Post-pandemic India Travel to MAA on SQ's A350 & Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner

[SQfanatic]

More pictures of Chennai. My parents went for a few errands and I stayed back, but got a chance to take a few pics of Anna Salai & we went to my cousin's house in DLF Garden up in OMR:



Heading to the New Woodlands Hotel for lunch around 3PM yesterday:





Not a whole lot has changed but as per my dad who came in September, he did notice that the reception area changed to the very end, and it was an area under construction.



Krishna restaurant where we typically eat, excellent selection and very good vegetarian food:



After lunch, we headed to my cousin's house to pick up a bag. Here are a few pictures of Mylapore and Adyar:

















At some point later, we passed through Shollinganallur, where my old job had their offshore team based in. Those folks I'm also in touch with. I'm planning to have lunch with them tomorrow, even with those who I'm still in contact with who are no longer employed with the company:





InfoSys office around Shollinganallur, a company I'm now working for whose client is on a company shutdown:



Closer to 5:45PM, near sunset we reached OMR Road/DLF Garden City where my cousin lives in:



Lots of high rise buildings, my mom quoted this part of Chennai as "New Chennai" whereas where we're staying is in "Old Chennai"



Some night time shots on the way back to Hyatt:



Brigade World Trade Center - Seems to be both a mall and a high rise building. Years ago, we almost thought of buying one in Chennai (but also once in Bangalore almost 15 years ago).



Residency Towers, where we stayed at last week for 2 nights, which is nowhere regarded as a 5-star hotel in any way. So glad we changed to the Hyatt, it is far better. Nice thing is they're both very close in terms of walking distance.



T-Nagar night shot, a place where my parents typically do shopping:





Nicely done and well lit for the New Year:







We decided to have dinner back at the Hyatt Regency and Spice Haat is a restaurant where it serves breakfast but also purely Indian food. Because we wanted to be careful in terms of what we eat at certain times of the day, we went for a simple curd rice and some naan to go along. Nothing major but the quality was great and very good value for money.

'

Dessert was a chocolate layer caked ice cream with fruit on top. Excellent quality:



Came back here for breakfast and a few pictures of the buffet stand today:

Filter coffee/tea stand, which can simulate to what you see on the streets. Really love this place.



Went for the French toast for breakfast (and had a similar set up with the idly yesterday). Excellent quality overall. One thing I did notice is unlike American restaurants, they give you only 1 of each, like 1 pancake, 1 French toast, and 2 small waffles, that's very good from a portion control perspective, especially when you have so many options.



I will be in Chennai for the next 3 more days. More pictures will follow suit.

[SQfanatic]

As my parents were at a particular day-long religious function (till about 2:30PM IST), I decided to spend the afternoon exploring and riding the Chennai metro.

The nice thing was the Hyatt Regency hotel is walking distance to a Chennai Metro station called AC DC (right around Anna Salai & Teynapet).











Heading down to the platform:



Platform signs - You have 1 for heading to the airport and the other headed in the direction (further north) to Wimco Nagar:



Map information on the metro:









This route was a little more crowded than usual (standing room only) till around 2PM



Platform signage in Tamil & English. One nice thing I loved about this (like most metros) are that there are glass doors where nobody can simply just jump out of the platform and on the track. This is something seriously lacking in US metros, especially BART and the New York subway for example:



Inside the Chennai metro. Very sleek and similar to Dubai.





I took a good 15-minute ride on the train to Washermanpet. It's a suburban area in Chennai with a lot of colleges around. I've never personally been there but one can google this place





Chennai metro card. I'm keeping this as my souvenir







Washermanpet seems to be a suburban city, there was not much to do, but I just thought I check out another part of Chennai:



After about 15-20 minutes of exploring, I headed back to the station and caught the metro back to AC DC.





Fare gates. The only thing is before you even get to the fare gates, there's a security check. One of them really objected to me taking pictures and suggested I turn my camera off and asked where I was headed to. I still took pictures on the platform after that and no one had said anything:

[SQfanatic]

The Hyatt hotel had some complimentary refreshments (mostly fruit flavored juice). One day there was mango, blueberry and apple. All of which are fresh and really good.

Apple juice:



Around 3PM, I decided to have a light snack and a filter coffee. Went with the New York styled cheesecake & filter coffee. Both were very good.





The next portion of the day involved mostly some shopping the rest of the day. However, at the end we went to another Geetham Veg restaurant in T. Nagar. A fun fact is that some of these used to be called Sangeetha and Geetham has gradually started taking over in Chennai. This was also the case in OMR.

We decided to play it a little safe and have some soup. Mostly had cream of tomato soup:



Tasted similar but slightly different than the American version. We really enjoyed it and this place has a good value for money.

[SQfanatic]

I had another day of hotel breakfast at Hyatt. This time, decided to have both version of pancake (dosa, the Indian rice pancake, and the American pancake). Personally, I found both to be very good. I ate a light breakfast as I was meeting up with a few old coworkers from my last job to have a lunch outside:



Around 12:45PM, I got an Uber to Navallur, which is about 10 minutes from Shollinganallur (about 45 minutes to 1 hour from T. Nagar in Chennai). Much of the traffic was very light except for a few spots here and there. But it took about 45 minutes total. Quite a smooth ride.

HCL building - Well on this road there's about 2, and the first one before the toll is Shollinganallur. The other one is right across from the restaurant I ate in Navalur.



Got to Coal Barbeques around 1:45PM, waiting for a few old offshore coworkers to join. Everyone was offshore, except 2 formerly onsite coworkers and 1 who flew in from Toronto last month. This was the spot that our offshore team had a lunch at in early 2020 before the pandemic hit



It was right next to a mall.



This was an unique style of a restaurant. Not only is it multicultural, but first they served you kabobs like mushroom & paneer kabob for example and a non-vegetarian kabob. I'm not a fan of mushroom kabob, so stuck with the paneer. I didn't take pictures of that unfortunately. They also came around and served some corn fritters and a sweetened version of cauliflower manchurian.

This was what I ate for lunch - Curd rice, bhindi masala, paneer curry, hakka noodles, and some appalam. Not too bad or heavy.



This place generally has a very modern, upscale ambiance compared to many US restaurants I have been to. Lots of stations for various different things.



This was the dessert stand:



You have a good mix of Western and Indian desserts alike



There was also a wood fired pizza station, which really made you pizza. It took some time due to the queue here. However, I decided to try it and I really enjoyed it.



I went with a simple enough cheese pizza & fries. What I liked was that the size was relatively small, and definitely appropriate if you are having other items for a buffet. Quality was also good, tastes different than the American version of pizza, but it was good nonetheless.



I definitely recommend going to this restaurant once. Very unique stations with lots of choices.

Around 4:30PM, caught an Uber back to the Hyatt in Chennai and much of the way, no traffic whatsoever. You can see the Brigade World Trade Center from up close. I have indicated this in a night shot of my earlier post.



At some point later on, we went to Mylapore Tank, where the famous Kapaleeshwarar Temple was there & a Girl bookstore:

Kapaleeshwarar Temple, beautifully lit at night time:



Giri Bookstore, which we buy many types of books from:



Had a filter coffee at Madras Coffee House, which is where my dad came in September and even recently on his early morning coffee run around 5:30AM or 6AM and it was excellent overall. If you want real Chennai filter coffee, come here.





More buildings well lit at Mylapore Tank:



A portion of the time, the roads were blocked as there was a religious festival going on and making a round near the Kapaleeshwarar Temple:





The famous Saravana Bhavan restaurant. Unfortunately, my dad has stated this place no longer has A/C compared to before. Quite sad compared to the good old days where the A/C hall was open. We did not have anything here.






We had dinner back at the hotel and went light, as we will also be traveling in a few days. Post will also be following suit for that, stay tuned guys.


Tomato basil soup:



Curd rice, which is what most days for dinner we're living on:



Butter naan, really delicious:



The last 2 days will be covered in stride.

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year 2023, in less than 24 hours as I will be bringing it from the Hyatt Regency hotel in Chennai as there will be tons of events. Of course as time allows, I'll refine my photos as much as possible.

[SQfanatic]

With today being New Year's Eve, surely at some point later in the evening, the roads would be crowded. Today was spent more on going to a Chandi Homam. I only took 2 pictures here as the rest of this is more personal:



Saapadu (Lunch) - They gave us a lot of variety of rice (lemon, coconut, curd), beans poriyal, okra soaked in curd, and chakra pongal (sweeter than usual). Excellent quality and generally very good.



Later on after a break, we decided to go once again to T Nagar for some jewelry shopping. Some night time pictures:

[SQfanatic]

For New Year's Eve evening, it was spent at our hotel at Hyatt Regency. They hosted several major festival events in the hotel itself connected to the New Year. It does consist of a dinner buffet and live dancing/music.

As of now I just had the dinner buffet. More on the countdown and dancing to come in just a bit.

This took place at our usual breakfast spot by the hotel called Spice Haat, that mainly serves Indian ala-carte. However, in the buffets they go continental, which means you can get Indian and western options as well as East Asian options too (Chinese, Thai, etc).

The scene tonight at Spice Haat:





A chow mein station where you can have a chef customize the chow mein to your liking. I didn't go with this as I had a few other items and was eventually full anyway.





This is a counter where you can get drinks at breakfast, but here you can also get drinks and Indian sweets, too



Lots of pastries you can see here. More extensive than what the Lobby Lounge typically offers, which is also good.















I took a mix of noodles, paneer, and curd rice



Lots of good dessert choices:



Just love the ambiance.







Went for another round which involved a chocolate kind of cheesecake (in yellow flavor), some mysurpa (South Indian sweet) and hazelnut tiramisu (honestly I didn't even eat much as it was just okay).



In terms of the western option, decided to order Fettucine Alfredo and also pizza just to try:





Food is overall great. More pictures to come in a bit. The Chennai and India trip is slowly coming to a close, guys.

[SQfanatic]

Happy New Year guys, to everyone in Singapore and throughout the world still in New Year's Eve at the moment.

The rest of the New Year was spent at Lobby lounge, where we had a countdown celebration. I'm not an alcoholic drinker unfortunately.



The Foccacia restaurant turned into a night dance club. I didn't go much for that





Music playing and eventually the countdown to the New Year



Ballentine's stand - They serve mostly non-alcohol but a few alcoholic drinks. Most venues like that in the US serve mostly alcoholic drinks



The Lobby lounge before the New Year:





Decided to also show the Hyatt Regency pool & garden from close up:















Much of the afternoon was spent around Mylapore Tank & went to Kapaleeshwarar Temple.

[SQfanatic]

Flight: Singapore Airlines flight SQ529
Route: Chennai - Singapore
Aircraft: Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner (Reg. 9V-SCJ, 3.6 years at the time of departure)
Livery: Normal
Date of Departure: January 1 (11:15PM), Arrival January 2 (5:55AM)
Seat: 53K (Economy Class)
Configuration: 2-class (Business, Economy)


Our journey started on New Year's Day night. We traveled from T. Nagar around 8:15PM and it was a good 30-40 minute drive to the airport as T. Nagar is further north in Chennai, whereas places like OMR, Shollinganallur are further south.

A few beautifully lit pictures of Chennai Airport as they brought in the holidays and the New Year:











We proceeded to check-in, which I did not take pictures of. Every airport has a counter for Bag Drop, too. For Singapore Airlines, there was a line for Internet Check in, which was surprisingly removed from SFO. Check-in line wasn't too bad, and we got our boarding passes within 15 minutes and proceeded to customs and security:



It took about 20 minutes to head past security because of the Customs line and security lines. I will tell you compared to pre-pandemic times, in India, airport security has become a nightmare. They are going as far as making you remove even a power bank and all chargers, something no other airport would do. We thought it was a Kerala thing but it turns out to be a problem everywhere. I don't understand why now compared to before.

The lines were definitely shorter and quicker compared to the times I have taken a 1AM or 2AM flight on Cathay Pacific from Chennai to Hong Kong. Now, there is a 1AM flight we were originally booked in (that's still there) from Chennai to Singapore because we would have originally connected to SQ2 to San Francisco via Hong Kong in the evening of 2nd of January (when SQ2 got canceled, I moved us to SQ32 and SQ529 so that the layover would not be so tight in SIN).

We got to the airside quickly enough:





Surprised compared to the last time I flew out of MAA International on Cathay Pacific, Cookie Man is here like in the Domestic Terminals. I went for a snack (butterscotch oatmeal muffin) and liked it as always:



Our Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner that would take us today was 9V-SCJ:



The gate would be gate 16, which you have to go downstairs. I remember we departed this gate or gate 15 during the Cathay Pacific days. I hope they come back to Chennai in the future.






Boarding time commenced around 10:45PM and there were 2 lines for rows above 50 or above 60. This is then followed by another passport and boarding pass check (God, why does India have to do so much?)

Crew greeted us and here are a few pictures of the Dreamliner Economy class seats:




I was seated at 53K, with this view.



Welcome screen & KrisWorld. Note that compared to the 2016 version, it goes through some sort of a interesting loop:





















KrisWorld:



We pushed back around 11:10PM and started our engines and flaps retracted. Quick taxi to the runway in Chennai so we took off around 11:20PM IST:







It's different on the right side, more lighting. Left side like I was on Cathay Pacific's 77W didn't have a whole lot of lighting till after take off.









Views of Chennai before completely leaving India:







At some point during the course of the flight, we were served dinner almost immediately. The issue with this flight is that your sleep is a little bit sacrificed. I liked Cathay Pacific's flight departing MAA around 2AM (most nights I never really slept till that time anyway), they let you sleep and you get your breakfast after sunrise and 2 hours before arrival. I know I could have opted the later flight but the flights are too short and really sleep is sacrificed.

Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner cabin with its beautiful mood lighting, reminds me a LOT of the SQ's newer 77W (SWU-SNC) with its time based Panasonic Wifi.




Here's the menu for SQ529.






Went for the vegetarian lacto-ovo meal. Mostly looks to be a cheese ravioli with some veggies and broccoli. I ate just the ravioli and broccoli and not much of the left side as I wanted to eat light on this flight. Dessert appeared to be a chocolate/fruit flavored cake:



Around 1AM IST (3:30AM SG time), the lights went off and I took a walk in the cabin, so here's the scene at night. This is different than when I took SQ528 a few weeks ago:



Better photo of this. I can tell you the seat isn't that bad on the 787 Dreamliner, but the aisles are a little on the cramped side. Really, don't get how SQ wanted to do this. They were one of the last few (and certainly still are) good airlines in terms of comfort. For long haul that's compromised thanks to the 2017 Y seats on both this leg and SFO legs. Nothing like the Emirates A380 or even the SQ 77W's.



This flight had Panasonic Wifi (as all 787's have) and the Voyager 3D maps. I wanted to use both of them while I could



Autoplay, which consists of everything combined from other modes:





I love this screen especially. From my understanding, the regional A350 with Thales isn't that good. Thank God Chennai is blessed to have the 787's.







Flying over Nicobar Islands:







Flight Preview, which gives you an idea of how long the flight takes anyway no matter where you're flying over:









Total route:













Zoomed to see the SQ 787:







Overhead mode:



Window seat mode:






KrisWorld for the last hour of the flight:



Good to see this arrival information, but no gate information like the last few older aircraft had:



In-seat messages:



Captain came in around 5AM and mentioned that we would be descending around 5:30AM into Singapore Changi Terminal 2. A few landing shots:



Flaps retracted:





Looks to be a couple of parked planes that have been grounded since the pandemic, still surreal:











Good to see this at the end of a flight:





Like when coming out of SQ33, the windows get really fogged up due to the higher relative humidity at night:



Disembarking the 787-10 Dreamliner:





We got to Terminal 2, brushed our teeth and proceeded shortly after to Terminal 3 via Skytrain. Funny thing was an old coworker in Sri Lanka was also flying the same evening but his flight got delayed by 1 hour, only landed 2 hours later than me into Singapore and by the time he could even call to meet me, well it was time to head to the gate hold room at gate A15 for our flight back to San Francisco:



Terminal 3, our layover was only about 3.5 hours. Because of how tired I was, we had a coffee at Bacha coffee, and honestly, it was too bad but not the best coffee I have had compared to say, Coffee Bean. I wouldn't recommend having this at all, but it could be different for a cappuccino.

[SQfanatic]

Flight: Singapore Airlines flight SQ32
Route: Singapore - San Francisco
Aircraft: Airbus A350-900 (9V-SMV, 3.5 years at the time of departure.)
Livery: Normal
Date of Departure: January 2 (9:20AM), Arrival January 2 (7:50AM)
Seat: 50A (Economy Class)
Configuration: 3-class (Business, Premium Economy, Economy)

First time me & my mom flew the SQ32 nonstop service. My dad has flown this 3 other times on his own (on 11JAN, this will be his 4th, but his 2nd time on the newer A350)

The gate for the flight was gate A15, at Terminal 3, same gate we got off from on SQ33 a few weeks ago:



9V-SMV will be taking us to SFO on SQ32 nonstop.



I waited till about 8:30-8:40AM for my friend who was coming off SQ469 from Colombo. Again, it was delayed for 1 hour and he only got to the gate around 8AM and by the time he connected to the Wifi and got to Terminal 3, it was around 8:30AM and he was very far (somewhere near Louis Vuitton) after arriving at Terminal 2. Had his flight (like mine) landed at Terminal 3, we would have had a couple of minutes to catch up or meet somewhere near his arrival gate. I was and still am pretty sad it did not happen. He's an old coworker of mine working offshore in Sri Lanka from my last job and he just left that job and is moving to New Zealand so this would have been a perfect opportunity to have met him. Things did not work out and I can't blame anyone or the airline, there will always be problems of some sort, it's the best we can do.

Boarding started around 8:45AM for SQ32 to San Francisco nonstop:







Seat 50A view for our flight SQ32 to San Francisco. Next to us is a Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner that arrived from Chennai (9V-SCO) as SQ527. That still gives a tight window for a flight connection but at least it parked right next to this flight so all good if any passengers were coming from this flight alone:



First the safety video played before we even pushed back (like Cathay Pacific does for all its flights, allowing to listen to the engine startup and not have some other video distract you). Unlike my other 3 flights, no COVID video was played nor was a Wifi video played. No issues on this front because it really distracted my ability to actually enjoy the startup sounds.

Welcome screen for SQ32:















Went over to the KrisWorld system to check it out. You see the reusable headphones, more on that in just a moment.



Voyager 3D with the Welcome Aboard picture:







Flight time would be a good 13 hours and 5 minutes. That's pretty good for a nonstop flight going eastward but the 1-stop is better to split the time between flights and to actually stretch out your legs. The comfort compromised didn't really make it any better.

Pushback started close to around 9:30AM and we started our engines, which were definitely quieter than the GE90's. Ahead of us was 9V-SWQ, going to Tokyo Narita & Los Angeles. I was feeling a little jealous and sad that I missed flying the SQ 77W and hoping this will happen again soon. If it doesn't, that's okay and if anything I'm looking forward to their Boeing 777-9's and hope like the rest of the fleet there is Wifi consistency (time based, Panasonic or OnAir or whatever, not like the 77W's like some 15 year old ones that have OnAir volume based and some 7-10 year old 77W that have time based Panasonic Wifi):

9V-SWW that is parked on a stand - I took this flight on SQ1 back in December 2016 with my dad via HKG. That time it was a 77W without Premium Economy, now it has Premium Economy:



Another SQ 787-10:



A long tai as it was taking off towards the North via another runway. I think Changi has built another runway maybe in preparation for their works to construct Terminal 5:



We took off sometime a little bit past 10AM:













View from 38,000 feet





Menu for this leg.









The A350 cabin before lunch service:

Orange juice to start:





Lunch was served at 12PM Singapore time, like the way flights via Tokyo (and formerly via Seoul-Incheon were like). Unfortunately, I couldn't get a full picture of it because when I was taking a pic of the main food, for some reason my phone fell down under. So a partial one to do for now. My apologies.



It was a Vegetarian Oriental Meal, that consisted of some vegetable noodles and tofu. Really enjoyed it:



Singapore Airlines reusable headsets were given in this format. Only that the sound quality is compromised, so didn't use it that much.



I got to use the inflight wifi by Panasonic, completely time based and got to screenshot our flight on FR24:







At some point, everyone closed their window shades for sleeping, but I at some point wanted to peek through it enjoying the views till about sunset. I took plenty of pictures of this:

Blue sky over Japan. No turbulence at all on this flight surprisingly in Japan.









At some point, it became sunset somewhere closer to Nagoya:



Golden Hour:



Dusk photos:





Love the color hues past sunset:





Surprisingly, my iPhone took this picture as it was completely dark and could see the wing as if it was still daytime. This is something I would expect from a Boeing 787 Dreamliner:



Slept another 3 hours before we were served breakfast around 3AM SF time (7PM Singapore time) as the sunset took place around 12AM SF time.

The A350 cabin around breakfast time:



Vegetarian Oriental Meal - Vegetable noodles and some dim sum. The dim sum was average at best but really enjoyed the noodles with some roll & butter:



Voyager 3D maps:



Auto play:















Flight Preview mode:



Total Route:









Zoom and closeup view of the A350 on the Voyager 3D flight map:





















Window seat mode:



One thing I noticed that was lacking in Singapore Airlines' service is that they never really asked me (they asked others) for a tea or coffee. I was a little bit pissed off at this because I honestly wanted some coffee. Even other airlines like Cathay Pacific, United Airlines & Emirates do it better.

Because I needed some energy for landing, I rang the call attendant bell and asked for some coffee and they were still happy to give it with milk and sugar. The coffee was pretty good to say the least though.



Dawn sometime around 6AM SF time:



Captain came with an announcement around 6:40AM mentioning we would descend around 7:20AM at SFO & cloudy with some drizzle and showers:








California coastline:





Pink hues at sunrise







Banking over Palo Alto:











Touchdown at San Francisco International Airport:









Our gate was not ready but it wasn't too long after, so we disembarked the plane around 7:40AM:



Parked next to an United 77W



Singapore Airlines' A350 cramped 2017 Y class seat, which I want to avoid for future SQ travel long haul unless they bring the 77W back to SFO:



Premium Economy - Yes, my dad will be flying this on his way back home. I will probably do the same thing if the only option is a nonstop flight:



SQ's 2013 J class seats:



Got to the airside at gate G5 and customs. Customs took no more than 5 minutes as we were at the Global Entry side and of course are US citizens, so all that was involved was printing a receipt after face recognition and presenting that with the passport to the immigration officer.

Getting the bags took about 20-30 minutes and we got an Uber to go home. I guess there's partially a disadvantage of landing this early in the morning.

[SQfanatic]

Thoughts on this trip overall on Singapore Airlines?

Well, after 6 years of not flying with Singapore Airlines, I can tell you it's good, but a LOT has changed compared to previous times. There are also some advantages and disadvantages.

SQ's food at least from a special meal perspective is of high quality and very reasonable selection. The Indian food and any food you get on Indian sectors is comparably as good as other airlines. Some of them are just average at best. It's nearly no different if I had chosen another airline (i.e. Cathay, Emirates, British Airways, JAL, LH, etc). Nothing really stands out from SQ like the old days. Unlike old times, no more hot towel service and only sometimes you will get curd. Don't expect curd to be a given on every meal on every SQ flight. Unlike before to/from MAA, no curd was served unfortunately, but the food was still reasonably good.

Service-wise, the crew were friendly on every sector, that's not lacking at all. Some of them even were happy to chat with passengers on everything while keeping a smile on their face and respecting you. The thing that was really lacking was on my SFO flight - A pet peeve was that they asked almost everyone for coffee or tea and yes I was awake but they never asked me or the middle seat guy or me in the window seat if we wanted coffee. I got a little bit pissed off and at some point a few hours before landing I asked for coffee and they were happy to give to me with cream and sugar. At least they gave a drink like water and juice, like most carriers do. So unlike before, I can't see any possible way SQ is unique these days. We will really start exploring other airlines for future India trips (i.e. Europe or maybe go back to Cathay Pacific or try JAL).

Entertainment and wifi-wise - It was nice to have both of these on the long and short haul flights. There was a time short haul flights to India lacked the same kind of entertainment as you would have on a long flight, now everything is equal. So was the Wifi. Very good that it was time based Panasonic on both the legs and it was very good most of the way, except some parts of the Pacific where it was a little spotty, to say the least.

Seat-wise? All seats were 2017 Y, so I will tell you, this is a LOT similar in terms of appearance like Cathay Pacific's Y-class seats on their 10-across 77W. The fact these were on an A350 made it quite worse especially for sleeping and it was a little on the narrow side. I can tolerate this for a 3-4 hour flight, but not for this long of a flight (13-17 hours). Even the aisles were quite narrow on both the A350 and Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner. Even Cathay Pacific's 77W with 10-across is still comparably better (and honestly. more tolerable) than SQ's A350 and 787 aircraft. In the future, we will do whatever it takes to avoid flying the A350 long haul. If SQ does not bring back their 77W and fifth freedom route to SFO back, either I will avoid flying SQ altogether (still a possibility) and look for other carriers OR if I can't avoid flying SQ, I will pay a little more to try Premium Economy.

Singapore Changi Airport has changed in terms of many announcements, no more Final Call announcements but just paging announcements.

Going to India, security checks have been a hassle on any local Indian flights and if your flight is departing from India. They're now going as far as you removing your power bank and chargers. It has made travel quite a nightmare in that aspect. The rest of the country is good and I was able to enjoy spending time with family & friends (mostly old coworkers from offshore at my last job, we even had 2 from onsite who joined us) and spent time with some of my mom's family and all of my dad's family, which was fun overall. To a degree, I was quite sad I couldn't meet some old coworkers as some of them were out of town back to their native further South of Chennai (i.e. Madurai, Chengalpattu, Kovilpatti, etc) and my coworker in Sri Lanka who has (now reached New Zealand) couldn't meet as he arrived quite late. I'm hoping he can come to the USA one day and can catch up.

There's a chance depending on my cousin's marriage, I may fly to India in March and I do not know which airline. The dates are not even finalized and when they are, it will get planned accordingly. If I fly SQ, I will keep everyone updated. If I do not fly in March, it will for sure be planned in the month of October for Durga puja in Kolkata.

Now, my dad has not yet come back from India; he will be back in the US on 11JAN (and this is subject to change as he is working with SQ to get his flights changed to come back sooner), like from Kolkata instead of Chennai where he and his brother is flying to as he is spending some time with his brother and catching up with a few friends in Kolkata. He's finding it hard to get seats to return back and I had encouraged him to make the changes sooner. I will probably share his thoughts after he comes back.

Thanks for reading and Happy New Year to everybody. Hope 2023 will be a prosperous year for everyone.