mini-OE to Germany

August 02, 2012

mini-OE to Germany - Day 2

We got the first leg of our journey over and done with. I must say Singapore Airlines is probably the best airline I ever had. Good leg room for a start. The stewardesses are not only very beautiful - “I can’t get over it how slim they are” Lilo kept saying - but showed a friendliness which has no match! The service is outstanding, the food is excellent (real fresh hot chillis in an airplane menu gets 10 out of 10 from me!) . Lilo’s vegetarian option was delicious too. And it was more than we could eat. You get a menu with not only food choices but a list of alcoholic beverages even including long drinks. We stuck with the white wine.

The entertainment offer is also the best I ever had. Screens in the backrest of the seat in front of you and probably 3 –4 dozen of movies to chose from plus TV recordings, plus radio stations plus CDs plus audio books plus games for the kids (and Lilo).

And the nice things was they not only had the standard Hollywood crap on offer. How many super heroes movies are there actually at the moment? I watched two very good movie plus an entertaining romance. The first movie was a French one in original language with English subtitles. My school French is still good enough that in combination with subtitles I can follow a movie more or less. The title was Comme un Chef (The chef) and plays in the restaurant business.

Second movie was a Taiwanese one called The Soul of Bread. You see where this is heading? I couldn’t resist watching a movie where a baker and a bakery plays the main role, could I? I very nice movie although a bit “Bollywood goes Asian”.

Third movie was Salmon Fishing in Yemen with Ewan McGregor which was a bit closer to a Hollywood romance.

As with all these long distance flights they eventually all end in sore bums, stiff necks, sweaty T-shirts, snoring and farting seat neighbours and the prayer “Please let it be over soon” followed by a hearty “Shit, and this is only half of the trip!’ and a “In three weeks we are going to do it all again!”

But eventually it was over. We arrived in Singapore in the dark at 6 am with a temperature outside of plus 27 deg C. And a humidity of at least 1000%. Memories came up of my work in Germany as a Gardener in the hot houses of a botanic garden.

But when we got off the plane we were hit with an enormous, clean airport with open spaces you can not imagine. Honestly, You stand there and the shops go beyond the horizon. I have never seen an airport like this and neither has Lilo. And she has a lot of the world’s main airports under her belt. I don’t know where to start. It is totally clean and well laid out. It even has walking distances to the gates in minutes on every sign. And they need to do this since the distances are huge. This is a complete city. I don’t know how many hundreds if not thousands of shops are there.

And then there are the displays of orchids and flowers and plants. Whole theme gardens of them . The most amazing orchids, waterfalls, and ponds.

There is an incredible number of shops. I had a look at some duty free and must say I am surprised but electronics are expensive. But here are some examples of alcohol: 1 litre Gordon’s Dry Gin $16, 1 litre Talisker Single Malt – $53 and 1 litre Mt. Gay Special Reserve Rum $29. Those are Singapore Dollars but 1 NZ$ is $1.01 SG$. Jewelleries are cheap too. We will definitely stock up on booze when we come back.

Oh and did I mention that most of the services here are free? They have over 500 free internet computers. In Auckland they charge you $10 an hour. They have WiFi free as well. You get a login ID at every information desk. Auckland doesn’t even offer WiFI.

And then there was the Butterfly garden. Free of course as well. Look at the pictures: