24th August 2021

Singapore’s Changi Airport is massive and known as the best airport in the world.  There are three terminals linked by automated trains that take the just landed passengers to departures and luggage collection.  Changi is a beautiful airport, especially if you like tropical plants. Today my flight landed in Terminal 3 early afternoon, Singapore time.

However in the time of COVID, things are very different.  John and I came to Changi Airport both on the way to and the way home from the UK in May 2019, when Alex was tiny.  I remember a beautiful airport, with plants everywhere that passengers were gathering  I remember large koi fish in ponds and a butterfly garden in the passenger lounge. There were also walls of exotic tropical plants.  None of that is currently accessible to transiting passengers.

The incredible garden complex of Jewel, which I would have loved to have seen. and the day trips to see the sights of Singapore are also not accessible to transiting passengers.  In the time of COVID, it is about keeping us all separate from anyone who is coming or going from Singapore. Transiting passengers are not allowed to mix with anyone else in the airport.  Plus of course, masks are mandatory while in the airport, unless you are eating or drinking.

It was raining as we started to came into land, which made interesting patterns across the window. The low cloud made for misty photos.

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Because I am travelling with the rolling walker and my osteoarthritis plays up when I sit for any length of time, I have MAAS – the Meet And Assist Service from airport staff.  I knew I would have to wait until the plane had been emptied before I would get off the plane.  That was to give the baggage handlers time to bring the walker back up to the plane door for me to use.  That gave one of the hostesses time to have her photo taken with Fin and me.

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I received a bright green ribbon on my right wrist that designates me as a transiting passenger. The only place I am going to be allowed to be is the transit area of Terminal 3.  There is a premium waiting area, which Business class passengers can access, or there is the economy hall.  In truth, there isn’t a lot of creature comforts in either, but the economy does have a lighter feel to it, even if they are lacking comfy chairs for waiting.

I was taken from the plane door to the concourse area in a wheelchair, although I didn’t really need it. Once there, my assistant ushered me my cabin luggage to a golf buggy cart and we headed through the empty corridors to the transit areas. 

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Boy did the view look different.  So many waiting areas, that would have been packed with passengers waiting for their flights were closed up with their chairs wrapped in clear plastic.  I expressed surprise at this.  My helper said it had been like that for a year and a half.  Such a change.

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Corridors empty.  Escalators empty.  Moving walkways stationery and blocked off.  No one walking along trying to work out where they were meant to be.

It didn’t take long to reach the transit lounge and with my boarding pass, I was allowed in.  My helper said someone would be back to help me when it was time to board my next flight, which is the one to Manchester.  He decided that my hand luggage was too much for me to manage on my own, so he gave me a wheelchair for my bags. That was nice of him.  Especially as John’s ashes are quite heavy.

Inside the premium transit lounge, there are a variety of seats available, including some recliners for snoozing in.

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There are not many in the transit lounge.  My fellow female traveller is here, but I am not sure if the guys from the flight are.  Most are young men, except the one guy who decided that to watch his video on his phone, he would not wear headphones and he needed to have the sound up, despite having the phone quite close to his face.  I just wanted to tell him to turn down the volume or find a member of staff to make him do that.  But there isn’t anyone around.  We are alone, except for one female staff member who is checking eligibility to enter this area and one who seems to live behind a set of wall dividers and is taking care of food orders.

Luckily, my noisy friend decided to stop watching his movie and get some sleep – snoring instead.

Food and drinks in the lounge are complimentary.  To order, scan the QR code and select what you want.  Then the lady behind the dividers will make your order up in the tiniest food boxes I’ve ever seen.  The options are very limited.  But the chicken pasta was ok, along with a cup of tea and a cracker biscuit.  It was a microwave job, not really Business Class Lounge quality. 

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When I went out to find the toilets, which are out in the Economy transit lounge, their food options are more varied and are made by restaurants, taking around 45 minutes to be delivered and costing a fair bit.  There is also a snack cart full of junk food.  I will explore options for dinner, although I will get supper on the flight to Manchester.  When I located the toilets, I was taken back to our last holiday in Japan.

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There is a bidet built into the toilet.  In Japan, these are the norm.  I always thought it would be pretty cool to have one, especially with a seat warmer.  I’ll leave it at that.

With 10 hours to waste in the transit lounge, sleeping for some of the time seemed like a good way to not watch the clock and the slow passage of the hours.  So I planted Fin and me on one of the recliners.  Put my hoodie hood on and with my mask on, partly blocking the light from the windows, was able to close my eyes and get some sleep.  I don’t know how long I slept, but I woke up to find that the number of people in the lounge had reduced.  There were now only three of us.

As I write this, it is dark outside (9.15 pm Singapore time) and the numbers have grown again, there are now about 18 of us.  They all come in pretty much together, just as confused as I was about how things work in this transit lounge.

Thankfully, there are chargers in here, so I have recharged my phone and laptop.

So that has been my introduction to Singapore Changi Terminal 3 Premium Transit Lounge.

24th August 2021

The last vision I have of Australia is when I woke up and lifted the window blind to see Cape Leveque disappearing below us.  Thanks for being my and John’s home.

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I won’t miss the very hot, dry summers.  I won’t miss that the countryside only stays green for a few short months, turning straw-coloured as Summer approaches.  I am looking forward to seeing greenness like I see all the time in the British TV shows I have been watching with Pam and Gordon for the last 3 weeks.

Our journey to Singapore would now be flying over the ocean between Australia and South East Asia. 

Opening the window blind a few times I saw the beautiful clouds.

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Whenever we flew previously, John always had the window seat.  He loved to see the clouds, plus it allowed him to rest against the side of the cabin during the flight. Often sleeping with Bear cuddled up to him. Now it was me and Fin, so I was looking at the clouds for John.

I don’t know if you believe in signs from the other side, I do.  When I opened the window blind at one stage, thinking about the clouds I was going to see that I knew John would enjoy, the cloud formation was a bear.  Not a teddy, but an animal bear.  I think that was my Chief Grey Bear, letting me know I hadn’t left him in Australia, he was travelling with me. You might remember me mentioning that John’s nickname was Chief Grey Bear. It is clear to me the snout, ears and neck of the bear and it looks like it is smiling.  It made me smile too. Just as quickly as it was there, it was gone.  But I have the photo to prove I wasn’t imagining it.

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Before long we were beginning to head into Singapore and the cabin crew were preparing for landing.

The 6 hour flight had gone quite quickly.  Now I had 10 hours of sitting around Changi Airport, waiting for my next flight.  But it is only me I have to worry about, so I am sure I can find things to occupy myself with.

Time to put the laptop away and prepare for landing too.

Bye Australia.

24th August 2021

The airline businesses, in these the years of Covid, and especially the prevalence around the world of the Delta version, need to do more to be able to keep their passengers and employees safe. Social Distancing, the use of sanitizer, and face masks have become so much a part of our lives.  Singapore airlines are appearing to do a good job of keeping me safe.

In the business section, I am in, with my fellow 3 passengers, we are spread out.  We all have our own window seat.  Funnily enough, I and a fellow female passenger are on the right side of the plane and the guys are on the left.  There are 7 rows of seats. with single pods all alongside the windows and individual doubles in the middle section.

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Only occupied seats have any of the amenities provided. All the others are empty.  I am so used to seeing little pillows and thin blankets wrapped in plastic laid on the seats in Economy.  But in Business Class, a ¾ size pillow and thicker blanket were available as soon as I would like them. I also didn’t have to share the overhead locker with anyone. Even my bags are socially distanced.

I have a small cupboard alongside the seat, that separates me from the aisle.  Fin has been sitting up there when I have been writing.  Inside a small storage cupboard are USB ports, a full-sized international power plug, a bottle of cold water, an individually wrapped set of noise-canceling headphones, a pair of socks, a pair of scuff slippers, and an eye mask.  There is also a gift kit with a small bottle of mist for rehydrating my face, hand cream, lip balm and a tiny bottle of perfume.  It is sweet.  The same brand of items is also available in a larger form in the toilets.

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I don’t know how many of you have flown economy, but the trip to the toilet always requires you to wear shoes of some form.  The last thing you need is to go in there and get wet socks or feet if you know what I mean.  It was very nice to go into the toilet in an empty business class where the only other person to use the toilet is another lady.  The guys on the other side of the plane have access to their own toilet, on their side of the plane.  Not that I am pointing fingers at who would be responsible for wet floors, but you can draw your own conclusions.

I received help from the cabin crew to bring my cabin baggage in and stow it.  They were very respectful of the bag that contains John’s ashes, placing it up into the overhead for me and asking me to let them know if I would like to have it down with me once we had taken off and reached cruising altitude.  John’s ashes container sits inside a case I created out of long fabric fur.  This is a nod to his knick name of Chief Grey Bear and somehow feels so much more fitting than having his ashes plastic container on display or having him in an urn.

There are three cabin crew members in the business class, two ladies and a man and they are happy to be helpful.  The two ladies both expressed their condolences for John’s passing, which was really nice.

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The seating is not bad.  There is a cubby hole for me to rest my feet in and my seat can lay back or flat.  There are overhead lights, sidelights and lights in the little storage cabinet.  For safety, I have a full shoulder/waist harness on, like those in a car.  Much more protection than is afforded people in Economy.  The shoulder section of the harness can be detached once we are up and away.  There is even a small note about it, along with the reminder to stow the mirror, which I didn’t know is part of the storage cupboard.  Just in case I want to check I don’t look too ragged from my flight.

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With not many passengers on board, I think there are about 20 of us, it wasn’t long before the captain was backing us out from the gate and my journey began.  We took off over Glenelg and then banked towards the York Peninsula.   Our route according to the 3D map will be across the coast to the west of Whyalla and over central Australia up close to Uluru before heading out to sea near Darwin.  The view out the window very quickly turned from the Gulf waters into the dry brown landscape which is so typically outback Australia.

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Breakfast was ok, more because of the nice touches.  A white linen table cloth was placed over my pull out table.  My scrambled egg, hashbrown and baked beans arrived on a china plate.  I had real cutlery, my tea came in a full-sized china cup and my fruit and yoghurt were in china bowls.  Such a change from the little plastic container covered over with alfoil and the toddler-sized cup you get of tea in Economy.  Even the butter was posh, creamed.  It tasted ok, but I am sure the eggs were reconstituted or they had potato mixed in with them as there were some mushy lumps.

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Shortly after breakfast, it was deemed time to shut out the bright sunshine and put us into semi-darkness.  I guess that is to assist people who want to watch tv.  But that didn’t seem to be happening much.  I couldn’t really find anything interesting to watch, as the movies I expected weren’t listed and I didn’t see anything that struck me as being worth watching.  Luckily, it means more time for my blog.

It was a very early morning, so now I was comfortable and fed, it seemed like it was probably a good time to see if I could catch up on some sleep.  My hostess happily grabbed me a blanket and a pillow. I then pressed the controls for the chair, to have it slide into a reclining position, while the hostess happily tucked Fin and me up.

I drifted off to sleep peacefully.

Tuesday 24th August.

I woke up at 3.30 am and struggled to go back to sleep.  My mind was busy thinking about the flights and running scenarios.  So I was only dozing when the alarm went off at 5 am.

At least that gave me plenty of time to finish my final packing, squeezing items into my cabin bag or rucksack, as I didn’t want to add anything further to the big suitcases seeing as they were already on the 20kg mark.

Pam and Gordon, I presumed, were still asleep, so I was as quiet as I could be.  After showering and dressing in comfortable clothes, I stepped outside the back of their house to be able to put my final rubbish in the bin and found that although it was supposed to be cold overnight, the cool morning air was refreshing.  The moon was very bright in the sky and the magpies were spreading the news to the other birds.  There were no human sounds, except mine.

My TBus, Adelaide Transport shuttle bus was spot on time at 6.15 am.  Pam and Gordon had got up early to see me off at the door.  They helped with moving my luggage down to the bus, which was lovely of them.  It was also very lucky as somehow my phone had fallen out of the side pocket of my handbag onto the drive.  Pam found it, which is great, as I hadn’t heard it fall and couldn’t do without it.

It was sad to say goodbye and thanks to Pam and Gordon, who have been great hosts.  I am so thankful for their offer to have me stay with them for three weeks.

The journey down to the airport was comfortable, despite the roads being busy with trucks and traffic.  Even the driver said it was more busy than usual.  We arrived at the airport and there were only two other cars there dropping off people.  The last time we travelled pre-COVID-19, the drop-off area would normally be bumper to bumper with taxis and the drivers would play one out, one in, to get to the curbside.

My luggage was a bit too much for the trolley to carry, so I pushed the rolling walker alongside the trolley. Once inside the terminal, I immediately was approached by a staff member offering help, which I was grateful for. The check-in area was empty, except for about 5 passengers waiting at the check-in counter and a lot more staff milling around, trying to be helpful to the passengers and other staff.

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Check-in was more time consuming than previous times I have been at Adelaide airport, that is because of all the requirements for flying with COVID-19.  I had to show my negative COVID-19 test result, my Passenger Travel History forms, for Singapore Airline and entering the UK.  Luckily, I had printed them off, so it was easy to provide them with their requirements.  It is all about being able to track where I have been and where I am going.

Due to COVID-19, the business lounges are closed, so there was an offer of a $10 voucher to use at a couple of food outlets after security.  Muffin Break, Boost Juice and a coffee place were honoring the vouchers.

I decided to check in the small suitcase I use for a cabin bag in, as the assistant at check-in said that they were not very strict on the luggage allowance for business class.  I didn’t need anything out of that bag on either flight, so I was happy to not have to lug it around in Changi airport.  But as I looked over at a printed sheet about what you can have in checked luggage, I realized that the small case had the lithium batteries for the cameras in it.  Airlines don’t want them in the hold of the plane, as they can explode.  Oops, the bag had already trundled away on the conveyor belt out of sight.

I apologized and explained that I was only thinking about whether I needed anything from the case, not remembering that it contained batteries.  The staff were fine with it.  They just radioed down to the luggage team and have the bag brought back up, so I could take the batteries out of it and put them into the bags I was taking as carry on.  It wasn’t an issue, the lady explained, it was not like they were in a rush.  Looking down the check-in area, there was about 3 staff to each passenger.

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I am taking John’s rolling walker, not that I need it to walk, but it is a great bag carrier, as it can support 250kg of weight and is quite light.  So, it might come in handy for me to use in the UK and provides a portable seat that is fairly comfy.  Might be ideal for park time with Alex or grabbing groceries at Tesco.  I could have tried to sell it, but with many people who may benefit from a good-sized walker on either NDIS or MyAgeCare, it would be harder to sell as their funding is for new equipment.

At the airport, the walker was very handy for carrying the carry-on bags, which includes the container of John’s ashes.  That is pretty heavy, as you can imagine.

So boarding pass in hand, it was time to go through security.  Again, about 5 people were in front of me, so it was the x-ray machine operator that apologized for the delay because he couldn’t review our bags any quicker.  But there was no rush.  International departures weren’t going to open until 8 am. Time to have the drug scan done. But even that was done while I was seated.  They were very happy to not rush.  I passed through fine.

The airport is going through some major changes and once through security, you can see them straight away.  Gone is Hudson’s coffee place, to be replaced with what looked like a showcase shop of wines and luxury items.  Maybe it is a new showcase shop.  The Hungry Jacks has gone and has been replaced by a long wide corridor of advertising boards.

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These walls are hiding renovations and led me to a large lounge area with plenty of tables and chairs and USB charging stations. 

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Soul Origin has a café the prime location, right in the middle of the area and were the only place open and serving food.  None of the outlets honoring the $10 voucher were present or open.  So I paid for my hot chocolate myself and sat in the empty hall until 7.45 am.

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I took the lift down to the International Departures, which is now on the ground floor.  But that wasn’t open yet.  So I went back upstairs and waited again in the lounge area.  A few more people were seated in the area now.  So instead of 5 of us, there was probably 20. At 8 am, I went downstairs and went through security again.

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  Next was passport check and then I had to take a different lift up to the 2^nd floor again where gate 18 was.  There was the Singapore airplane waiting for us. 

The gate was pretty empty.  So the staff, who had moved from the check-in counters, were now in charge of getting us ready to board the plane. I was boarded early, because of being in business class and also because of using the walker.  At the door of the plane, they took the walker and I had helpers with my bag. 

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Instead of entering the plane and turning towards the tail to walk down to Economy, I went towards the nose where 15K is my seat on the right side of the plane.  Tucked in by the window I have three cabin staff who are available to assist me in any way I need.

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So, I made it to the start of my journey to the UK with a really good experience.  Everyone has been really helpful and friendly.  It is such a different experience to flying pre-COVID-19.

It is 23rd August 2021, the night before I fly out to the Manchester in the UK. My hosts, Pam and Gordon have gone out to a regular Lions event and I am in the warm, on their couch, trying to work out how to make a blog site. I hope that I will succeed, as I really would like to be able fulfill my promise to keep in touch and let you know what I am up to.

So, the preparation has been done for me to be able to fly tomorrow. The transfer has been booked for 6.15am, as I have to be at the Adelaide Airport 2.5 hours before my flight at 9.30 am. I have had my COVID-19 test and thankfully have confirmation that I don’t have COVID-19. Being in South Australia is really the best place to be with the Eastern states in lockdown as they battle the increasing number of new infections.

I have completed all the different forms I need to do to allow Singapore Airlines and the UK Government to be able to track exactly where I have been in the world before landing in Manchester. I have also confirmed that as required, I will be having a COVID test once I reach the UK, which is all that is required, because Australia is considered a Green Country. The UK and Singapore, where I will transit through, doesn’t think Australia has a COVID issue, so we are considered Green. Green means no quarantining in the UK, just another COVID test before my second day.

I am travelling by business class for both flights. That is a new experience for me. It means that I can have 40kg of luggage checked in, plus two items of cabin luggage. It also means that when I am in Singapore for the 10 hour layover, I can be taken care of.

The Changi Airport will be separated for people who are transiting through to another country from those who are coming and staying in Singapore. I don’t know what the transit area for me will be like, but food, drink and wifi will be available and comfy seats. I will share details in a blog post.

My two suitcases are stuffed full and weigh in at 20kg each. There is no spare room in either of them. That means when I leave tomorrow, the clothes I am currently wearing won’t fit. I have comfy clothes picked to wear tomorrow, as jeans can bunch up behind my knees making me uncomfortable. So I will leave my near new jeans for Pam to donate as she sees fit.

So next step will be to activate my TESCO sim card in my other phone so that I can let Natasha know when I have landed and cleared Immigration and Customs at Manchester Airport.

Sitting here alone in the house, I have time to reflect on the wonderful farewells I have experienced over the last 2 weeks. I have loved catching up with as many of you as I can. As you read this, know that I think you are amazing and your love and support has been what has brought me to tonight. So a massive thank you.

I love you all. Hugs Jo xx