Originally Posted by RevJim

I live in the Philippines so I can help with #1 a little bit. Have you looked up the weather forecasts for the northern stuff? Tokyo is definitely out. Filipinos love Korean culture so any other time of year I'd recommend Seoul. But Seoul is 2C degrees today. HKG isn't great right now, but you could do worse.

I would definitely recommend Singapore this time of year. Make sure and stay at the Marina Bay Sands hotel for at least one night, as they've all heard of that one hotel and it will make great pictures and stories for her friends and family.

You might consider flying to MNL on CX but catching a direct MNL-SIN flight on Cebu Pacific Air. On the down side, they only have economy seating. On the up side, the fare will save you a bundle of time and money. They have 5 direct flights per day. Cebu Pacific gets fairly good reviews too.

Regarding your second question.... if you get regional business class, pretty much any 2 seats next to each other are fine. If you get happen to get a longhaul configuration, sitting next to someone isn't really CX's strong point. No matter the config, longhaul business is kind of designed more for privacy than togetherness. With the newest longhaul business you can get two middle seats together, slide your seats forward and talk to each other that way.

Welcome to the CX party, have a great trip