After many weeks of countdown the red letter July 31st came and it was time to leave for my round the world trip. I'd spent the last few days frantically emailing everyone I was going to visit to get addresses, local telephone numbers, best transportation advice from the airports, and to ask if there were any grand plans already in place I should know about.
As I prepared to leave Lausanne to head to Zurich Airport to start my trip I got back all of the irrational fears I'd gotten over after so many dozens of flights, like reading the departure time wrong, or the date wrong, or getting on the wrong train for the airport.
Zurich is a huge airport and I knew from having flown out of it before that it could sometimes take 45 minutes just to walk to your gate. So although I planned to arrive 2.5 hours early I was worried about the check in and security queues and getting there on time. However, I was checked in in under 5 minutes, through immigration and security in record time, and was left with lots of time to kill by window shopping.
My flight path put me through Bangkok on my way to get to Singapore, and when we did finally board, the flight was made up almost exclusively of Europeans, mostly Germans and Swiss Germans going on holiday to Thailand. When we were leaving Zurich the announcements were made in German first, then English, then Thai. During the flight they came in English, then German, then Thai, and when we arrived in Bangkok they were in Thai first, then English, then German. International airspace courtesy rules I suppose.
I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the Bangkok airport, but it turned out to be just as clean, modern, and well sign-posted as any of the best in the world, with staff who were much friendlier than anywhere in Europe.
My blackberry, which always struggles with time changes, recognized Bangkok time right away, while my IPhone, which usually updates immediately, took more than an hour to recognize the new zone. The plane from Bangkok was a full size long haul plane, an A330 with 2 aisles and a 3-3-3 configuration, even though the flight was less than 3 hours. The plane was nearly full and the route must just be so popular that they need the big planes to fly it.
When I arrived in Singapore I grabbed a taxi to my friend's house in the Novena area of Singapore. During the drive the taxi was flying through traffic at around 90 miles an hour, but most people around us were going nearly the same speed. Singapore is a funny mix of modern and old. There were lots of new cars on the road, but there were also a large number of very outdated work vans and trucks that reminded me of the chaos of Indonesia. We passed an open backed work truck with the name "Top and Safe Construction" that had 6 men seated in the bed hanging on to the sides at full highway speed. Clearly not safe by most union standards. Yet Singapore is considered to be extremely current and modern with some of the best technology and one of the highest Internet connectivity rates in the world.
When I got to the house and finished oohing and ahhing over the fluffy precious pure white kitten, we went for coffee and dessert at the local mall - the only place still open was Starbucks so that's where we ended up. Singapore is really a huge series of shopping centers, all with ice cold air-conditioning, allowing its citizens to be out in the 90 degree-60% humidity for as little time as possible. Fancy restaurants are often tucked away on the top floor of a multi-story mall, so saying let's go to the mall for dinner is not an invitation for fast food takeout but a serious offer for a nice meal.
I only had two real days of sightseeing in Singapore, but I'd been there once before so this time the only tourist thing I really cared about was getting to the top of the boat-casino-hotel "thing" that I had missed on the last trip. The real name of it is the Marina Bay Sands Casino Hotel, and it opened in early 2010 to much fanfare because it's a boat shaped platform perched atop 3 huge skyscraper columns. Craig and I discovered that there was no need to buy a scam 20 dollar tour ticket for the top, but instead could just go up to the restaurant and have a drink instead. And lunch in the end, which was not priced too extravagantly considering where we were. Beyond that, during the rest of the time we walked around, went to Chinatown, Little India, and had a fancy drink in a fancy terrace of a fancy hotel. And I took care of some pedicure and reflexology needs in one of the all-purpose malls.
My flight from Singapore to Seoul was a red eye that departed at 2:30 in the morning, the latest I've ever seen a plane take off. I was one of two non-Asians on the flight and it seemed designed to cater to the businessmen crowd, except that on a Friday night it was more holidayers than business people.
I was surprised to see that many shops were still open well after midnight and there was even a 24hr food court. Many of the free-standing shops that had closed had just pulled a small rope across the outside borders, with the goods still in plain view and easily reachable by leaning gently over the rope. It must be that either the people would never dream of stealing or the punishment is so harsh that no one does. I didn't check in until I got got to the airport because the round the world ticket wouldn't let me, and was given 42J, an aisle seat in the very back and was told there were no more window seats. However, when I got down to the gate I kindly offered that if someone else really wanted an aisle I would gladly let them have mine because I preferred a window. The nice looking man and woman conferred with each other and then with the system, and a few seconds later I was handed a boarding pass for seat 11A, a window seat very near the front of the plane. The seat was great, 2nd row of economy, and I managed to get a solid amount of good sleep during the 6 hr flight.
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