Since I had already checked in online, I only needed to drop my bags. There was only one hitch, after printing my luggage tags, the kiosk wouldn’t print my boarding pass. Cue panic!! The staff standing by came over and said “oh, this happens quite a bit, just go the counter”. Rushed to the counter and the man behind the counter basically looked at me like I had made a mistake and asked “have you tried using the kiosk?”. I did feel like giving a sarcastic reply, but no, I restrained myself “Yes. Your colleague sent me here as the kiosk stopped working”; and with that he just simply printed it out and I dropped my check in.



Off I went through immigration and yes, it was as smooth as ever. I have a local ID card, so I just go through the electronic gates and usually this is a very fast procedure. The only times I have had problems was when landing, and there are lots of flights coming in at the same time.



There was no time for a trip to lounge on this trip. I arrived almost exactly at 5pm so by the time I finished with the bag drop and going through to immigration, it would be time for me to get to the plane. As I don’t have the appropriate star alliance frequent flyer card, I would have had to tap into my Priority Pass and thought that maybe it would be best reserved for when I really needed access.

I would like to say that I went straight to the gate as that would be what a responsible traveller would do. However, I am also a responsible traveller, and didn’t want my neighbours complaining about the fresh smell that gently wafted from me, as I had come straight from work. So what does any self respecting smelly person do? Make themselves even more smelly. I popped over to duty free and started liberally squirting aftershave all over myself, while trying to avoid the hawk like eyes of the sales staff.

It became a game of cat and mouse … I would make a move for one aftershave and one sales attendant would appear at myself … speaking Chinese. I smile. Spray myself, and then get greeted by more Chinese, getting a bit more energetic. It’s at this point I normally land my distraction “oh I don’t speak Chinese”. This usually throws the salesperson for a second as they switch their brain to English mode, by which time I have already scampered to another corner of the smelly section. This game is even better with larger groups — the salespeople don’t know who to target, and usually go for the richest looking. Moral of the story: dress and smell like a tramp.

Anyway, waves of aftershave later, I was ready for the plane. I looked like a tramp but at least I smelt a million bucks!

Now I was running late, or so I thought, so I made my way quickly to Gate E11. On the way I saw this cute little buggy — #maytheforcebewithyou



I wasn’t sure if it was part of the same thing, but here was the ANA Star Wars dreamliner (?) I can’t tell



Finally made it to the gate and as usual security was efficient. I have to say, of all the airports I’ve been to, I still like Changi the most. The worst part is that when it just slips from those high standards (and at levels that would make other airports blush) I get frustrated and have to remind myself, that these things happen everywhere. Anyway, on this occasion, nothing to complain about! And as I walked through, I saw the plane that would be carrying us to Jakarta.



Now I had mentioned previously that I was running late. Well actually I wasn’t. They should have been boarding when I arrived at the gate but apparently the plane was late getting in so we were delayed in boarding.

Stay tuned!!! Flight is to come!!!