By the numbers
17 kilo bag
mum's 15 kilos
23.52 kms
28,183 steps
The final day had arrived for the journey to Singapore and we were going to make our way to the airport. One of the best airports around and one that we could just do a bag drop hours early since we were flying with Singapore Airlines. If we weren’t then we would be stuck with the normal checkin and bag drop times like the other airlines. We had packed the night before and I had put several things in mum’s bag as I couldn’t actually get them in there. The figurines I had gotten, I had to remove one from the box as the box itself was bigger than what was inside.
We had breakfast that actually went missing at Maccas even though we had table service. I ended up seeing the servers and they sorted me out and I actually followed the guy back to our table. It seemed strange things were not going well for them at that time of morning. They had the same issue last night. We were ready to check out and the time we could was at midday, I wanted to be at the airport a touch early as the phone weather said there were meant to be storms that afternoon. Knowing the accuracy of the weather there might have been a storm that afternoon, but I was cloud watching too. Before catching the train, we caught up with Dawn to say bye at the station in Novena. I actually didn’t mind the walk especially now that we knew there was a walkway from the hospital side, and don t need to go the long way around. The security at the station didn’t even look at me even though I was looking at their signs. They had the scanners that include the bag scanner, but I had never seen them actually move. As they say don’t poke the bear, and besides they probably already knew we were harmless. It was pretty easy to get the train back to the airport and in daylight this time. The really convenient part is when you walk off one train the next is in front of you that takes you all the way into Changi.
After a few minutes wait, the train came and took us to the airport. Once we got off, I had to orientate myself as the platform was so big and I needed to get my main bag back onto my back until we found a trolley. We needed terminal 3 and the closest to walk out of was terminal 2, so we had to go in the other direction. The best part is we didn’t need to rush as we didn’t fly out until later that night and we had something like 8 hours before we had to be at our gate and waiting. We went up some escalators and couldn’t actually figure out where to go to get to the next floor and decided to take the lifts that just kept beeping before taking us up. Once we were in the correct departure area we found a trolley and weighed our bags to see how much we were carrying. We still had heaps of room if we wanted to buy more things. By the time we used the loos and headed to the bag drop area, we both found just by scanning our passports that we could have printed off our tags and boarding passes together. The bag drop guy basically did all that for us except for pressing some of the buttons like declaring we were not carrying prohibited items. The next stop after dropping our bags off was to head over to Jewel, which was the waterfall.
Mum wasn’t very convinced at first when we were heading that way and it was a decent walk as we planned to see Jewel and then go through the gates to the inner terminal. The clouds were starting to build, but there was no rain at the time as we wandered to the Jewel area. Once we made it through the long walkway and some of the shops, we found there were quite a few people in the area to see the giant waterfall. I looked at my phone and mum vanished, I thought she had gone down the stairs to the bottom, which I did. Turns out she got stuck in a lift that was confused and I eventually found her walk out. The whole area had many orchids and we both were taking pictures of them as we went back up the stairs. I couldn’t believe the amount of people in the area. Once we moved away from the waterfall, there were plenty of shops to have a look in and I did have a look at some of the blind boxes. You buy a box with a figurine, and you didn’t know which one you had. I got two Lord of The Rings ones as you do. We made the top floor and decided to do the Bloom at Jewel, which was an off shoot of the stuff at Gardens by the Bay There were many flowers and figures in the area. It was worth doing a visit as we got to see a slide, a trampoline area that I didn’t go on as I didn’t want to hurt myself before getting onto a plane. It was basically like what we had seen on our other trips, but it was just as good. We decided once we were done that we would head back to Terminal 3, although we seen the walkway to terminal 2. We kept walking until we made it to the right exit.
Once back in Terminal 3 checkin area, we made it to the security control and while I made it past the guys checking the boarding pass, mum got held up as for some reason something was wrong with hers. I thought she had the old pass on her, but the guy started laughing and several others ended up having a look too. We didn’t understand what they were saying as I think it could have been Malay, but they let mum through and then we could pass through the passport scanner and into the terminal. The first stop was for food where we stopped for a little while. There was a little confusion as mum wanted another drink, but the lady wouldn’t refill and used a whole new cup even though mum was happy to pay. I took a wander and found the Butterfly house. At the same time it was storming outside of the airport. I was glad we were not caught in that tropical downpour of a storm. The butterfly house was open to the elements, but you could see plenty of the butterflies around and they were also feeding. By the time I wandered mum had came down from the food court and was looking at the shops. Before we went anywhere I showed her the butterflies and it was still raining, but I got to show her what the terminal had to offer. I wanted to show her the other terminals and we jumped onto the train to terminal 2 that took us past the Jewel waterfall. On the other side mum seen the words arrivals and wasn’t too impressed, but I showed her the flower display in the terminal that was all orchids. She wanted to rest for a bit and I was wanting to find the boarding gate as it at the time said we were going to be at A13 on the other side of terminal 3. I dropped her off at the goldfish pond so her phone could charge and she could have a read. I left my backpack with her as it was heavy.
I soon realised just how faraway the gate was in terminal 3, but there was a solution. There was a terminal train that took us to gate 15 so we wouldn’t have so far to walk. I ended up taking the train back to the main part of the terminal. The gate I should point out is where the bags are xrayed and the security checks are taken before you board your flight. Hopefully there is a water filling station and toilet there too. I had a half bottle of water that I was trying to drink. I thought I was heading to terminal 1, but somehow I ended up at the other end of terminal 2, and not noticed until I walked to where mum and I had had a look at with the flowers. I did look at the line up at the arrivals hall and there were more people there than when we had arrived even though this was a different terminal. While in Terminal 2 I looked around the food area and while I could watch the planes take off I could see that there was a bit of construction work being done near the gates in this area. I kept on walking passing the air train along the way. While in terminal 1 I had a look at the cactus garden, where it seemed to be a smoking area as well. I was on my way towards terminal 3 or so I thought. On the escalator that helps you move large parts of the terminal, I seen a book vending machine, it was then I realised I had gone in the wrong direction, so I had to double back as I was in the far end of Terminal 1 and the map showed I was on a spur. Soon I was on my way back to the right terminal and I looked on the website again to see if there were more updates on the gate. There was it had been changed to gate B5 and was closer to where mum had been left instead of being so far away.
I reunited with mum and I put my phone on charge and waited around. There were several other Aussies floating around as well. We looked through the shops before getting some duty free alcohol that would be waiting for us on the other side of our gate before we board. We hung around the gate before the security gates opened as there are no announcements at the airport as you have to be there to sort yourselves out. There wasn’t a toilet or a water station in the security area once we went through. I had to take my shoes off and put them in the xray machine along with my laptop. They checked my boarding pass and the security guys gave us all our arrivals card for Australia. Mum and I filled those out before we boarded the plane. I ended up not sleeping during the 7 hour flight as I was watching movies. There was Pirates of the Caribbean, Spider-man tv series, part of Kung Fu Panda 4. I ended up with fish for the meal as they were out of chicken. It wasn’t actually cold on the flight so I was comfortable. Landing in Brisbane showed how the airports were worlds apart. The immigration area had a line up and the bags were slow to come through. It does seem like the Gold Coast airport is a bit better with the arrivals especially as it’s a newer section. We did make it home and while it was a nice drive we both soon crashed due to sleep catching up with us.
All around it was a great trip away with meeting some great people and eating different foods that we don’t always eat. Some little bits of things to learn for next time especially when the train travel card app will no longer work on international numbers, but at least now I will know the prices of travel on the train and that my card doesn’t need to be registered. There are vending machines for the public transport cards too. I think it was cooler in June than the last time I was there in August, and the heat didn’t knock me around. Mum learnt her limits as well as she couldn’t totally keep up with me, but we both seen different parts of Singapore even though there is still more to explore on another trip. Though we had a tech issue when we got home and that was the modem deciding it was time to become a paper weight, but I ended up ordering a new one through the ISP as it turns out the new one I bought didn’t actually work as it couldn’t connect to the internet even when I made a phone call to the tech at the ISP.
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