Friday, August 20, 2010

The Changi Musings

Sitting here at the airport in Singapore, and you what's going on through my mind? It's the fact that this world is really really small. To begin with, I already saw 5 familiar faces on the same flight out of KLIA to Singapore, one of which being Alexis Chuah, of with whom I encountered a somewhat exciting situation, of which I shall elaborate on further. It brought made me think back to the time when I was in Chicago about to fly home to Malaysia a few months earlier, where I met a school friend of mine, Su Yin. It was somewhat odd yet refreshing at the same time to see a familiar face in a faraway land. And it just so happened we had the same flights to Singapore via Hong Kong. And to add to the coincidences, I sat with the same group of Singaporean girls on the flights to Hong Kong and Singapore. Being on the same flight might not seem like so big a coincidence, but the fact that I was allocated seats next to them was. Just made me realise how small this world really is. Ok, fine, the relation between coincidence and small world might be a bit vague, but it makes sense in my mind.

Back to Alexis. If you may have noticed my facebook wall post, yes, I did run through a terminal, Terminal 1 of Changi to be exact. Her flight was to depart at 5.45am, and so at 5am, we left the comfy chairs in Terminal 3 to make our way to Terminal 1. As we got down from the train connecting the terminals, we noticed that her flight status was saying "Final Call", which was somewhat of a surprise for us, since we hadn't expected that specific status to be showing at 5.10. So we ran through the terminal. And the gate was at the other end of the terminal. But all's good, to cut the story short, she made it in on time, and the gate was still open even when I walked back to the other end of the terminal.

And it also amused me that I know Changi well enough to give a tour around it. It's like my fifth time transiting for a period of 7 hours here. So now I have a routine whenever I get here (if I'm alone).

1) Go to Terminal 3.
2) Get WiFi.
3) Use laptop.
4) If hungry, go upstairs to 24 hour eatery and buy food.
5) Repeat (3) until tired.
6) Go to the comfy chairs in the rest areas and nap.
7) Board flight. Fly wherever I'm flying to.

There is also process "*", an extremely important process, but not necessary all the time.
*) Check-in. Not necessary if allowed to check in at a different airport. Check-in time varies in accordance to when the check-in counter opens.

Well, that'll be all for now. And I'm serious need of some sleep. Hopefully I can fulfil that need on the aircraft. Long journey ahead of me.

Toodles.


-yoongjie-

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