DJ Bitterbarn

At 5 AM, being jet lagged certainly helps with waking up, but it is not a solution on its own.

As a result, we struggled with getting up and eventually managed to get everything packed and ready to go, only one or two trains late. It’s a good thing we were near the A’REX commuter because we weren’t really motivated to make lots of connections. But a full hour later we rolled up to the SQ Business checkin to see a crowd of bodies milling about at the entrance. Of course these were just stragglers waiting to check in to the Emirates flight next door, but like people in an airport they had turned off all sense of their surroundings and never bothered to consider they might be blocking a different desk. So we worked our way through and up to checkin. We were processed at the First desk, despite no F on this flight, and the process was extremely quick and professional. A guy could get used to this after the YYZ-YXE debacle. But a guy should not.


ICN, blurry in the morning before coffee.

So off we went to security and what a line. As we were running a bit late this was sort of shocking, but as it was ICN we sort of figured there must be a premium line around here somewhere and it would work. Turns out there was not, but a helpful staff member came over to explain to us that this wasn’t even a good line for us anyway and we should be going down to the other end of the terminal because the lines would be shorter and it would be closer to the train anyway.

And, because this is ICN, he was right. After we wandered down to the other end of the terminal the lines were significantly shorter to go through security and immigration. The only weird bit was that MrsBarn and I got split into different security lines, but not a huge deal. We made it through without incident and down to the train, just making it in before the doors closed.

I have a great picture of MrsBarn leaning on the door while we travelled out to the pier, not realizing that there were stickers indicating "don’t lean on the doors"....because she was leaning on the sticker and covering it up. But I probably shouldn’t post that.

So anyway, we got off the train and wandered up to the concourse and eventually found the lounge. Now that I know where it is it’s easy to find, sure. But jet lag or not it was still early and I hadn’t had coffee yet.


Lounge: SIA SilverKris Lounge ICN

I understand this lounge has been renovated, and it does show a bit. It’s not gigantic by any means but there are a few separate areas, including a buffet with actual food and coffee. Today, though, the coffee maker was flashing "service" which I later learned meant "just go ahead and make coffee anyway". On the menu were various breakfast things like toast and jam and some dim-sum.


The Business Centre


Seating area at the end of the lounge


Views

Although coffee and breakfast was a good idea, a shower was first on the list as we expected to have more time here. And the showers were perfectly fine for there only being two of them. Thankfully the lounge was quiet this morning and few people seemed interested in showers, so there was no wait. Then there was time for a quick breakfast and coffee.


Shower

Sooner than we’d have liked, though, it was time to head to the gate where the queue for boarding was already stretching way back. As this was SQ, though, priority boarding was a thing, so I snapped a quick shot of our plane from the windows and we meandered on board, stopping at the bottom of the escalator to comment on the very nice glass room with the airbridges. I’ve never seen one of those with quite such good views of aircraft. Good job, ICN.


Our ride this morning


ICN has some great airbridges

Flight: SQ 607
Date: 2013-12-31
Route: ICN-SIN
Aircraft: A330-300
Seats: 14A (J), 14C (J)

First Impressions: Hard Product

For our first flight with SQ, I think we could have done worse than regional J. The seats weren't the long-haul J ultra-wide ones, but they were certainly sufficient. Lots of storage options, great location for the power ports, although the spot which I would imagine is to put your phone is undersized for the newer 5" ones, so my Nexus 5 had to sit at an angle the whole time. The pocket to the inside of the seat is just a bit too deep to let it drop, though, although it works really well for the Nexus 7.








Cabin on the A333

The screen is certainly big enough, and the placement of the remote in the armrest makes it accessible, but not so much that you’re bumping it as I found I did on LO. I also really liked the somewhat-angled screen on the remote that helped to see the remaining flight time when it was docked, but without having to move it. The screen just naturally shows up from the side. Clever. As you can see from the pictures, I didn't manage to find enough space to store blankets and pillows, as I almost never use them, so they eventually went up in the bin.



The footwells, though, were where the seat let us down. If you turned the seat into a bed (as I typically do not) then you had very little space between the seat and the console. I also felt the foot rest was oddly constructed, but I don’t think I could adequately describe it without drawings, so I guess it’s not a big complaint. Or I’m an engineer. One or the other.

Overall for a six-hour flight I think it was a nicer seat than LO, unless you want to sleep. In that case, LO has a slight advantage - a few degrees’ worth of advantage. But that doesn’t take into account the IFE and soft product, so that’s where we’ll pick up this flight...

Boarding was orderly and smooth; we boarded from 1L and Y boarded from 2L, so there wasn’t much cabin traffic. As we settled in menus were distributed and drinks offered, but I don’t recall any alcoholic drinks… but then again I’m also writing this a month later, so it’s tough to recall everything.

After a browse through the KrisWorld guide and getting settled in with devices charging, we pushed back and departed…. somehow? No idea what runway we used, but I recall climbing over the ocean rather than Seoul.

Drink and dinner orders were soon taken (Château Labadie Medoc pour moi svp, forget what MrsBarn had but it was a white and we both went with the Halibut/Gnocchi) and shortly after delivered. The starter was tasty, coupled with garlic bread, of course. The halibut was fine, nothing spectacular, but was paired nicely with gnocchi and vegetables for a solid lunch choice.























Appetizer: Duck Foie Gras with shaved fennel-orange salad, beetroot, and mizuna


Garlic Bread


Dinner: Roasted halibut with potato gnocchi, broccoli, green peas and wild mushroom ‘a la Grecque’

During dinner and for the majority of the rest of the flight, I had a chance to explore KrisWorld beyond the guide and realized why it’s given such good reviews (except for the three-prong headphone). In terms of selection it’s far beyond what’s currently offered by LO and significantly more selection than AC or OZ. Clearly I've been misinformed about what constitutes an IFE system.

So, for the next few hours I caught up on a few more movies: The End of the World (which was wildly mis-described in the IFE guide as a movie about Simon Pegg doing a pub crawl), We’re the Millers (decent no-thinking-required comedy), and Rush (to finally catch the performances of a few friends who were extras in the film - Go Minh!). With those covered, I watched a couple episodes of Yes Prime Minister and pushed a bit farther through my games on the tablet. MrsBarn in the meantime explored the recline function and tried to sleep.


Singapore Sling

Some point mid-way through the flight I decided would be as good a time as any to have the mythical Singapore Sling, as 1) I hear it’s sort of a thing on SQ and 2) I also hear that it’s not all it’s made out to be and ordering one in SG would be a waste of time and money. Verdict: really fruity (i.e. it tastes like it contains a lot of fruit), really sweet, glad I had one, probably won’t go out of my way for some later unless there’s a good reason. This is not the last time I’ll have that assessment of something, either…..


Edgy, off-angle lavatory shot


More of the cabin

Finally, as we started to descend, my obsessive planning once again won the day. You see, I’d been watching this flight on flightaware off and on for months to attempt to determine the flight path on inbound so we could get the best views. And it seemed that the left side was the way to go, so I moved our seats a few weeks out from H/K to A/B. It paid off in a big way, as we broke through the clouds over Batam/Bintan and the ships. So many ships. MrsBarn was glued to the window the whole descent, firing off pictures everywhere. And then we turned and got the great views of Downtown and East Coast Park the rest of the way.








Landing views, just a few.


Humidity go!

Landing was smooth, and of course the windows steamed up a bit once we touched down, this was going to be a humid one, especially after December in Saskatchewan. Immigration was fast as expected, and as we walked out to arrivals we discovered our friend had taken the afternoon off to come and meet us at the airport! One quick stop later where I picked up my StarHub SIM at the UOB counter (definitely recommend this one for data) and we were downstairs at the car. Time to eat!


Getting into the Christmas Spirit

Conclusion: I was worried that this trip would spoil MrsBarn to the point where she would start to complain about J. I was right: she is not a fan of the flat-but-slopey J seats with limited foot space. This does not bode well for our return to Y.

DJ Bitterbarn

depending on your definition of "five" and "six"

Day 1: New Year's Eve

Now we depart from the world of commercial aviation and delve into a city that I’ve found very hard to pin down: Singapore. Personally I love the place. We had five full days to explore it and we agreed it could have been ten. In fact, we could have easily spent a couple weeks… but probably would have picked a cheaper hotel. But when trying to plan our time, one of the common suggestions we were given was "go to Malaysia". And then there’s the Orchard/Sentosa/Tourist Trail thing that we weren’t overly keen on. So there’s a few schools of thought here.

So what I’m going to try and do here is lay out our day plans first, somewhat as I have posted previously (there were a few changes), and then critique them against what we actually managed to do. And hopefully if someone’s going to spend five days in Singapore they might get some ideas.

We start with Day 1 where, initially, the plan was:

...yeah, it wasn’t really well-planned. And this turned out to be a good thing, since it all went off the rails immediately. Instead, our friend took us down to East Coast Park for food at East Coast Food Village. Before we ordered, though, we took a walk down to the beach to check out the wakeboard park. And, of course, chatting with a friend we hadn’t seen in years and he’s hardly changed a bit.

Leaving SIN by road


East Coast Village hawker centre


Looking out from East Coast Park

Now the food. On the menu this afternoon:
- Rojak
- Satay
- Chili Stingray
- Oyster Omelette
- Char Kway Teow
- Cendol
- And some kind of ice dessert that I didn’t remember the name






In short, it was great. All of it. I didn’t even think I was hungry, but there you go. We were able to sit outside in the winter weather (only 27 degrees!) and no rain. We’d been in the country for less than an hour and I was already sure this was a GREAT decision.

After dinner, we drove into town and right up to our hotel, complete with running commentary. Better than a tour guide.

Raffles Hotel. Right there.

Hotel: New Majestic Hotel
Rate: Somewhere around SGD$260, skewed higher by including NYE




Outside the New Majestic

So I probably alluded to this previously, but we loved the New Majestic. For starters, it’s right on the edge of Chinatown and right around the corner from Outram Park MRT. Plus, it’s got a nice little pool on the roof and the Garden rooms feature your own outdoor bathtub. The first impression was a bit funky, with chairs and bookshelves everywhere in the lobby and completely unfinished ceiling. Check-in was a breeze and the staff were quite friendly, something that continued through the stay.


Stairs to the Pool and Fitness Centre from the lobby


The lobby

When I booked months in advance I requested the "Oriental Girls go West" room as, while I like design, I was sort of hoping for something a bit subtle. And it delivered perfectly. The balcony was instantly a favourite place for coffee in the morning, with the tub being a pretty unique and useful feature. Amenity-wise, the bed was terribly comfortable, the nespresso in the room was well-stocked every day, as were the free non-alcoholic drinks in the minibar (which we certainly made use of and enjoyed).

Hallway


Desk


Door to the terrace


Décor


From another angle


Bathtub - empty


Bathtub - full


Washbasin (the glass behind the blinds is frosted as it faces the pool)


View into the room from the balcony. The window on the other side faces the pool directly, but you can’t open it to just jump out into the pool.


Pool at night


Pool in the day


Another shot of the pool in the day.

Now I could go on about how great this place was, but I’m going to lay out what I thought were a few faults at first, so we can get past those. First, as great as the room was it was right above a bank of AC units so if you had the door open to the patio it was sort of noisy. And there’s not much you could do about that. Second, there was nearly nothing in the way of night tables, bar one small nook on one side of the bed. If you, like me, use your phone as an alarm clock it's not going to work. Third, unless you like cold baths, the tub does take more than one fill of the hot water tank. Finally, the AC can’t be turned off in the room, you have to call down to do it. But that’s about it. And none of that detracted enough from the hotel to make it anything less than amazing, I’m just putting them out there because they stood out from the flawless experience otherwise.

Included in the list of pluses were the fact that the WiFi was fast and strong, and for some reason every time we wanted to use the pool it was empty. Score! Note, however, that if you are attempting to swim during the day, you can not look down through the windows into the restaurant. It’s just too dark and you run the risk of hitting your face on the glass and looking like a fool to anyone who may be in the restaurant. Not that I know this first-hand…..


This is how you’re supposed to look through the windows in the pool.



Now back to the plan. We were now hours late, but we had plans to call up my friend later before midnight. Being late, we thought it best to just wander down to Boat Quay on our own and see what we see. And that we did, stopping for pictures here and there and then at a little restaurant off on Cross Street for some kind of pudding (the mango was spectacular). Wish I could recall the name of the place, though. We then wandered down through Hong Lim Food Centre (mostly closed) and up to New Bridge Road, admiring the decorations up for CNY already, before finally reaching Boat Quay. As it was busy, we just wandered down the road, taking in the sights, as the clock ticked closer. Around 10:30 or 11, we met up with our friend at the end of the Cavanagh Bridge and let him lead the way. Except there was almost no way to get where I think he planned to go due to streets being closed off. So we made an executive decision to back up from the water and head to where we could get a drink and a place to sit and that ended up being The Stamford Swissotel. No worry, we hit the bar just as someone left so there was a free table. And by the time we finished our beer, it was nearing midnight. For being so far from Marina Bay, we had a pretty reasonable view. And more than that, we were able to get to the MRT, buy a couple cards, and get home before the crowds. I call that a win.


Decorations already out for CNY


The restaurant where we had dessert


Mango dessert - really good


Boat Quay


Fireworks


Fireworks


Fireworks are loud (for the record, I don't know who this family was but the little girl was funny)

DJ Bitterbarn

Day 2: The Touristy Day

The plan, as outlined, was to start off local. See Chinatown, wander up to Bras Basah and Fort Canning, then back down to Marina Bay and the Gardens by the Bay. The evening would be another trip through Keong Saik Rd. and the night markets.



In actuality, we didn’t quite get it all but we stuck pretty closely to the plan by dropping Fort Canning and Bras Basah. In the morning, though, we started on schedule with Oriole Coffee Roasters which was just around the corner from the hotel and was spectacular. The coffee was excellent, the staff supremely helpful, and as we were the only ones in the store the barista helped us out with a bunch of tourist info. And the biggest regret was that we didn’t have time to go back. This time... But I highly recommend it to anyone in the area.








Good advice. I will take it. Unfortunately cut off in this image was the "or" option, the fire extinguisher.

Afterward, we headed up to Smith Street Complex for breakfast, with the goal of filling in more squares in Singapore Food Bingo.

Have I not mentioned Singapore Food Bingo yet? Well it’s really easy. I just put together a list of 24 foods I wanted to eat, opened Excel, and pasted them into the squares of a grid. Then I hacked together some Singlish for my free space and there you have it. And now you can have it! (disclosure: I failed at Singapore Food Bingo, although I got REALLY close)
Singapore Food Bingo.

First up on the menu today was prawn noodles, fishball noodles, kaya toast, milo ice, more coffee, and iced tea. Being a public holiday it was pretty busy at the food centre but we managed to get a spot over by the (a?) shrine on the first floor and just sort of picked things near there. Everything, as expected, was delicious, particularly the way they did iced lemon tea, with extra lemon and sweet. And this was just Smith Street Complex and picking things in sight that looked interesting, had a queue, or both.


Fishball noodles




Smith Street Complex




Left: Coffee and Kaya Toast, Right: Prawn Noodles

Breakfast finished, we headed out to the Buddha Tooth temple and the visitors' centre, where we picked up a few semi-discounted tickets for Gardens by the Bay and then visited the temple. As I really have nothing to compare it to, it was the best temple experience I’ve had and an impressive sight in its own right. There was a service going on at the time but nobody seemed to mind the crowds and in fact it seemed the temple was built to do both at the same time. Impressive.






Buddha Tooth Temple






Sago Lane

After the temple, we did a bit of shopping around Chinatown for souvenirs and a drink (fruit juice, quite good), and then meandered back over to Hong Lim Food Centre for another fruit juice from "QQ Fresh Juice Ice Blend" which I note because we kept coming back to this place enough I ended up with a few stamps on the loyalty card I somehow picked up. Even though we didn’t stop at the same branch every time.


QQ Juice


Local architecture

Finally, we hopped the nice, new Downtown line and with a transfer to the Circle line, found ourselves at Gardens by the Bay in the early afternoon. On the way, of course, I had to stop to call my parents and wish them, BtY, and their friends a happy new year at midnight. And then, into the gardens.


Gardens by the Bay


Marina Bay Sands


That guy again.

The "Gardens by the Bay" is actually a number of different sights from the Cloud Forest/Flower Dome which are the big glass structures, to the Supertrees and Skywalk, to the fairly large (and free) gardens around them. The Cloud Forest/Flower Dome were what we had tickets for, so we wandered slowly through the gardens until we reached them and their climate-controlled environments. Overall, the experience was pretty interesting and extremely high-quality. The cloud forest takes you up to the top of the "mountain" through the various biomes and then back down through the Crystal Caves (not their actual name, but I still have fond memories of the game) and then a couple rooms with various aspects of climate change illustrated quite infographically.






The Cloud Forest




The Flower Dome


A real Green Car




Supertrees

The Flower Dome is more of what it says on the tin. It’s a dome (although not hemisphirical), there are flowers. They are arranged into country/region and are pretty comprehensive, as well as including a restaurant/ballroom and space for special exhibits. Overall it was impressive, but MrsBarn was less than taken, deciding that it seems strange to spend money to visit a garden when the whole city is already a garden. And while I’m happy to have seen it, I sort of agree. Good to see once, but the best is yet to come.

After Gardens by the Bay we decided food was again in order, so we headed back to Chinatown with the hopes of eating and finding me some swimming shorts because I had foolishly left them at my parents’. Anyway, we stopped again at Hong Lim, this time finding a few places open, and went for roast duck and pork noodles. Not on the bingo card, I know, but very tasty. Then, asking around for the best place to find cheap shorts we found ourselves at OG in People’s Park where we failed to find shorts. Instead, we somehow got lost (which is rare for me) and ended up I think down in People’s Park centre, where I found a great deal on shorts and, subsequently, spring rolls. We’re nothing if not predictable.


Roast Duck




People’s Park

Finally, food in hand and the sun setting, we called it an early night and headed back to the hotel to check out the pool and turn in to get a start on Day 3…

quirrow

Well the water in ECP isn't the cleanest. I have done kayaking off the coast a few times and there was plastic bottles and bags on the water along with some oil slicks, both possibly a result of the numerous shipping vessels moored off the coast. The waters along the coast of Sentosa is slightly cleaner or maybe in the northern coast of Singapore. But in general, Singapore does pay a certain cost for economic sustainability. The shipping industry is crucial to the country's economy since it is an island nation with virtually no other resources.

DJ Bitterbarn

You're right, I certainly wouldn't expect it to be the cleanest in the world, what with that amount of traffic. But as to the statement about water quality, it was one of many including "I don't trust trees, they could just fall on you at any minute". Both real concerns, phrased (to me) in unique ways.

That said, I'd still give kayaking a try next time we're there, but I'd probably want to do it on Ubin first.

DJ Bitterbarn

Day 3: The "Nature" Day

I had promised MrsBarn that we would fit in some nature in our Singapore trip and I realize that could be considered an impossibility, depending on your definition of nature. But as someone who comes from what feels like one of the remote corners of the world, I've been over-exposed to nature in my life so I was ready to say that MacRitchie Reservoir or Tengah reserve would cut it. But we had a different option: Pulau Ubin. Only an hour and change each way by public transit, this was going to have to deliver on my promise.

Now the original plan was:

I like this picture, mostly because it was just blurry enough to look painted.


Maxwell FS. Just a bit too early for this one.





As plans go, we stuck to this one pretty well. Except for the part where I forgot to think we’d need sunscreen or bug repellent and nobody at the hotel had been to Ubin in 15 years. So we decided to just go with it and pick up some on the way. Breakfast was at Smith Street Complex with coffee, Kaya Toast (for anyone who’s read the planning thread, just to say now I never did get to Ya Kun after all), and Prawn Noodles. A winning combination to start the day.


Coffee. Breakfast of Champions.


Prawn Noodles

We also grabbed the bug repellent but didn’t find the sunscreen. We then were forced to hope we could get some at Ubin. We… did not. But we did borrow some from a friendly group of tourists on the boat over so we didn’t burn. But I’m getting ahead of myself, first we had to get to Ubin. This was accomplished by the MRT to Simei and then a bus out to Changi Point. Or near there. We actually got off a bit too early and walked. But it was alright, we made the boat with time to spare, although not enough for food. And the boat over was certainly unique, but someone needs to clarify for me if the driver actually lives ON the boat. Because I get the impression he does….


Because… I don’t know? We make good pizza?


The Boat


Enroute to Ubin


Arriving

Once on Ubin we headed first for food, stopping at the seafood place near the water for oysters in some kind of chili sauce and then a few drinks for the ride. And those almost lasted us until we got to Chek Jawa nature reserve.


Ubin Village






Officially the most rustic place we ate during our trip. Officially.

Ubin definitely than came through for us and we were lucky enough to hit a beautiful sunny day, only about 31, with fantastic weather for biking. So we did, heading out to see the (unfortunately closed) Noordin Camp, then back along the road to Chek Jawa, stopping at a place that advertised cold drinks but was more or less unoccupied. I don’t know if this was due to the official state eviction notice on the door dated 2008, but I highly doubt it. On the way we ran across some local wildlife in the form of wild pigs and one wild rooster, plus various lizards, fish, and clams. MrsBarn was, from experience, a bit wary around the wild pigs until we realized they weren’t interested in us whatsoever, demonstrated by the reaction of the park staff to the pig directly behind him:







Some day, there may be cold drinks. Today is not that day.


NOPE.


Hey guys, got any food?


Apparently not.


Supposedly the only functional fireplace in Singapore.


Chek Jawa House No. 1 and pier






SQ A380 on takeoff roll. I wouldn’t say it’s the best spotting area for spotting, but it’s relaxing.


Chek Jawa House No. 1.


A little lizard.

Mangroves


View from the observation tower


The other view from the observation tower.


Chek Jawa was pretty cool, although I think it would have been better at low tide, obviously. But the boardwalks were great for ocean views, and we did manage to see a few living things. The mangrove boardwalk was equally interesting, where we climbed the observation tower for some views out over the forest and over to Malaysia. After the boardwalk we stopped for a rest at the house and, finally, picked up the bikes and slowly made our way back to the village for some coconut, with a stop on the way at a small pond to just admire the view. Notably, now in the afternoon things were open and we could easily find sunscreen, so we had just been there too early, apparently.


You may not be able to count them, but there are five wild pigs in this photo.




A stop at a quiet lake


Flower at same lake


I can see why some people may be reluctant to give up their lifestyle on Ubin


These guys are impressively tolerant of the heat. Kudos.


Back in Ubin Village


This parrot only spoke Mandarin, slightly better than I do.


Coconut at the Parrot’s shop.


Leaving Ubin

Catching (interestingly the same) bumboat back, we wandered a bit through Changi Village to find things like sunscreen and a hat (despite me not being much of a hat person since it was cool to do so in Grade 7) before stopping at Changi Village FS for the obvious Nasi Lemak and Otah, some Hokien Mee, and the most amazing lime juice I’ve ever had. This became a bit of an obsession, of course, and I ended up making it at home more than a few times since, until I ran out of Pandan.


The remains of Nasi Lemak with Otah. Was too hungry to remember to take a picture earlier

If you’ve watched the Anthony Bourdain (Layover) episode about Changi Village, you may notice this was the place with no queue, in the stall with the queue. Apparently the popular stall moved so these guys moved into their space. Instant popularity.


Changi Village Food Centre


Lime Juice


Fried noodles

Finally, thoroughly exhausted, we hopped a very busy bus and then a busy MRT to return to Outram Park where we more or less collapsed, but not without making good use of the patio bathtub. I did, however, motivate myself to go out for food once more, this time to Maxwell for some Carrot Cake. I discovered I really like Carrot Cake. But I only tried the black Carrot Cake so I’m sure I have offended someone’s sense of taste. For that I’m sorry, but I just have to go back, I guess….


Some pagoda, over by Maxwell somewhere.


The Pinnacle


Black Carrot Cake at Maxwell

DJ Bitterbarn

Day 4: The Food Day

The plan for today is simple. Food, food, food. It was supposed to start with a wet market, move on to a cooking class, then lunch, a walk, lunch, a walk, dinner, and then attempt to get home. Most of this was to take place around Little India, Geylang, and ECP.

For those of you who read and recall TalkMail, there was once a day when I was shocked to discover that the aforementioned cooking class had become the "featured" event. This led to some degree of panic on my part but ultimately everyone who expressed interest wasn’t able to make it, and I got too caught up in work to give event the organizing effort it needed, so I was planning to be alone on this one. It would have been nice to see people, but this was dangerously close to the proper SIN DO and on a Friday, so locals were probably out for this one. Thankfully there were independent bookings, but I’ll get to that.

Somewhere a few months earlier I had managed to snag one of the elusive groupon deals for a spa that does not restrict itself to SG Residents, PR, EP, or WP holders. These are pretty rare, often only once every few weeks, and rarely in a good location. Or, if they do fit the criteria, they’re gone far before I wake up to check. Magically, however, this led to a 3-hour spa package at Bugis for MrsBarn which is the reason I was going to be solo on the cooking class. Thus, the plan changed and we started the morning off at Bugis (Rochor Centre) with a cool little coffee shop in the block. Afterward, I hopped the MRT a few more stops over to Paya Lebar and walked the rest of the way to the class. I guess there was a bus, but I prefer walking in new places to scope it out.


Coffee shop at Rochor Centre

A bit about said cooking class. The school is called "Cookery Magic" and it’s run by "Food Sorceress" Ruqxana. The title is apt, because what she does with food is nothing short of magic. And before I say any more about the class itself, I can not recommend it enough for anyone spending time in SG if you like to cook. She runs classes of as few as two people from her home, where she’s set up this great demo kitchen out back of her house (covered over, so no worry about rain). She’s extraordinarily easy to contact via email and arrange things, and although I booked far, far too early it was still no problem to sort out the dates and classes I wanted.


Cookery Magic


The Kitchen

Ruqxana does a bit of explanation of the recipes to start, then breaks you into smaller groups where you’re given all the ingredients you need to make the dish you just heard about, and then you do it. As you cook she walks you through the steps and ultimately you end up with some amazing dishes, which get put away until the end of the class when everyone heads out to the front of the house and has lunch.

First on the menu was Onde Onde, despite being dessert. It had to do with smell from the crab, she said, and that’s fine by me. I still haven’t attempted it, nor my Canadianization using maple syrup (which I will declare to be Onde Ond-eh?), but the end product we came up with in the class was amazing, better than what I picked up the next day at Tiong Bahru.




Onde Onde

Next we did the Chili Prawns/Chili Crab. I would have done the crab but for lack of good crab in KRK, but others did and seeing both products was enough I could probably make it later. The best advice in the process was Ruqxana’s "you’re going to want to make it way hotter than you think you’d like, because in the end it’s not going to be as hot as you think" and she was right. Adding more peppers actually made it just right.





Chili Prawns

After the chili prawns, we retired to the indoor kitchen to discuss cleaning the crabs for Chili Crab, a process that she made look really simple. Then I watched the mostly-similar recipe and returned the favour of taking pictures. I’m probably going to have to replicate that now that we have access to crab again.




Chili Crab, key differences from Chili Prawns

Finally, we come to the Char Kway Teow. This was another recipe that turned out to be a great one we’ve done a few times since, basically fried noodles with chicken/squid and various vegetables. The ingredients going into it are also pretty similar to chili crab/prawns meaning the two recipes go well together in terms of prep and ingredients. I’ve personally never been able to reproduce the colour, but I think that’s more to do with ingredients available to me than anything. I’m certainly going to try again, because it’s become quite the favourite at home.






Char Kway Teow

Anyway, three dishes finished we all retired to the big dining table at the front of the house to admire our work. In my biased opinion we did a very, very good job. After a leisurely lunch, though, it was time for people to go. I got the rest of my food packed up to take for MrsBarn’s lunch and spent a few minutes charging my phone while talking to Ruqxana about all kinds of aspects of life in Singapore. Finally, though, it was time to walk back to the MRT to return to Bugis.

I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: this class was a great choice and I will absolutely be returning when we come back to SG.


Kembangan MRT

Arriving at Bugis, I found MrsBarn over by Rochor centre and we decided to get away from some of the heavy MRT construction by walking back to Fort Canning. On the way, though, we stopped by a durian stall and picked up a small box for dessert. I’m confident we did not get the best example, maybe even on the low side of average, but I wanted to at least get an idea and this would suffice for right now. But the King of Fruits would wait until after lunch, which we had on the grass at Fort Canning. Eventually we moved out of the sun to a bench and finished off lunch and then the Durian. Verdict on that was…. I can certainly say I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it either. It was just very, very strange. It tasted a bit like everything from garlic to sweet and everything in between with a supremely unique consistency. And the smell was nothing you can prepare yourself for; I just breathed through my mouth in the end and it wasn’t so bad. I’m not going to rush out and get it again (even though I saw it for sale locally last week - frozen of course), but I wouldn’t say no if someone claimed they had a good one.

Now we were at Fort Canning, but the plan as written was that we should be at 328 Katong Laksa. Of course this wasn’t nearby at all, so we decided to skip that and Tian Tian and head straight to Old Airport Road FS. So we hopped the MRT at Doby Ghaut and headed down to Mountbatten where we disembarked to find a very nice market filled with stalls…. all of which were closed. Not good. We decided, then, that we’d just walk down toward the next station and head back upon which we realized that we were looking at the closed Kallang Estate wet market and the very open food centre was down on the next block. Cue the "kid in a candy store" reaction from both of us. MrsBarn mostly because she actually didn’t have that much to eat today so was legitimately hungry and me because I just love hawker centres. So despite eating from the morning up to mid-afternoon, I knew there would be space. First up was Otah and meeting Beer Uncle.

Beer Uncle is awesome.

For those of you who haven’t met Beer Uncle, he’s not a single person so much as a job. Beer Uncle is the guy who runs the nearest drinks stall and who comes over to see if you need a beer. So in a way he (or she, if it’s Beer Auntie) is more or less like a bartender/server, but in a food centre. It’s just one of those simple ideas that works extremely well in practise: sit down at a table, Beer Uncle comes over, gets your order and brings you back beer. Why is this not a feature in every food court in the world?!


Otah




Carrot Cake, and the associated Stall

Beer on table we moved on to Carrot Cake, as MrsBarn missed it on my evening outing to Maxwell. Once again we went with the black Carrot Cake and she agreed it was excellent. I vaguely remember we had something else, but I didn’t take a picture of it so I can’t confirm. May have been some kind of fried noodle?


Back to the hotel, view of the Pinnacle on the walk from the MRT

Finally, we hauled ourselves out and over to the MRT to get back to the hotel for a rest and swim. A few hours later after the sun was just down we were feeling revitalized and ready to meet with our friend over in Little India. He was going to be a bit late, so we took the MRT up to Little India and decided to have a walk down Serangoon road to our ultimate destination at Mustafa Centre. This was a few weeks post-riot but there was no sign whatsoever. Everything was actually almost too quiet. So after a few stops to buy some souvenirs and check out the shops, we came across a restaurant that looked good so with the temperature lower in the evening we stopped for dinner. I realize there were a lot of options in the area, but couldn’t decide on any in advance so we went with what looked good at the time. It turned out to be delicious, with some biryani and veg curry combined with mango lassi and beer, added with sitting outside in the cooler evening. Eventually, we got in touch with our friend we arranged to meet outside Mustafa Centre.






Flowers at Little India


I couldn’t justify buying it, but I could easily justify taking the picture.




Dinner




Dinner is serious business on Food Day.


Little India

Now Mustafa is, from my limited experience, not so much a department store as an experimental study in chaos theory. Things are organized in the sense that there are departments, but at any time you should expect to find a significant number of things totally out of place. It seemed like items went in and then they stayed there until they were purchased. If they were moved in the meantime, they stayed in their new location. This, of course, led to the phenomenon our friend pointed out where new things could be a deal, but since nobody ever deals with the inventory once it’s on the shelf, the prices never get reduced like they would elsewhere. But if you’re looking for something unique to do in the evening then you could easily do worse.




Mustafa Centre

We never really got "lost" and around midnight, with only a few purchases in hand, we escaped from the clutches of Mustafa and headed over to a place across the street for Teh Tarik which was nothing short of excellent. Then, somehow, we ended up back in Mustafa. I believe it had to do with Tiger Balm. I left the other two and managed to convert over the last of my KRW, and then met up again to add to our Mustafa inventory. Our friend drove us back home and we crashed in the early hours of the morning.

Cohall

Fantastic report and photos...and very clever writing. The story about the old drunk man punching you in the walnuts was classic!

Looking forward to the rest!

DJ Bitterbarn

I embellished it as much as I could, but at its most basic that's exactly what happened. And I can assure you, I had no idea that was coming.

Glad you like the rest of it, too! It was a trick condensing our ~6000 photos into something I thought FT would be interested in; there's a lot of repetition and more than a few blurry ones as I worked out the focusing on the Nexus 5 camera, and sadly I forgot to take a few on aircraft of all things (usually due to just tiredness or forgetfulness).

DJ Bitterbarn

Day 5: Go West!

Admittedly, day 5 wasn’t actually that thematic. The original plan was to get up and hit Tiong Bahru for breakfast, Henderson Waves to Pasir Panjang, then open activity in the afternoon and Little India in the evening (not west, hence the theme problem). As we’d already been to Little India the previous day, we had a bit of room here. Also, as we didn’t get as early a start as the day before, we instead decided to just do Tiong Bahru in the morning. Good call.


I think this is one of the nicest, greenest flyovers I’ve ever seen.


Okay.


Tiong Bahru. I can dig it.



Tiong Bahru Food Centre

Since Outram Park is basically walking distance to Tiong Bahru, that’s what we did. Half an hour later or so we were in the district and I have to say that first impressions were good. Low-rise, art deco blocks are always something I appreciate, for reasons I still don’t know. Soon we found our way to the escalators at Tiong Bahru FS and all the wonders therein. Coffee to start, of course, and then Jian Bo Shui Kueh.






Jian Bo Shui Kueh

Remember way back when I mentioned my compulsion for local language? Well it turns out I can order Shui Kueh in Mandarin. Convincingly, even. What I can not do is understand or respond to the next question, regardless of what that question was, but my blank, deer-in-the-headlights look followed by "... yeah, I actually don’t know much more than that" was apparently hilarious and instant friends occurred again. The woman taking orders suddenly got even more friendly and helpful and we were all good for one of the biggest food surprises of the trip: MrsBarn still talks about how great Shui Kueh is months later, and I’ve now got to try and either find it or learn to make it. Next, I braved the queues for SQ319’s recommended Lor Mee. Acquired taste or not, we found it quite good. I’d go back for more, is what I’m saying.




Lor Mee

So once again beyond full we decided to pick up snacks for later and with the (totally volunteered) help of a friendly local we picked up some rainbow-coloured gelatin-like snacks (no idea what they were but MrsBarn loved them) and rice with beans. Then it was market time.










Dessert - HarriAnn’s Delights

Downstairs in the wet market I had to get a bag of pandan. I’ve got too many recipes that I need it for and I’d never seen it in Europe so now was the time. I should have bought three. Once I figured out you can use it to make lime juice it disappeared in no time.






Tiong Bahru

MrsBarn was on the hunt for souvenirs and we ended up with a couple great little things for the house as well as a cool set of pyjamas for BtY (who loved them). And clothes, of course. In the meantime I took a walk through the wet market admiring the colour and in one case the size of the kohl rabi. In Poland you get them baseball-size. Here they were practically bowling balls. Maybe not, but close.










Tiong Bahru Wet Market


Tiong Bahru

By now it was getting warm so we headed up through the rest of the area to Tiong Bahru MRT and back to the hotel for a swim and rest. Right here was another win for the New Majestic: essentially-private pool at the heat of the day? Yes we will. After a couple hours we decided to continue on and catch up with the plan of doing the Henderson Waves and Southern Ridges. This time we jumped in a taxi to cut down on the commute and shortly found ourselves at the base of the Waves, maybe five bucks lighter and actually glad to be back out in the heat after learning that all those Daikin ads on the taxis are not just ads but more like indicators of their mobile showrooms, if you get where I’m going here. Then a few flights of stairs up and we were at the Waves.


Oh those monkeys.




Views from the top


Long way down….




That guy again.

By the time we got to the top there were a few clouds moving in but that wasn’t a deterrent for the handful of people on top. Most seemed to be small groups taking photos, which led to us swapping photo duties with another small group so we could get a picture together. After maybe fifteen minutes, though, we continued down the Southern Ridges at just the right time: a few raindrops were starting to fall. By the time we reached Telok Blangah Hill Park we had to run the last few hundred metres to hide out in a gazebo. The rain passed quickly enough (or so we thought) and we kept going, getting stopped only once a few metres later by a five-minute shower. Afterward the rain stayed away for the rest of the walk up through the terraced gardens and down to the Treetop Walk. This time, beyond my shoes’ incessant squeaking on the metal deck, we were alone on the walk. We saw maybe five people in the half hour we were up there.




Telok Blangah Hill Park




Treetop Walk




A bit of geoengineering.




More from the Treetop Walk


Alexandra Arch

Personally, I’d recommend if you’re in Singapore and looking for something not-overly-touristy but fun to take up the better part of three hours, this is it. The whole time you’re up there you can still hear traffic but you see nothing. It really is getting away from it (beyond the sound) with some great close-up views of the tree canopy. Plus, it’s easily accessible by public transit/taxi and there’s food at the end. And that’s where we find ourselves now.

The original plan here was to walk down to Pasir Panjang for dinner, as I’d been clued in to the fact that this is where the good seafood can be found. However, by the time we got off the treetop walk we were starting to think another hour of walking would be too much so we bailed for a taxi or bus, whichever came first. And that was a taxi. So five bucks later we were down at Pasir Panjang.


Pasir Panjang

The first thing we had to do was stake out a table. Because of the rain, nobody was sitting in the open spaces and we weren’t keen to start. Somehow, though, we managed to find a huge table in the corner, right next to the biggest seafood stall in the centre. So we sat down and went with the whole point of coming: black pepper crab (a suggestion from my now-supervisor, also native Singaporean). As it was taking a while, MrsBarn headed off to find something else from the ocean and returned with an oyster omelette. We also got a fruit juice (forget exactly which) from the stall next to the seafood one and I then took the opportunity to pick up some Teh Tarik from the shop on the far corner and made the excellent decision to get three, rather than two. Two just wouldn’t be enough.



Teh Tarik




Hua Kee Seafood



Oyster Omelette

Because of our location, we got to see every dish that came out of that stall, as they used our table as a staging area for the servers. Dishes came out, we’d stare at them hungrily, and then someone would take it away to its proper table. The whole time there was smoke from somewhere, wind from outside, a bit of rain, and chaos. It was glorious.




Finally, the crab appeared. Having no black pepper crab experience I can safely say it was the best I’ve ever had, but I would also expect to say that if I had experience before. Probably. It was great! Of course, like all crab dishes the actual eating it was the most work-intensive part and although the servers did provide us with a set of crab …. crackers?... they only remembered to do so well after we needed them. But we did get it all done, turning the beautifully-presented plate into a delicious mess, which is I believe the correct result when you eat crab. I recall the crab was somewhere in the neighbourhood of $35 and all in I don’t think the whole meal was much more than $45.




Black Pepper Crab

Leaving Pasir Panjang, the rain was back but we could just dash through to the MRT station and by the time we were at the hotel it was gone again. So we decided to just go out again to the Smith Street markets to try and swap a gift for the correct one (we did, just not this trip) and see what we could see. We ended up sitting with another beer and dessert at a restaurant, then thinking we should head up to see a park. This turned out to be too far to go, so we bailed back across People’s Park Complex and back to the hotel to end the night.




Oh, there’s the rain




Chinatown at night






Beer and… some kind of pudding? I actually don’t remember.


Heading over the bridge to People’s Park


I can’t explain this one. Just… yeah. Seemed cool.

DJ Bitterbarn

Day 6: Departure Day

The original plan was to use this day as a cleanup day. We were going to try and see the things we hadn’t seen while making sure we were back at the hotel by noon for checkout. So we decided to take it easy a bit and only went back to the Smith Street FS for breakfast where we picked up another Nasi Lemak (although there was a wait for it), as well as Laksa, fried noodles, kaya toast, and coffee. Hey, it was the last day. We had to make it count.




Coffee and Kaya Toast


Artistry in action


Fried Noodles


Laksa


Nasi Lemak


Another in a long series of unflattering images.

Rather than go too far, we browsed the flea markets in Chinatown and slowly meandered our way back to the hotel to pack.



Chinatown


There’s a park that runs between Keong Saik Rd and Bukit Pasoh Rd. and once we discovered that’s a better way to get back to the hotel, we always went that way.

At noon, we checked out and waited downstairs for our friend to arrive as he promised us the one thing we still had regrettably not yet had: Chicken Rice. But he said he knew a place (of course) and he brought us up to Boon Tong Kee (at Boon Keng MRT) which is his "local" place. We were jealous at first, but very jealous later after the meal! Of course it was excellent, but the biggest thing I noticed was that I’ve been making chili sauce wrong the whole time and really needed to double the lime juice. To go with it we had fried tofu and coffee ribs. Yes, coffee. I don’t know where we found room after breakfast, but it was there somewhere.


Coffee Ribs


Chicken Rice


Coffee Ribs, Chicken Rice, Fried Tofu


Pictures of food. We all do it.


Boon Tong Kee

So one more excellent meal down we stopped at another famous local shop to stock up on some TCM specialties, not because we’re really into the concept but more because we were there and at that point, why not? It’s got to be famous for a reason. So now protected from all manner of future ailments, mostly muscular, we drove up to the Botanical Gardens for a quick swing by before our friend had to go. Apparently the Gods are going on holiday before new year and there was an event he needed to take the kids to. Which makes sense, on all counts, so he dropped us at Orchard Road where we had a very brief look through a few shops, picked up some clothes and a new duffel bag to carry all this stuff, and then Bak Kwa for work. I tell you, people bring things back to the office from their travel (business or personal), but nobody’s ever brought back Bak Kwa before.












Botanical Gardens


Seems a good place for wedding pictures.


Orchard Road




Emerald Hill Road

From Orchard Road we hopped the MRT down to the harbour for a beer on Clarke Quay. After this we checked out the Merlion, becuase…. I guess we should? We didn’t have the option the last time we were in the area because of NYE. Then we walked along the harbour until we found the Raffles Place MRT stop and headed back up to the hotel.


Fullerton Hotel


Clarke Quay




Under Esplanade Dr.


Little Merlion


Big Merlion



When we returned our stuff was waiting for us, so we repacked a few things and walked the short distance to the MRT. Once again, the New Majestic pays off, this time in location. Because we were right on the EW Line it meant only one transfer and even then it was only across the platform. The EW Line isn’t right at the New Majestic entrance, though, so you do have to walk through the NE Line platform to get there, but at least it’s still less than from most other hotels to the MRT.


EW MRT to Changi

Now, at nearly 9:00 we arrived at Changi and discovered that our flight was at 1, not 12. This was unfortunate, as we were now very early, but not overly unfortunate as we still had the SilverKris lounge coming up.

I’ll digress for a moment and again point out that I love a good airport. ICN was a good airport, well arranged. Changi, though, struck me as even better, at least if you’re leaving from T3. The MRT drops you effectively right downstairs, so it’s just two escalators to check-in. The check-in area is huge and, at the time we left, empty. The space is open, but it didn’t feel cavernous. And it just seemed efficient. Maybe it’s different with more people, but tonight was a seamless experience.


Down to the MRT, Up to T3

The one downside was that I had hoped to wrap our checked bag (as we now had amassed enough stuff to need one) but that would have required a 45-minute trek over to T1 and back from T3, so the agent and MrsBarn convinced me that the soft-side duffel would survive and I took my chances. Spoiler: nothing happened to it.







Bag checked and boarding passes in hand, we went through the nearby immigration to seek out the T3 SKL and its precious WiFi, as my Starhub card had expired on the MRT ride over. Planning!

Lounge: SilverKris Lounge, Changi T3

Honestly, the SKL is great. I love the decor, the buffet is excellent, and if like us you had an extra hour to spend at Changi when you’re too tired to explore, hope that you get to spend it here. I wouldn’t say it’s the nicest lounge we visited on this trip, but that was purely circumstantial as it had to compete with the LAX *A F lounge and the IST TK lounge to come. But right now, I was happy to be here.

First up was food, coffee, and a bit of phone charging. Cross Beef Rendang off the bingo card and that left me with a near-blackout (still only "near", yet it feels so far). A couple of maki rolls, rice, curry, and fruit juice was a good late dinner, coupled with coffee to keep me going until the wee hours and tea for MrsBarn. Afterward, we moved over to a seat near the "view" of the concourse. Never found a tarmac view, but it was dark enough it didn’t really matter. Despite the crowd at first, as flights left it thinned out nicely and eventually it was pretty quiet. MrsBarn took the opportunity to try and catch a nap while I charged my various devices and played some games, read some news, etc.




SilverKris Lounge T3 - Area by the coffee machines


Rendang, Maki Rolls, Pakoras, Rice… something else?

By 12, though, our flight had changed status and we had a gate. Time to find it. Oh, wait. It’s directly downstairs.




We weren’t the last ones in the lounge, but we were close.

Now despite my previous professing of admiration for Changi, I am actually not a big fan of security at the gate. It just interrupts my routine having to plan in advance how long security might take, and I always prefer to get that over with early. So I was pleasantly surprised to find a very short queue tonight. Not short enough, mind, that a few people didn’t come running up from nowhere, cut the line, threw their things on the belt in a panic, and just barged through to… get on our flight. Wow. Thanks guys. Good thing you did that or the plane might have left without you. And us. Then, post-security we found ourselves in the multi-gate lounge at… I want to say gate 5? We actually had to create a path to the priority line through the stunned bystanders, but it was a moderately smooth process and sooner than later we were on board...


But first: Lessons learned from planning SG:

My plans were all based around loops. Put things down on the map in such a way that you spend as little time backtracking as possible, moving from one activity to the other until you end up back at your hotel. This worked spectacularly with one crucial flaw: I planned the days as a single loop, rather than as two loops: morning and evening.

So where I had planned early-evening rest before going out again, what I should have planned was mid-day rest and morning and evening loops. This would have probably increased our sightseeing potential by using evening hours when it’s cooler, rather than burning out in the day. It’s okay, we made it work. Next time, though, I’d just break it down that way. Except with things like Ubin (and, I guess, the zoo next time) where transit is such a big deal you probably can’t do two things like that.

Apart from that, though, we had more than enough items on the list and creating a list of "options" was a great idea. Except then at the end you have options you didn’t do. It did mean we had no dead time spent looking for things and food. Especially food. In SG you can plan around food very easily, because no matter where you go you’re going to be close to something delicious. Guaranteed. So then just decide where to eat and fill in the blanks for what you’re going to do between meals.

And the StarHub Prepaid Tourist card is worth every cent, especially if you have a good VOIP provider for any calling you need to do (although if you’re going to do so, try not to do it from Ubin… the signal gets a bit weak). Pick the cards up at the UOB kiosk to the left of T3 arrivals.

And that’s more or less what I’d do next time, too.

aptravel

Fantastic report with great pics and writing. Love seeing and hearing about all of your Singapore experiences.

Thanks for your effort!

DJ Bitterbarn

Thanks! We had just a fantastic time there and certainly would head back. Maybe I'm weird, but I never had a problem finding things to do there and could certainly spend a lot more time.

DJ Bitterbarn

Flight: SQ 392
Date: 2014-01-06
Route: SIN-IST
Aircraft: B777-200
Seats: 11D (J), 11F (J)

So way back in the booking process I had heard through the grapevine that SQ would be refitting its 777-200s to bring the hard product line with the -300s so that they could start to refit the -300s to be nicer, assumably. This meant, however, that for those of us booking a year out there were options to be had, specifically booking flights with the old-cabin -200s knowing we would get the better cabin. Done and done. The trick, then, was to work out which route. CPH was my preferred route but the dates were all wrong. MXP had slightly better dates but not overly ideal. IST, on the other hand, had availability on the dates I wanted and was just long enough to make the flight worthwhile, so it was a go.

I had selected 11 D and F for us, being as D and F were the only pairs in this configuration and I’d heard good things about the space available in the first row. And everything I’d heard was pretty accurate. The seats are just as wide as rumoured, bordering on "too wide", and they are certainly quite comfortable. There’s a small bit of recline, not quite as much as I’d like but more than I was expecting. Storage space, though, is abundant, with various cabinets near the screen to hold drinks and electronics and what have you, plus another large space across from the aisle for headphones, etc. This is just a huge seat, ultimately, and since it’s under a year old there was little sign of wear.




IFE Screens in row 11

When you flip the seat down, though, it turns into a really huge bed and this is, I guess, the hallmark of this design. First, to flip it down is a very, very easy process. No turn-down required here. As a bed it was comfortable and I got a full six or seven hours of uninterrupted sleep, so it did the trick. I have to appreciate the seatbelt connection that fits through the mattress, but also have to question why it would go there, wasting the little space on the edge like that when they could have put in a different connector right at the edge. But I’m not an airline seat designer, either. When you combine the bed width with the absolutely massive footwell in row 11, too, it stands out even more. Add a proper duvet and huge pillow and it was a fine bed.


Legroom…. if you can pardon my classy, classy footwear.

On the electronic side, the PTV is big, although far from leading the way in PTV size these days, and for some reason the KrisWorld version on this flight isn’t nearly as complete as the version on the ICN-SIN flight. The TVs in row 11 on this config are slightly higher than the others, for some reason, but not that much. You could see in the cabin shot just how much higher it is. I still don’t get the reasoning for three-prong headphones, but oh well. The IFE did the job for the few hours I was awake although a couple episodes of TV shows failed to load for whatever reason.

Hard-product wise this was easily the best J we experienced on this trip with the exception of the IFE selection. Still, though, it was better than the LO selection or AC’s transborder selection. And the recline does get a pass, partly for being more than I was expecting.

On the soft product side, we had was a relatively personable crew who worked to a high service standard. They were attentive and there right when you needed something, but not robotic by any means. As one example, MrsBarn agreed she wanted breakfast before going to sleep, and when the time came for whatever reason the crew came to me to ask if I could see if she still did. I don’t know if this is considered good or bad but I found it a good idea that I hadn’t experienced before.

Now in terms of the service, pre-departure drinks were offered and dinner orders were taken before we left the ground, probably to get a start on things for this late flight. Most of the J pax opted to sleep, I think, not being an airplane geek who would choose to eat for the sake of the experience over sleeping for the sake of being tired. Not having access to a window I really didn’t get to see much on the takeoff but it was smooth at this late hour; no waiting around for queues at least. Once we were up, they moved on to dinner quite quickly.










I’m still regretting that I was too tired to remember to take pictures of the food, but I had the Chilean Bass and a red wine, I think the same Labadie Medoc I had on the way in. The prawn starter was, if I recall, pretty tasty, and the bass was certainly good, possibly better than the fish on the inbound from ICN. For dessert they offered one of everything, not just the choice. The fruit/mousse was, as I recall being mentioned by the FA, very good and at least this time I remembered to take a picture. No pictures of the cheese, but this was the flight where I realized that OZ F ruined port for me. The 10-year just didn’t cut it anymore. No coffee yet, as I was intending to get some degree of sleep, putting an end to this first service. So far it was good, with wine being topped up at the right points and just the right amount of attention to detail.





I then took the opportunity to have a bit of a lie down while watching a few shows that turned into at least a six-hour nap. When I woke up there were only a few hours left to enjoy the experience so I switched back into seat mode (again, very easy to do solo) and the crew appeared to see about a drink. This time was coffee, I vaguely recall, which was for airplane coffee very good and even not bad by ground coffee standards (i.e. better than the coffee we had at work due to use of proper milk and beans). Breakfast followed shortly thereafter, which was orange juice and fruit, followed by cereal and then a great Belgian waffle with berries. Pictures of some were remembered.


Belgian Waffles

At this point I took a quick walk through the J cabin, grabbed some shots of the lav, the cabin, and outside. I managed one nice, if somewhat invasive, sunrise shot across 11A (I tried to cut him out, at least). I really wish I could recall what I ended up watching for the remainder of the flight, but I was mostly just enjoying the experience and making the most of the limited time left in the great seat.




Lavatory Shots


The J cabin


A low-light shot of the sun coming up


Sunrise over Turkey

As with all good things, though, it had to end and too soon at that. We descended in the early hours over IST and landed smoothly, taxiing over to a remote stand. J was deplaned first and we were the last out of the cabin, getting one last chance to put my abysmal mandarin skills to use to wish the crew a happy new year (at least of the handful of words and phrases I know, I can say them more or less intelligibly) causing once again that shock of recognition when the FAs put together the situation and understood that, yes, that did just happen. Then we were out to the stairs, leading to an amazing opportunity to get a shot of the great engines on the 777. I should have grabbed more, but this was still with the 4.4.1 firmware on the Nexus 5, so the autofocus was still a bit laggy (not that it’s 100% better, but it’s improved with 4.4.2 I think) so even the shot I got wasn’t fantastic.




The Longhaul J seats


Another shot of the J cabin, better light.


What an engine!

Once everyone was on the bus we had a quick drive to the terminal, where we then had a strangely long walk to transit security before being released, rather unceremoniously into the busy IST morning and that’s where I’m going to end this part with thoughts on the flight.

Thoughts: The flight was too short. There’s my biggest complaint. With the refitted -200s having the longhaul J product, plus the super-late departure, this flight is just too short to make the most of all of it, says this airplane geek. Not that they could do anything about it, mind, but like LAX-ICN I could have used more time to enjoy it with so much eaten up by sleep. However what I did experience was nice. The seats are that wide, the service is that good, but the IFE could have been better. Oh well, it was a small detraction from an otherwise excellent choice in booking. If I were looking to do this again (or if I were someone looking to build an Aeroplan Mini-RTW) I would certainly take this flight again, hint hint. Just expect a late night is all. That 1am departure is tough.

DJ Bitterbarn

Let’s face it. On this trip we visited YVR, New LAX, ICN, SIN, and then IST. There’s going to be a letdown at some point and this was it. We weren’t even talking YYZ or WAW here. Not even YXE (new, half-finished YXE, not old) Sorry, IST, it’s not going to work at face value. If you want to compete as a hub you’re going to need something extra special to overcome the really average, almost-overcrowded terminal you seem to have inherited from the STN school of ceiling design.


IST

Oh wait, it’s IST. And that something special is right over there. It’s the TK Lounge.

Lounge: Turkish Airlines Lounge Istanbul

So forget any of my criticisms of IST as an airport, because while the terminal itself isn’t anything special it houses one of the best *A lounges around. I would rate it favourably to the T3 SKL that we just left in every aspect but one: hot food. I can’t really compare it to the LAX *A F lounge but the two are just polar opposites of what you’re going for in a lounge, I think.

First off, the lounge is huge. Gigantic, even. When you’re exploring it and you think you’ve seen it all, make sure you notice the piano, because that means there’s only one more normal-lounge-sized area left. Or there was, because I hear they expanded it yet again with a bottom level. No, this is easily the biggest lounge I’ve ever encountered, most easily measured in multiples of whatever lounge you have the most experience with. So despite the fact that it was fairly busy by any other standard, we could have easily walked for a few minutes and found a near-deserted corner to sit. Don't let the pictures fool you, there were people in the lounge. It just wasn't full by any means.










Look at all that space

Second, the decor. Someone here was on the bit, managing to create a compartmentalized yet open area that used the open space of the IST terminal while successfully taking your attention away from the awful ceiling. The furniture and fittings are nice without being gaudy or tacky.

And then the birds. I don’t know how they got there, I don’t know if this was intentional, and if it was I don’t know who decided it was going to be a good idea, but there are birds flying around up there. I found them near the piano. They are not in a cage. They’re just up there, hanging out, doing bird stuff, making bird sounds, and it’s sort of relaxing to have them there. Not expecting that one. There’s also plenty of greenery on the unique arches that adds a nice touch, and probably adds a nice place for birds to sit. You know, now that you have birds. Like the boarding signs for OZ F, I’m now going to rate lounges on their birds because now I know that’s a thing.

Third, the food. This was the only real letdown of the lounge for two reasons: first, there seemed to be only one kitchen and when I was there the lines were long at the one open stand. The second area, supposedly serving Pide (or so said the sign) was just unstaffed. Nothing. When I finally managed to track someone down about it they said "all gone" as if it was too late in the day. At 8am. Disappointing to say the least. That was the second letdown. Now as far as coffee goes, the coffee areas were all staffed and made a great product. The cold food was also great, loads of different delicious baklava and olives and tapas-y stuff. Drinks were plentiful at good intervals through the huge space. But if I didn’t want an omelette then I was out of luck.


Just…. sitting there. Taunting me. And then I blinked and they disappeared.

Power was… interesting. Outlets were plentiful, but very oddly located in the arches and in fact not really accessible by all plugs. MrsBarn’s Moto G charger, where the USB plugs into the side, wouldn’t fit at all. My Nexus 7 charger, though, worked since the USB cable plugs into the end. But there were enough plugs if we had the right chargers, so that’s a plus in a way. Definitely not like some other lounges (cough cough *A LHR) where you can’t find a plug even in an electrical emergency.

As we arrived early in the morning, the shower facilities were a factor and they were decent, but not overwhelming. Water temperature topped out far too early, but pressure was good. It’s not an arrivals lounge so I didn’t expect lots of units but there were more than a couple rooms so I didn’t need to wait long. Amenities were minimal, but no big deal. Overall perfectly adequate.





Utilization of the lounge, though, was spectacular. This was a lounge that seemed to be in the middle of a rush but there was no difficulty at all in finding a seat and at least for drinks and coffee there was always a station nearby. We didn’t even wait long to get in, and while we didn’t use the lockers provided there seemed to be space left despite the high use. I can only imagine how it is now with the expansion, although sadly I’m not planning to be back in the near future. With *G this lounge makes IST a factor as a transit lounge for me.

So anyway, as to our time there we mostly caught up on a few emails, copied some files off MrsBarn’s camera card, talked with other guests, and had a long breakfast graze. By 11 it was sadly looking like we should be heading back into the terminal to find our flight, the last shot at anything resembling J for a while.

Finally leaving the lounge, we discovered that our bus gate would be way down the pier, necessitating another long walk. This time we’d be leaving behind the Stansted-y ceilings in favour of low LHR-esque ceilings and endless travelators. Eventually, after passing the Skyteam lounge we went down one more level and found our bus gate with a huge queue heading back. Oh well, end of the queue we go.

We moved quickly enough through the queue, scanned our boarding passes, green light flashed, and then we headed out to the tarmac to find no bus. Nothing. So we just sort of stood around for a minute until something completely out of the ordinary: we were approached by a staff member asking us to come back into checkin.

Excuse me?

At this moment, I’m having flashbacks to more than one FT thread where TK royally screws up an Aeroplan reward and everything goes wrong. I’m also having flash-forwards to something I may not have mentioned yet: my Polish residence visa was due to expire…. two days earlier. This is not something I discovered at the last minute, but it was something I discovered later than I should. On the (wrong) advice of the staff at the Ministry for Foreigners (or something like that) I was told it wouldn’t be such a huge deal (it was, just not at immigration), but when you get flagged on the flight back into the EU for no good reason, the platitudes of bureaucrats aren’t very effective. It turns out, though, that it would be more of the former reason: TK had no ticket numbers attached to our reservation.

Because, you know, apparently it’s common practise to issue boarding cards without ticket numbers.

Anyhow, this could have gone many ways, but thankfully I had overplanned this one and had all our ticket numbers in TripIt. Maybe. I don’t quite remember which iteration of the ticket numbers it was, but I’m fairly sure it was the right one. At least TK accepted it. But they were the ones who let us through without ticket numbers in the first place, so I’m still not totally convinced.

Back outside, though, we still had no bus but a very sunny midday standing on the tarmac at an airport. I was one happy camper (once you get past the not being sure if I’d get deported on landing) with some unique photo opportunities. Soon the bus hauled us off to our waiting flight….


Tarmac Views at IST