Tokyo Narita to Singapore (NRT-SIN) Raffles (Business) Class on SQ 747 continued
Apologies for the interruption.
Boarding is well underway when I am called from the lounge. I head down to the gate, pick up an SQ printed timetable (these are much better than the ones available from SQ's SIN lounge since only a few pages thick as opposed to a fat book) at the desk and board. It is another very full flight (was showing all zeroes for several days).
Again I have the upper deck exit row seat, in fact the same seat I had on the same aircraft only a few hours earlier. The overhead bin nearest my seat has a pillow and blanket inside which I move aside to see if my carry on will fit - as it happens it wont since another oddly-shaped carryon is underneath the pillow & blanket. But the jerk sitting on the other side yelled at me to put those back - they're his and they have to be in that bin, nowhere else will do. I noticed during the flight he never touched either pillow or blanket in the bin. What an idiot.
While settling in the captain apologises for the lack of aircon - apparently the APU isn't working and external power isn't coping with this warm Tokyo day. We have a small delay in pushing back waiting for ATC clearance and then roar into the sky.
I don't know why, but somehow during the turnaround the IFE on my seat stopped working properly. I had "VID" (ie airshow plus movies) but not "INT" (interactive including tv programs, games, etc). They rebooted my seat but this didn't fix the problem. A bit annoying but it did mean I read a lot more than I normally would on an SQ flight and at least I could still watch movies.
Our flight path was further east and much closer to the typhoon than on the way up, thus there was a lot more turbulence for the couple of hours. The view consisted of nothing but clouds almost right until touchdown.
The service, while generally good, was off the usual very high SQ standards. For example, no offer of sake with the hangoyomi, missed drinks rounds, didn't come back with hot towel if away from seat during their pass through, assume you want dressing on the salad instead of asking, etc.
We had strong tailwinds all the way and so looked to be arriving quite early when we banked just off SIN followed by an announcement that due to a tall ship(?) passing just in front of the runway we have to hold until it clears the area. So we spent the next 30 minutes going around in circles gradually descending through the thick tropical air. Eventually we straightened up and land a little behind schedule. A short taxi this time to our gate at the end of E pier. We stop short of the gate for 5 minutes to allow another a/c to clear the area.
Since once again I was unable to get an onward boarding pass at Narita my first stop is check in desk inside the lounge.