Singapore!

It feels great to be back here in Singapore after 22 years.  Some things look the same, and others bear no resemblance to how we remembered it.

But first, let me back up a bit and tell you a little about

our trek to get over here.

Yesterday, about the time you were waking up (well, all except Cindy and Shirley who were still wide awake at 2 and 3 in the morning because that’s when they sent me emails) Tom and I were headed to the airport and boarding plane number 1 of 3.  The flight to Dallas was uneventful, but the gate agent tried to tell me I could not check my bags all the way through to Singapore because ‘of how whoever booked your ticket did it’.  She told me I had to recheck them in Chicago.  Now, I know it was early, but we don’t fly into Chicago  on our way to Singapore via Tokyo.  She was looking at our return leg for over a month from now.  Then she printed and reprinted our tickets, gave Tom two tickets to Tokyo, me one ticket to Singapore from Tokyo, but no ticket from Dallas to Tokyo.  It all got sorted out eventually, but we were not sure she had much of a clue as to what she was supposed to be doing.  ‘Eventually’  included a bag check all the way to Singapore for both of us.

About the time you were having lunch, we were boarding plane #2 of 3.  About the time you had dinner we were still on that plane. When you went to bed, we were still on that plane.  I watched ‘Bohemian  Rhapsody’, ‘Green Book’, ‘Will You Ever Forgive Me’ and ‘A Star is Born’, ate two meals and one snack and never slept but tried very hard to do so until my gluteus refused to take another minute in that seat.  And about the time you woke up on Wednesday morning, we had finally landed in Tokyo after 14 hours on that plane and our backsides were ever so happy to be out of the seats.  We couldn’t bear to tell them they faced another 7 hours on plane # 3 of 3 for our flight to Singapore.

And these were the roomier seats provided by Japan Airlines, with extra width and pitch over the US legacy carriers.  Note to anyone flying to Asia, if JAL flies that route, book’em.  And they codeshare with American.

We landed in Singapore in the early hours of their Thursday, which was around lunchtime Wednesday for you.  I think.  Because frankly, we were so tired of airplane sitting by then we were just happy to see our bags, zip through immigration and customs in Singapore— still the fastest and friendliest in the world in our opinion—and grab a taxi to the hotel where we will be attemptingto fool our bodies into sleeping through for a few hours.

I am going to close for now, but will add one picture from our hotel window view.  Well, actually one picture twice because I am still having trouble with the photo editor part of this program 😂

.