cockpitvisit

Planning

I wanted to fly the world's longest commercial flight EWR-SIN and see the North Pole from above for quite some time now. For me, based in FRA, the only economical way of flying it is to use a Miles&More 3-region award for 160000 miles. When booked as part of an RTW, the flight requires a surcharge and eats away a good chunk of the mileage allowance. Regular fares in C are beyond what I can afford, and flying Y for 18 hours is not exactly my idea of fun however nice the airline may be.

Being a procrastinator, I kept putting it off telling myself, I could always do it later. That was until I heard the news that the SQ A345 planes are going to be refitted with the new C for this summer. While being no doubt great news for paying passengers, it meant that I had to finally fly the route before the refit. Awards on the new C are not available, and if they ever become available, chances are they will cost more. And if not, it will be a welcome occasion to repeat the trip in a greater comfort

I wanted to get as much flying out of the award as possible. The rules for a 3-region award are that you can have at most 6 segments and only one stopover apart from the destination, which Lufthansa calls "turnaround point". My initial plan was to fly FRA-SIN-EWR, JFK-SFO-JFK, EWR-SIN-FRA with a stopover in SIN on the way back. The stopover on the way back was needed to improve the chance of grabbing a C seat on the last segment, because C on these flights only gets released a few days in advance. I almost got it booked until the agent on the phone felt it was necessary to consult her boss, who said no. Apparently, there is an unpublished rule that a stopover (SIN) may not be further away from the origin than the turnaround point (SFO). The agent suggested that doing it the other way round by going to SIN via the USA would be possible, but I dreaded a double entry to the USA.

My next plan was to start the trip in ATH rathen than FRA, but still finish it in FRA (ATH is nearer to SIN than to SFO). I phoned the Miles&More hotline to find out if that routing was valid. They told me it was "difficult". Half an hour later, I got a call from them informing me that they couldn't come to a common opinion whether the routing is valid. The hotline is sometimes more entertaining than the best comedy on the IFE Finally the routing got killed by a look at the timetable. A 5-hour layover in SIN between a 10-hour and a 18-hour flights was too short, and I decided not to do it. After all I need some rest and some movement between flights.

The final routing booked was FRA-LAX-JFK, EWR-SIN-EWR, JFK-SFO-FRA with a stopover in SFO and UA Premium Service flights to and from JFK. On the outbound portion, I would take a redeye flight LAX-JFK, spend a day in NYC and continue to SIN in the evening and would not get to sleep in a bed until arriving in Singapore. I was concerned how I would look like after sleeping on planes for three nights in a row, but the concern quickly drowned in the excitement of finally getting to see the North Pole from above.

Award availability in C on flights SQ21/SQ22 between SIN and EWR seemed almost nonexisting, but careful monitoring over several weeks revealed that awards for Monday-Wednesday always became available, and it always happened on Friday of the previous week. The C award availability on United p.s. flights was good on early morning or redeye flights and almost nonexisting during the day. Finally I booked the award, but with the 2 segments between SIN and EWR and back being booked in Y until C becomes available. If I would not get a C seat on the outbound portion, I would cancel the trip. If I would not get a C seat on the inbound... well, I preferred not to think about it

On Friday, April 18, C awards on SQ21 for the next Tuesday became available as predicted. I rebooked the segment to C and suddenly felt the planned adventure becoming reality.

I really enjoyed the flights on LH, UA and SQ. But my biggest thanks go to NH for the award availability tool - without it, this trip would not have been possible.

cockpitvisit

LH456 FRA-LAX, April 21
Departure: 10:00
Arrival: 12:35 (according to timetable)

I checked in at the counter and checked my baggage through to JFK, mainly because there is no bag storage service at LAX.

I had the seat 4K pre-reserved, which is in the last row of the nose section. The seat was fine, but the laptop power was not working. Since I only wanted to recharge the laptop and I like the nose section, I didn't ask to be reseated, but asked the crew if it is possible to charge my laptop at another seat. Indeed an empty seat was found further behind, and I left my laptop in the laptop compartment there for a few hours. When leaving the aircraft, several crew members asked me if I got the laptop charged, I think they were worried I might have forgotten it!



As usual on Lufthansa Business Class, a water bottle already awaited me in the seat pocket. Soon after the takeoff, the meal service started (sorry I no longer remember details).


I had the brook trout as appetizer, which was good, followed by the saddle of lamb. The lamb didn't look too appetizing to me at first, and I didn't like the first bites either, but it went great together with the potato gratin. As I finished the dish, I knew I just finished the tastiest airline meal I ever had. I am convinced that airline meals must be juicier than regular meals on the ground, in order to compensate for the dry air and prevent the taste sensors in the mouth from drying up. And this meal was perfect - juicy and with a rich flavour. I savored the last drops of the potato gratin with the lamb juice as I polished the dish.


The tastiest airline meal I ever had

I had the fruit salad for dessert, because I didn't want cheese and am allergic to mango. It was OK, but nothing spectacular.

The "snack" service was carried out about two hours before arrival. I had the shrimp, potato and bean salad, it was good.

The flight path went across the North of Scotland and the Hebrides, then just South of Iceland and across the Southern tip of Greenland, which sadly was covered by clouds. Then it touched the Labrador Peninsula, went across the Hudson Bay and continued over continental USA and Canada. We passed over Las Vegas before arrival. I find it very funny how the captain mentioned that we were over Las Vegas after we have already passed the city.


Flight path


An island in the Hebrides


Broken sea ice in the Hudson Bay


Mountains somewhere in North America


Passing Las Vegas


The Strip in Las Vegas


Before landing in LAX

On the ground, I entered an immigration queue that would have taken about 30-40 minutes. But fortunately, they just converted an immigration counter from US Citizens to Visitors and directed the tail of our queue over there, myself included. In 5 minutes, I was done with Immigration. Soon, my checked in trolley arrived. I passed customs, moved some books and other heavy stuff from my carryon backpack to the trolley and rechecked it.

I had an 8-hour layover. I headed to the Santa Monica beach. Fortunately, the security madness hasn't made it here yet, there were lockers available for rent. I locked my backpack, rent a bicycle and just rode along the beaches to the Venice Beach and back. After that, I had to ride exactly the same distance one more time, because I lost my mobile phone. Never found the phone again (not a good way to start a trip - or so I thought until the next day!), but the excercise was good.


Santa Monica Pier


Biking along the beaches


Pier on the Venice Beach

I usually never visit restaurants in nice settings for fear of getting bad food, but this time I made an exception and visited "The Lobster" with the view of the beach. Following an appetizer, I ate a 2.5lb grilled lobster and was so full at the end that I almost didn't touch the asparagus that came with it. It was not the tastiest lobster I ever had, but the biggest one for sure! The overall experience was good and I would gladly repeat it. Had a coffee afterwards which was awful.


Big lobster


Interesting wash basin design in The Lobster restaurant


Shopping street in Santa Monica

I walked around the town for one more hour, than took a taxi back to the airport. The taxi from LAX to Santa Monica cost about $25, but the taxi from Santa Monica to LAX cost a flat rate of $40. As the driver explained, taxi licenses for Santa Monica are different from the ones for Los Angeles and he isn't permitted to pick up passengers from the airport. Don't know whether it was true or I became a scam victim. But the dollars are cheap , so I wasn't too angry.

cockpitvisit

UA032 LAX-JFK, April 21
Departure: 23:41
Arrival: 07:59 next day (according to timetable)

I killed 2 hours in the terminal. I wasn't looking forward to the TSA screening, but it turned out not to be bothersome at all. No queue, no shouting, just smiles. A very polite, professional and friendly attitude - and I had similar nice experiences on all 4 TSA screenings during this trip. Thanks a lot to the frontline TSA staff who made that possible ^

I never flew on any premium transcon across the USA, so this was a first to me. I had the seat 6D, which was the frontmost row of the business class on the right side. The seat didn't have motors, but just 3 levers for releasing the backrest, the footrest angle and the footrest extension. It was very easy (and fast) to adjust to a comfortable position.


Before takeoff

The service consisted of a round of drinks before takeoff and handing out of water bottles, and a round of drinks immediately before arrival. I don't recall any further service. The cabin was darkened soon after the takeoff. I caught a few hours of sleep and was in a surprisingly good shape on arrival. During the night, I looked out of the window and saw Chicago. It is the only US city I can immediately recognize from above both during the day and at night - and Flight Simulator users among the readers surely know why


Calofornia coast


Chicago


Morning drink service


Before landing

I liked the flight very much, precisely because no sleep time was wasted on food service.

In JFK, I had to make a few phone calls. Without a mobile phone, I decided to use Skype on my laptop. The WiFi network quality was not good in Terminal 7 where I arrived, so I took the AirTrain to the Terminal 8. Here, no T-Mobile roaming was available. I then visited the Terminals 1 and 3, before finding a free WiFi from one of the lounges in Terminal 4. Here, I also took a shower in "The Lounge" ($45, but cheaper than the hotel room near EWR I had originally reserved for a shower).

After the shower, I realized that I only had my backpack with me and the trolley was gone. I recalled claiming it and taking it along on the AirTrain. I must have left it in one of the terminals as I sat down looking for the right WiFi network. The next 3 hours were spent visiting all terminals I went to, looking for the trolley, then looking for the lost & found offices and asking there. I almost gave up and went to Terminal 4 to surf the web for one more time. There, I realized that there were two symmetrical seating areas in the food court, and I only checked one of them. The trolley was nowhere to be seen, but I went to the Lost & Found again - and it was there! A big relief for me. There were only clothes inside, but I was not looking forward to starting my stay in Singapore shopping for clothing. Still, I wasn't happy having lost half of my day in NYC because of my own stupidity.

I went by LIRR to the Penn Station. The only other time I took the public transit from JFK was via the "E" subway line 3 years ago. That took about an hour, and I didn't feel very safe on the train. I was very surprised that the jorney by LIRR took less than half an hour and didn't make any stops at all.

I bought the NJ Transit ticket to EWR I think for $15 and left both my pieces of baggage at the baggage counter at Penn Station. They demanded to see my rail ticket, NJ Transit was fine. The counter closes at 9:45pm if I remember correctly. There was a common queue for checking in and reclaiming baggage. Some people in the queue were nervous about missing their flights, so I planned an additional 30 minutes for this queue on the way to EWR.

I just walked around the Central Park, then along the Broadway to Times Square. I rode the subway to Ground Zero (didn't see much changes since 2005) and had a walk in the Battery Park. I have only been to NYC for a total of 6 days, but somehow I find it quite boring there. There are a few museums I would like to visit, but due to my baggage fiasco, I no longer had time to visit any on this day.




Hayden Planetarium foyer


Times Square


Ground Zero


Battery Park


Battery Park


Relaxing on a bench in Battery Park

As the sun was setting, I made my way back to Penn Station, reclaimed my baggage (no queue this time) and went to EWR. As I had time to kill, I checked out all 3 terminals and found them to be identical from the architecture point of view. How boring!


AirTrain to the EWR airport

cockpitvisit

SQ021 EWR-SIN, April 22
Departure: 23:00 on Tuesday
Arrival: 05:30 on Thursday

Note to readers: The SQ flights in this trip report were taken on an A345 fitted out with SpaceBeds and Executive Economy seats. In May/June 2008, A345s serving the SIN-EWR route will be refitted with the new C class in a single-class configuration.

I proceeded to the SQ check-in counter. I asked the check-in staff about my nail clippers and was told they had to be checked in (the blades were 1inch in length at most). A later query at the TSA checkpoint revealed they would have been OK. Oh well...

I kept both my backpack and my trolley as cabin luggage, and just checked in a small foldable bag containing the sunscreen, shaving foam and a few other dangerous gels and liquids I had with me. I prefer to have hand luggage only, but since the liquid ban, it is no longer possible when I go somewhere for more than 4 days, because I don't like to go shopping for liquid items I need at the destination - it eats even more time than waiting for my bag to appear.

The security screening was very quick (no queue). The pleasant TSA staff made jokes about me trying to gather my things as quickly as possible, despite no one waiting behind me. I went to the SAS lounge the check-in staff directed me to. Surprisingly, there was free WiFi at the lounge (had to ask at the counter for the password). About 40 minutes before boarding, an announcement was made that for passengers of the SQ21 flight to Singapore, a hot meal is being served in the lounge. The hot meal turned out to be a bowl of seafood-flavored fried rice. I found it a very nice touch, you immediately feel being looked after instead of just being stuck into a generic lounge.


SAS Lounge in EWR

The seat row numbering on the A345 starts with row 11. No First Class is offered on this route (I would have loved spending 18 hours in F!), so C seating starts at the very front of the plane. I had the seat 12K pre-reserved. I was paged at the lounge and told that my seat was broken and asked if it would be OK to reseat me to 11K. I was cautious, because I have never flown on the A345 before and was concerned about the legroom in the first row. My concerns came after a recent unpleasant experience on NH in the first row on C. But I was assured the legroom would be even greater than in other rows and accepted the change. Some time later, I was paged again and got offered 16K with the seat next to me empty. This time I declined - I wanted to be in the nose.

Soon we were called to the gate for boarding. The seat 11K turned out to be very nice, indeed with lots of legroom. The same person who was at the counter in the lounge came onboard for a short chat with me and made sure I was comfortable in the reassigned seat - a very nice touch. I was soon approached by an FA asking me if I would mind changing my seat to accommodate a couple sitting together. I told her I had just been offered two seats in row 16 for myself and that maybe the couple could get those seats. I was never bothered again.

Preflight drinks were offered, I had champagne. After that, I was asked what I would like to drink after the takeoff. As I was still reading the menu, I told the FA I would decide later. A minute later, she passed by my seat and I told her I would have orange juice after takeoff. She immediately ran to the kitchen and brought me a glass of OJ, which turned out to be freshly pressed. Very nice, but not what I asked for.

The takeoff roll started from the runway threshold. After having seen the hold short marks you usually only see on taxiways, I was briefly concerned that the crew confused a taxiway for the runway, which would be fatal with this fuel load. The takeoff roll consumed most of the runway length, but the takeoff itself felt surprisingly easy, the plane didn't feel very heavy at all. Sitting on the right side, I had a great night view of New York.


New Jersey and New York as seen soon after takeoff. The Hudson River and the Southern part of Manhattan can be seen.


More New York, with the Washington Bridge, the whole Manhattan in the middle and the LaGuardia airport in the top left corner.

After the takeoff, FAs served drinks according to the orders taken before the takeoff. Because there was no record of what I ordered, I didn't get anything, nor was I asked what I would like to drink

Overall, I found the service on this flight to be very robotic. The FAs did exactly what you told them to do without any hesitation, but didn't anticipate any passenger needs at all. A cacophony of FA call buttons during meal times confirmed I was not the only one having problems with the service.

Before depating from Frankfurt, I phoned the SQ reservation to Book the Cook. I chose the following for EWR-SIN:

I also attempted to BTC Slipper Lobster Thermidor out of SIN, but only got a polite reminder that the segment SIN-EWR was booked in Economy. This was just a temporary inconvenience, or so I thought!

I had the marinated crayfish with vinaigrette, it was good. This was followed by my BTC meal. Impressed by the perfect lamb I got on my LH flight, I was really looking forward to it. But the lamb turned out to be dry and as tasty as a piece of rubber. A big disappointment. Maybe I should have immediately asked if there are any main courses from the menu left, but somehow I forgot about that possibility.


The awful BTC lamb

I had a macadamia ice cream, skipped the cheese and had Earl Grey tea with pralines. The tea was sensational, I asked about the brand and was told it was Dilmah. After the meal service, the FA showed me the tea package so that I could made a photo of it for my reference.

I also asked for a cup of capuccino and found it excellent as well - and not only measured against "coffee" you usually get on airplanes! The coffee comes out of an espresso machine. After the supper service, the FAs disappeared. If I recall correctly, they also offered water bottles, but because I had 2 liters of my own water in bottles, I declined.

Before going to sleep, I went to see the Executive Economy section. I am describing it purely for archeological reasons, because Executive Economy is going to be phased out until the end of this summer. Usually when flying in a premium class, I enjoy seeing a full economy section with people being clearly uncomfortable and pretending to sleep in very unnatural positions like frozen corpses from some horror films. But because there was a tiny chance (or so I thought!) of me ending up in Executive Economy on my way back, I hoped for a light load and comfortable seats this time. And this is exactly how it was. The load looked like 50%, the seats were arranged in a 2-3-2 fashion, with some middle rows being completely empty. I took a seat. The pitch looked like 37-38", as long as my feet remained on the floor, the seat in front of me didn't restrict me in any way. The recline was generous. I found the seat comfort to be similar to regional C seats on Asian carriers like NH and CX, except that the armrest is narrow like in Economy. For those who watch IFE, there were individual LCD screens on the seatbacks, which had generous size.

I felt surprisingly comfortable in the Executive Economy seat, no joke. There was absolutely no urge to get out of there ASAP, like one would feel when getting stuck in a domestic Y seat after a longhaul flight in C. But after 5 minutes, I dutifully got up and proceeded back to my assigned seat in the front of the plane I reclined my seat and slept for 3 hours. The neighboring seat was empty during takeoff, but after the meal another passenger was reseated there. Must be another broken seat somewhere on the plane.

The seat was flat, but sloped at an angle and not entirely horizontal. This was a minor disappointment for me. While I knew SpaceBed's were not horizontal, I expected that the "executive" business seat on the A345 would be better than a regular one and had a slight hope that it would go full horizontal. Alas, no. Maybe there were additional few inches of legroom, but I didn't find any difference to a "regular" SpaceBed seat which I once experienced.

The seat control panel had a cover with the inscription "CREW USE ONLY". Naturally, I opened it to see what's inside. Inside were a few levers which, as I had expected, allowed moving the backrest and the footrest per hand when pulled. I tried pulling the levers and moving the seat to a more horizontal position, but it was not possible.

Still the reclined seat was very comfortable to sleep in and I wasn't sliding at all. I found it much more comfortable than Business Class seats on Lufthansa in non-exit rows. And the laptop power worked too.

There was a seemingly endless offering of on-demand films on the IFE. But as I never watch IFE, I just switched it to the Airshow and enjoyed slightly opening my eyes now and then and watching the tiny airplane on the screen slowly ascend towards the North Pole.

I saw Northern Lights through my window. They didn't look very interesting to me, were like clouds illuminated by a city below if you imagine the street illumination being green instead of yellow. From what I heard, Northern Lights look much more impressive from the ground (never experienced it myself). But on the ground it was surely cold as hell and you couldn't press the call button while relaxing in a reclined seat and tell the FA to bring you a Silver Kris Sling I found the cocktail very enjoyable.

A few hours after departure, the sun rose outside. I couldn't see it from my seat, because all window shades were closed. I went to the kitchen area only to discover that the plane door located in that area didn't have a window. Fortunately, the lavs had windows, so whenever I wanted to look outside or take a picture, I headed for the lav. I supposed I was not alone doing this, because more often than not, I found the window open and the toiled lid closed when entering the lav.

I awoke about half an hour before we reached the North Pole. I was afraid there would be a long queue for the lav of people wanting to see it, but it turned out I was the only crazy person onboard There is no IFE screen with the airshow in the lav, but I had a GPS receiver with me. We passed about 1/3 degrees to the left of the North Pole. There were no clouds, so it must have been visible from the window. But where exactly? I don't know. Contrary to my hopes, there was no Earth axis protruding from the pole. Nor did I see a Russian warship guarding this important point


The North Pole is visible on this photo, but I have no idea where exactly it is!

After the North Pole, we started a 11-hour descent towards the equator. Over Siberia, the sun set directly in the North, remaining on the other side of the Earth. I never experienced the Earth being a sphere in such a direct way! At some point I got hungry and ordered the pork kway teow soup. The portion was generous and it was tasty, I found it to be quite similar to Japanese Udon noodles I am familiar with. I had a Singapore Sling after that.


Sunset in the North over Siberia

According to the breakfast menu, which I sadly forgot to photograph, there was a choice between a hot breakfast, served 2.5 hours before landing, and a cold breakfast served 1.5 hours before landing if I remember correctly.

Before breakfast, the lights were turned back on. The lights were a poor man's mood lighting, as the brightness grew gradually and there was a red glow in the beginning.


Lighting with a slight tint of red

I no longer recall what exactly the breakfast was, except that I liked it very much. There was "freshly pressed" OJ for the beginning. Of course it was probably pressed before departure, but still tasted much better than the yellow liquid made out of concentrate that usually gets served in place of orange juice. There was warm bread, cereals and a hot entree which was very good, although I no longer recall what exactly it was. To finish the breakfast, I ordered another cup of the excellent capuccino.


Hot breakfast

I opened the window shade immediately after it got dark outside over Siberia, as I prefer to see stars out of the window rather than dull plastic. As we neared Singapore, I saw a beautiful thunderstorm somewhere over Vietnam. Over Singapore itself, the sky was clear. We passed by the Changi airport on the Eastern tip of the diamond-shaped island, made a 180 turn over the sea and landed soon. Despite a bad crew and my bad luck with the BTC meal, I enjoyed the flight very much, both from the inflight service point of view, and from the experience of a long transpolar flight.


Flight route, sorry for the quality


Before landing in Singapore

The quality of food and drinks (except for my BTC choice) was simply outstanding, the seat, while being phased out already, still more comfortable than the "current" seats offered by many other airlines. And the service, while being not the top of the shelf especially by Asian standards, was still better than what I usually get on LH.

After the arrival, I first needed to get online, check my mails and get a few tasks accomplished. Simply connecting to the free wireless network available in the terminal resulted in "Connection refused" errors when I tried accessing any website. I got instructions on how to connect at an information booth, but to establish a free account, it required a mobile phone number, and my mobile phone was lost on the other side of the planet somewhere in Santa Monica! With the help of a very friendly person at the information counter, I finally managed to get online.

I discovered that without an onward flight, I was not welcome in any airline lounge. I needed to shower and change my clothes before going into the hot and humid city. Fortunately, there was a lounge offering showers for a fee of 8 SGD, which was more than adequate.

I checked out the duty free stores. I was in Hong Kong 3 months ago, and their duty free store had many different kinds of VSOP and XO cognac in tiny bottles. This would make an excellent gift for someone I know, but I only realized it when I was in the plane over the Gobi desert heading to the West. Since that, I walk into every duty free store hoping to find a similar collection, but to no avail. And I had no such luck in SIN either.

Finally I proceeded through immigration which took maybe 30 seconds. My small bag with dangerous liquids was waiting for me in the corner of the baggage claim area. I took the MRT to the City Hall station, where I walked 5 minutes to the Grand Plaza Park City Hall hotel I booked for one night. The hotel was excellent and the location perfect for exploring many points of interest by foot. I liked the hotel so much that I didn't switch to a 5* property nearby that later became available for the same price.


View from the MRT train on the way to the city

cockpitvisit

Singapore, April 24 - May 1

Apart from advance hotel reservations in the USA for the first night after immigration (required for APIS), I didn't reserve any hotels in advance for this trip and only checked hotel rates to see if there are any trade shows that could result in skyrocketing prices. So before leaving the airport, I first made a hotel reservation for the first night and chose Grand Plaza Park City Hall hotel for it's price, location and good reviews on tripadvisor.

I arrived at the hotel slightly after 8am, checked that they had my reservaton and left my baggage with them. After I checked in later in the day, I liked the hotel very much and immediately felt at home. I had a Deluxe room and the room rate varied between 220-250SGD per night depending on the day. The room was spacious, had a view of the Fort Canning Park and the neighboring hotel's swimming pool. There was a desk with a European power socket and a cable for Internet access. Internet access cost 28SGD/24h (around 13EUR). The bathroom had a bathtub and a separate shower, the shower pressure was good. Everything was very clean and not worn out at all.

There was a spacious lobby with a waterfall, a bar open till 1am and a restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets. I only tried the breakfast buffet. The food offering was good (bread, cereals, dairy products, eggs cooked to order, hot selection, Chinese buns, fresh fruit). There was no fresh pressed OJ though, but surprisingly, with the abundance of fresh juices everywhere in Singapore I didn't really miss it. The staff were very helpful. The hotel also had other amenities I haven't tried.

The hotel is a 5-minute walk away from the City Hall MRT station, 10 minutes to Boat Quay, 10 minutes to Bugis Junction, 20 minutes to Little India. There is no underground passage to the MRT though - you have to walk in the heat. The hotel didn't participate in any FF programs, but still it offered an excellent value for me and I will likely stay there again the next time I am in Singapore. Since I didn't know for sure how long I would be staying, I simply prolonged the hotel stay each day instead of making a longer reservation.

Once I played a do-it-yourself Priceline. Despite the price on every Internet site being 250SGD for that night, I went to the reception, asked to prolong the room and told them I thought I saw 230SGD on the Internet and whether they could match that price. No problem, and I got a nice feeling of having beaten the system Will try negotiating down hotel prices using this method on my future trips.

I spent my time in Singapore partly sightseeing and partly doing remote work. I will just describe some of my sightseeing activities here.

On April 24 (arrival day), I walked around the City Hall and Bugis areas and visited the St. Andrew's Cathedral. I also visited the Singapore Art Musseum and spent about 3 hours there. It has a nice and diverse collection of mostly contemporary art, I enjoyed it very much. Across the street from the museum, there is a pool of water with bridges over it. As I crossed the bridge, I saw escalators deep in the water! It seems there is an unopened subway station from the new line down there, and the pool of water (with glass bottom) will serve as the roof of that station. For a late lunch, I went to the HarbourFront Centre and ate some Indonesian food in Food Republic there.


St. Andrew's Cathedral


Singapore Art Museum

After that, I retreated to the hotel room to get a few hours of sleep. For some reason, I get a much worse jetlag in premium cabins than when flying Y. Must be caused by all those distractions like tasty between-meal snacks , which make a disciplined approach towards resetting my inner clock impossible.

As I opened my eyes, the hotel clock showed 0:10 already. I decided to sleep through until early morning, but after 3am, the clock suddenly showed 0am again . It turned out that from my angle, I didn't see the first digit and the first time I looked at the clock, it was only 20:10 I was really hungry at this point. I went out and thanks to a tip from the hotel reception found some hot food in the Bencoolen Street.

On April 25, I went to the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. It is a patch of rainforest, some of which is primary rainforest which has never been logged. The main path is covered with asphalt, other marked paths are cleared, but your shoes will get dirty if you follow them. The landscape is very uneven, you have to walk up and down a lot. It is relatively cool in the jungle but the humidity is 100%, so I was covered in sweat as I finished it. Still, I liked it very much. Didn't see a lot of animals though, only a few butterflies and a couple of squirrels. There are supposed to be monkeys in the forest, but I only saw them on the parking lot at the entrance, probably waiting for some tourst to feed them illegally!


Bukit Timah Nature Reserve


Bukit Timah Nature Reserve


Who is the guard, and who the intruder

The guidebooks warned of insect bites. I bought patches at a pharmacy next door to the hotel which were supposed to repel insects when attached to the clothing. Don't know if the patches were good or the danger overblown, but I didn't get bitten a single time during my entire stay. (And before I get dirty comments, I did shower and use a deodorant every day )

I also walked around the river, took a few pics of the skyline and the Merlion sculpture in the Marina Bay (which due to the visible water pipe in the mouth, looks a bit like a Taliban victim). Ate some grilled seafood at Boat Quay.


Orchard Road


Boat Quay, waiting for my mixed seafood platter to arrive


Part of the skyline


One of many Merlion sculptures. Singapore has such beautiful warm evenings every day!

On April 26, I visited the zoo and found it excellent. Apart from snakes and spiders, nearly all animals are not in cages but in more or less natural surroundings. Saw a Komodo Dragon, bats and a few other interesting species. Walked in the Arab Quarter in the evening.


In the zoo


Face to face with a bat in the zoo


Komodo dragon


Evening stroll in the Arab quarter

On April 27, I visited the Botanic Garden. It has an interesting "Evolution Garden" containing fossilized trees and many living plant species ordered by the time they first appeared. Overall, it looks more like a big park than a scientifically ordered botanic garden.


Fossilized trees in the Botanic Garden

After that, I went to the Sentosa island by cable car from HarbourFront. Sentosa is a large tourist development meant to be a resort. To me, it looked more like a parody of a resort, I can't imagine spending more than a few hours there I visited the aquarium (found it to be rather small and not that interesting) and Fort Siloso. The visit to the fort was interesting, but like many historing sites in Singapore, it's the story that made it interesting and not the buildings themselves.


Way to Sentosa


Underwater tunnel in the aquarium


Fort Siloso

In the evening, I visited the Asian Civilization Museum. I didn't really enjoy the exhibit, but only because I had too little time (only two hours). Apart from the Singapore section, it is not self-explanatory and I couldn't enjoy it by quickly running through the exhibit. There are a lot of multimedia touchscreens explaining things, but they need time which I didn't have. Will visit the museum another time and spend at least half a day there.

Japan and Korea are completely missing from the museum. The official explanation is, they didn't have any influence on the Singaporean culture


Asian Civilization Museum

On April 28, I went to Chinatown, saw a few temples, a market street, the buildings. Tried a chili lobster and was very surprised that the lobster didn't have claws. It seems that in Singapore, some other crustacean gets served as "lobster".


Chinatown


Market in Chinatown


Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

I discovered a "red dot design museum" in Chinatown. It is not really a museum, but an exhibition of "red dot" design awards, which are supposed to be very important in the world of designers according to the museum exhibit. The exhibit was very interesting, showing many tiny inventions that solve everyday problems that plague our life although we don't always realize it. Like a power socket with a button to eject the plug without pulling by the cord. Several items are now on my shopping list.

Went to Little India in the evening and was shocked by how dirty it was by Singapore standards. My biggest impression of Little India is the smell of human excrement at some locations. There was a temple and many curry places there; I didn't care.

On April 29, I first went to see the Sultan Mosque. Infidels aren't allowed into the prayer hall itself, but can walk in the gallery surrounding it and get a good view. After that, I visited the Chinese and Japanese gardens and was not impressed at all. There was too much open space in both gardens covered simply by grass. I felt more like being in an English park than in a Japanese garden! There is an interesting "museum" in the Chinese Garden showing a large collection of living turtles.


Inside the Sultan Mosque


Japanese Garden

Saw the Fort Canning Park in the evening. It's a nice park on a hill, offering good paths for walking, many posters about the history of Singapore, an occasional sculpture and an occasional glimpse of the city below. Adjacent to the park is the Singapore National Museum. I visited it too, but it turned out that although the museum closed at 8pm, the Singapore history gallery (which I wanted to see) closed already at 6pm. Saw it another day.


Fort Canning Park


Singapore National Museum

On April 30, I went to the Bottle Tree Village following a suggestion by a local. It turned out to be just a seaside restaurant in the middle of nowhere with a few Australian bottle trees planted in front of it, not interesting at all.


Boring Bottle Tree Village

After that non-experience, I proceeded to the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve. It is a rather large area with well laid out paths offering good bird watching. I don't care about bird watching at all, but I wanted to see a mangrove forest there, which was interesting. There are a lot of crabs and other tiny creatures there. As you walk around, you see constant movement on the ground. But if you stop to have a closer look, everything else stops too and you are just looking at a motionless swamp often without being able to pick out a single living being. And yet you feel being watched by thousands of small eyes from the countless holes.


Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve

Went to see the monstrous fountain in Suntec City (apparently the biggest in the world), only to discover it was closed for maintenance.

On May 1, I decided to take a swim and headed to the Sentosa island again. Sentosa can be reached by 4 means of transport: a cable car, a monoral, by road and by foot. I first tried the footpath along the bridge and found it closed "for maintenance" since 2007. Doesn't look like it is going to reopen in this century! The huge queue for the monorail would have taken half an hour, so I headed to a taxi rank, surprisingly without any queue. The taxi ride to Sentosa cost just 8 SGD including a 2 SGD Sentosa entry fee and a free ride back on the monorail, so it was probably cheaper than the monorail itself and way more comfortable. Sentosa has several beaches. I chose the Tanjong beach, because it had the fewest attractions and I expected the smallest crowd. Indeed there were not many people there. There was a big display of safety tips, like swimming in pairs, but the "beach" itself turned out to be just a small lagoon the size of a large swimming pool separated by a flexible barrier from the open sea. The water wasn't that clean, but I didn't get any skin problems after having taken a short swim and a shower on the beach immediately afterwards. I found the swimming experience enjoyable since I was here anyway, but for nice beaches, I would obviously head elsewhere


Sentosa "beach"

A nearby restaurant served chili crabs. One of the crabs in the glass box in front of the restaurant started moving around as I came near. I watched for a while, then pointed to the crab: "This one, please!". A few minutes later, the crab sat in chili sauce on a plate in front of me, watching me with his now motionless eyes. Was it my "become a vegetarian" moment? Although I could very well relate the dead cooked crab to the lively creature I enjoyed watching a few minutes earlier, I didn't feel any guilt and enjoyed the tender meat. I guess I passed the carnivore exam


Yum!

I visited the small civil defence gallery located in a fire station, which showed historic firefighting equipment. Then I finally saw the Singapore History Gallery at the national museum, which was very good and took me about 2.5 hours.


Civil Defence Gallery


An exhibit in the Singapore History Gallery

A satay on the Boat Quay and a photo session of the night skyline concluded my sightseeing in Singapore on this trip. I had a great time sightseeing and also enjoyed a lot of inexpensive great food.

cockpitvisit

SQ22 SIN-EWR

I was originally going to fly SIN-EWR on April 29. On Friday April 25, award seats appeared on the ANA tool for the next Monday-Wednesday, just like it happened on every other Friday in the past 6 weeks.

I decided to delay the departure by one day and phoned the Miles&More hotline to change the departure to April 30 and of course, to rebook me to C I was told that although the hotline could see the award C seats, the system would not allow booking them. I wasn't concerned, because I knew that seats sometimes would show up on the ANA tool without being immediately available for booking. I assume SQ takes about an hour to clear an internal waitlist, and after that the seats always became available on Miles&More. At least this was the case on the outbound.

I phoned the hotline an hour later, but the seats still couldn't be obtained. I tried again after 2 hours and again after 6 hours immediately before the hotline closed, but to no avail. No award seats in C could be booked for any date It suddenly occurred to me that while I watched the availability for SIN-EWR on the ANA tool, I never actually tried booking any award C seats on inbound route, but only tried it with the outbound. So there was a possibility of me being unable to get any C seat on the 18-hour flight back from Singapore. Y I come!

It is difficult to describe with words how I felt at that moment Let me just tell you that I was no longer looking forward to taking the world's longest commercial flight!

(Continued on the next page of this thread)

cockpitvisit

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cockpitvisit

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cockpitvisit

(unused)

onedog

Great trip report so far. Looking forward to the rest.^

Onedog

putongo

Dear cockpitvisit -- great report. Looking forward to the EWR-SIN segment and photos!

putongo
sfo

brahms77

Interesting report! I guess if you do three region award, you are not limited by the distance flown!

FYI, you could have tried TG BKK-JFK service for your inbound.

I also have a F award with UAMP on SQ and few other carriers and I'd like to snag in as many F segments as possible.

N334AA

Great report so far, looking forward to the rest! ^

chris78cpr

Great report so far. It's a shame ot hear about the phone loss and nearly losing your bags! I hope the rest of the trip was free of any loss!

Chris

cockpitvisit

There is no distance limit on any Miles&More award. It is only about regions. There is a rule in the small print that requires you to take the most direct routing to your destination, but fortunately, the agents on the phone don't seem to know about it

I was considering it, but it would require me to buy a separate ticket for SIN-BKK because of the 6-segment limit, plus I was curious about the catering ex-SIN. My routing already stretched the award rules quite a bit