her feet and after making sure she could walk of her own power (without the backpack she could manage a limp), offered to carry her backpack while Nicole boarded our flight alone. I kept the lady company, learned she was traveling to Korea to study for her MBA on the Korean government’s dime. After boarding, I tucked her bag into an overhead compartment and bid her farewell and a safe trip. I joined Nicole a dozen rows back and settled in for the flight. The 13 hour and 40 minute flight. It was long, dark (the shades were drawn and lights turned low for the majority of the trip to help passengers sleep… I was not among those who slept), and smooth.
They served two in flight meals, I had chicken and rice and beef and rice for the second meal. Both were decent enough. Nicole and I watched two movies together (Song of the Sea [a good animated film I’d recommend], and Chappie [which I partially napped through, so can’t give a full ‘review’ of]) and I watched Age of Adeline on my own, which I would recommend to any romantic out there. We touched down in Korea right on schedule and moseyed through the airport feeling and looking much like travel-worn zombies. At that point we’d been conscious for going on 20 hours, and traveling for 17 or so. We were tired, myself a bit more as I’d not gotten much rest (despite missing a critical chunk of Chappie) on the flight over. We needed to pass through security, again, to get to our departure gate but by this point we were experts in taking our various articles out/off and calling it good.
Don’t we look tired? At least the teddies still look fresh.
Security was a breeze and before long we’d made it to the next terminal. I crashed my head on Nicole’s lap and napped for a while during our 2 and a half hour layover (we had roughly an hour at the gate or so). We got boarded onto our final flight for the day (though by that point it was damned close to the next day even) and flew to Singapore. This flight had a few bumps and shakes, but at least we had an open seat next to us to spread out. It took just a little shorter than expected (6 hours and 14 minutes instead of 6 hours and 30 minutes), and we enjoyed a third meal of Beef and pasta on this flight. Neither of us was feeling up to trying the snails.
We touched down in Singapore just shy of midnight, local time, and shambled through security. After declaring that we had nothing to declare (came out as head nods and mumbles on my part to the customs guy), we made our way to the baggage claim and met my sister, Ruth, and Norm’s cousin, Ai Xia, just outside the airport. We caught a taxi to where we would be staying and one dark stairwell climb up to an olden style door with a very modern style lock on it, we’d arrived where we’d be staying for the first couple of nights of our trip.
After a phone call to a mysterious benefactor, owner of the room(s) we’d stay at during our trek to Singapore, to ascertain the intricacies of the modern lock, Ruth granted us access to the apartment. We lugged our belongings inside and up to our room and after a few palm presses against the lock, we gained access to the first of two rooms we’d end up staying in. The room we entered contained a woefully small bed, especially for two of us, and an absurdly large, moveable closet. I walked Ruth and Ai Xia out and returned to Nicole. We showered and passed out in the (small) bed, bringing our first day to a close.
David Bowie?
Picture of the first room we stayed in.
Picture of the first room we stayed in.
Picture of the first room we stayed in.
Picture of the first room we stayed in.
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