8 hours at Singapore airport

Also known as Changi airport,.. this place is wonderfully designed, although extremely large. Onec has to walk for several minutes to get to a place. But lots of seating lounges, travelators (the analogous of escalators, except flat so one can continue walking although with a little help), skybus trains, and taxis. The place was well lit, nicely furnished and most of the staff had a very pleasing disposition, helpful too. It just felt nice just being there.... unlike the feeling of not being wanted at IGI Delhi. It also has a lovely roof design that allowed the harsh southern hemispheric sun to enter and transcend into a warm glow that kept everyone comfortable during the sunny day. Large open spaces and a very clear, soft, unintrusive instrumental melody playing in the background keeps everyone company... especially the lonely traveler such as me :)

I think the carpeting made a great difference because it did away with so many rustling feet and noisy shoes. The noise levels without carpeting can almost be painful with thousands of people passing through the airport day in and day out. I guess it also makes for a pleasant experience for those working there in the airport support services, or the boutiques and restaurants.

As for me.... Once I got out of the comfort of my plane, I wandered around my terminal a little before I settled into a spot. The terminal was as large as all of IGI Delhi's terminals, and even better! Soon I was faced with the task of making the hard choice of deciding to feed my grumbling tummy or giving my feet some rest from walking around this pantheon. Well, needless to say who won - my tummy indeed. I headed to the food court on the third level of terminal 3 - quite an assortment of mostly expensive airport eateries. But one among them captured my taste buds the moment I took the first slice of that heavenly prawn-pork-chicken rice dumpling. Wow! I was amazed by this wierd looking siamese-twinned samosa of rice. It's a blob of glutinous rice that's filled with pieces of pork, chicken, beef and prawns. Oh, and roasted chestnuts and lovely Japanese sauce. It's actually a compacted form of Indian Biryani rice, but more glutinous. What a treat, that I drained down with a glass of honeyed lemon.

So back I was to my favourite lounging spot in the terminal. Decided to study a bit for my poster presentation (more on that in the next post), but my mind wandered again.... this place was supposed to have free internet wifi! So I quickly took out my lappy and got going (albeit, after a few glitches with the userID and password that the information desk provided). Soon that pleasure was a luxury and to be short lived, as I didn't have sufficient battery power. I had to charge. So I proceded to the electronics store to buy the adapter. Doing some internet research with what was left of my battery power, I found out that it's not only the Americans that have to live with power adapters to make their stuff work around the world!!! (no offense :)) So if any of you want to travel abroad with electronics/appliances, check this out first http://electricaloutlet.org/

Well, so after my amazing lunch, chat and another serving of that awesome dumpling for dinner (:)), I ran into a few more Indians heading for Japan for the same presentation that I was headed to. So now I'm part of a contingent!! I'm so looking forward to it...... So until my next post, Adeus, Tchau, Beijinhos!!!!!