Chris Hansen’s blog

Well, we finally got here. We packed in a leisurely fashion on Friday morning, then I had lunch at St. matthew’s Friday drop-in. HWMBO joined me for a cup of coffee and everything was great.

We left the house at 2:30 pm and made our way to Paddington and the Heathrow Express. Along with the airlines, you can now print out your Heathrow Express ticket. A “square code” (not a bar code) is printed out and the conductor scans it with his/her ticket machine. It’s really quite slick.

Security was a relative breeze (1/2 hour from check-in to wandering around in the lounge), and we looked around a bit then settled down. I called Vodafone to dispute the bill I’d just been sent. The bill included about GBP 60 of charges made by my very sick BlackBerry–perhaps it was calling for help. I hardly ever download more than 100K in a day, and suddenly it was downloading 6M? No way. I needed to dispute it before flying off, so of course the bill came the day we left. Luckily it didn’t come the day after we left. Anyway, at first they wanted to split the charges, but I told them that wasn’t good enough. After putting me on hold several times, they finally said that they’d take the GBP 60 off the bill, getting it down to GBP 88 rather than GBP 150+. Having done that, we rewarded ourselves with a Starbucks.

Then I told HWMBO “Wait here; I’ll go look at the display and come back when our gate is announced.” When the gate number came up, I turned around (I had looked back several times and HWMBO was placidly reading and listening to his iPod) and HWMBO was nowhere to be seen. ALONG WITH MY CARRYON BAG! The panic I felt was massive! Where was he? Where did he go? Where was my luggage? With my passport in it! I got frantic until, about 5 minutes later, he came up to me. He’d had to go to the toilet and couldn’t see me (although I was standing up) so he took everything with him. I’d thought that was the case but you just don’t wander off on me without telling me! We made up but I’m sure my blood pressure doubled from its already high rate.

We got on the plane but noted with some alarm that a large number of infants and young children were on the flight. True to form, we were seated near some of them. Being kids, they didn’t understand how to make their ears pop on take-off and descending for landing. They just screamed. And, of course, the toilet bins were full of their used nappies (=diapers ). This was seriously not good.

Singapore Airlines provided a vely dinner–I had beef, and HWMBO had chicken, and both were absolutely lovely. I told the cabin attendant when she took my tray that it was the best airplane meal I’d ever had, and I meant it.

then I settled in to about 10 hours of sitting around hoping not to get a blood clot. Neither of us got much sleep.

We landed bang on time (the airlines pad the schedules so that even a temporary disruption won’t have too much of an effect) at the new Terminal 3 at changi Airport. It is huge! Seriously huge. So huge that even Zaphod Beeblebrox in the Heart of Gold would have difficult traversing its length without a 40-mule-team and 3 days worth of supplies.

One thing that Singapore Airlines fell down on is that they did not have enough landing cards for everyone. All the countries around here have landing cards which you must fill out when entering the country. Part of the card is left in your passport and you surrender it when you leave. So I had to stop and fill one out at Immigration Control while HWMBO (being Singaporean, and not having to fill one out) waltzed through. I got through too, and we waited for our luggage while HWMBO’s parents and our friend CB waited for us ourside.

I got a huge shock when I went through the customs exit and saw HWMBO’s mom. She is nearly bent over double from osteoporosis. His dad is the same as ever–pert and pleasant. it was nice to see CB again too. We separated, and I took a cab to Bishan, where I’m staying with BK.

Of course, I got a grumpy cab driver who complained that just knowing BK’s address wasn’t enough; I had to know which street to go down (I was too jetlagged to remember). We got here in the end, and I even tipped him. It was lovely to see BK again, and stay here in Bishan. It was especially nice that they’ve upgraded the elevators/lifts in this building so that they stop at every floor, not just selected ones. So I didn’t have to schlep my luggage up the stairs.

After showering, shaving, et al. I could face Singapore. I have a phone number (+65 8370 5057 for you Singaporeans out there who I want to meet and greet!!!) and an EZ-Link card for the MRT (=subway/Underground).

My lovely friends and were meeting for coffee, so I joined them. went off to dine with his parents, while and I had dinner in a kopitiam (=coffee shop). I had pork porridge which was really really good, and had some kind of fish soup that he thought was a bit thin. then joined us for soy desserts. They are very playful… is always scoring points over …I was the referee.

Then a bus 13 to Junction 8 shopping centre at Bishan, where I got some money out of the new Citibank ATMs there, and a bus 147 home, surfing, and bed.

Didn’t sleep too well, though. BK has replaced the bed that was in the spare room with a sofa bed. It’s lumpy and the blanket is too short for my 5″ 11′ frame…I guess I’ll survive.

Today am going to lunch with and perhaps shopping at Sim Lim for computer stuff. Dinner with friends and HWMBO and BK tonight.

Did a “spell check” before posting and one of the spell check’s suggestions for “HWMBO” was “HOMO’S”. Amusing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 04:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.