Flo around the world 08

[jhm]

The funny thing about those KUL suttles is that SQ operates Boeing 777-200 planes to a place that's only 55 minutes away (I heard somewhere that the flight would normally be shorter and it only takes 55 minutes because the Business Class passengers couldn't finish their meal in less time). In Europe, you hardly see things like that: Austrian operates their 777-200 planes to India, Bangkok and the US and uses propeller-driven aircraft on short routes. This is one thing i love about Singapore Airlines - they always bring in the heavies because that's the only planes they've got!

Indeed, including the much missed (here at least) ZRH-MAN-ZRH turnaround on SQ. It was certainly an interesting way to spend a morning on a SQ 747 (helped along by Krug/Dom if in F)!

[UMD]

As expected, bravo with the very well written TR.

Hope you feel better soon to start writing again. It was very good to meet up with you and the gang on your short hop to Singapore.

[flo]

Florian -I love your enthusiastic reporting. You must be having a blast! I look forward to your upcoming installments. Question - if i subscribe to this thread, and you just edit the posts you saved for future reports (by adding the report), will I get a notification? Or is that just for new posts?

Hi there Nice to hear from you again! I just updated the posts so ... there are news for you haha. Some more updates will follow ASAP. Now that I was knocked out for today I couldn't do much anyway but edit photos and stuff. So hang on ...

[JetE]

Flight No: SQ 109
Departing: Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Arriving: Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200/ER
Registry: 9V-SRE
Seat: 39A

The aircraft finally arrived at the gate and I was happy to see that I would be flying an SQ bird with Star Alliance livery today! I cannot remember being on a Star Alliance livery plane before so I have another thing checked on my first-of's list: first time Star Alliance flight - check.

9V-SRE... this was the aircraft that flew me to SIN (as SQ107) and, after a servicing and catering, onward (as SQ878) to TPE. To add to the fun, on my return to KUL, Royal Barge HS-TEK operated TG631 and Star Alliance D-ABTH operated LH782.

[N_Architect]

I was gonna say get well soon, Flo, but looks you're fine now - enjoy the rest of the trip!

[flo]

I updated the posts on the KUL sectors and I will post some more later on today I arrived safely in Melbourne and singaporu_kooku is taking great care of me. He is a splendid host! Yesterday we had a meetup with KeithMEL, taipeiflyer and Mr. K (friend of taipeiflyer's) and the night was hilarious. Too bad I had a slight fever so I had to skip on the meetups. But I am quite ok now Sorry, gtg

[hsf]

Enjoying this report immensely!
Thank you, and looking forward to more!

[soak01]

Florian....its great following your travels in Y. Looking forward to reading more.

[Kyo]

You'll see new posts only (assuming Vbulletin's set up the way I'm used to elsewhere)

[getonline]

Florian -I love your enthusiastic reporting. You must be having a blast! I look forward to your upcoming installments. Question - if i subscribe to this thread, and you just edit the posts you saved for future reports (by adding the report), will I get a notification? Or is that just for new posts?

[jhm]

Thanks for the further instalments, Flo!

[nickbot]

The power supply from the plug in the armrest works splendid but the one thing I don't get is why they implemented a network interface into the seat when there's actually no network available. I connected my notebook to the net and got no internet :/

Meant to say, the network points are there for future use, when there is a provider (i.e. a replacement for Connexion). Makes more sense to implement in the aircraft right from the start as opposed to retrofitting

[MAN Flyer]

. and later probably Ministry of Sound at Clarke Quay ... if anybody is up for sth. do tell me

If you are fan of the Ministry in London, or in particular it's music, don't get your hopes up of it being anything like that midweek. I took my brother (who is a DJ himself) there a few months back and he didn't even finish his second drink before demanding we leave. I can't quite remember the name of the track that tipped him over the edge.

It can be a good laugh if there is a few of you though....

[flo]

Singapore

My hotel for this 2-nights stay would be the Meritus Mandarin. I wanted to stay at the Hilton but Singapore Stopover Holiday would not let me take it as it was listed as fully booked. Well, the Manardin was my first choice anyway and having had so many great days as a child there, I really looked forward to this stay.

The Singapore Stopover Holiday counter was still in my memory from past stays in Singapore. If I did not knew I had to go to the far left end after the customs, I probably would not have found the counter at all. The lady was very forthcoming and the shuttle driver showed up in no time at all. Whilst waiting, I watched a boy goofing around with the closing glass-doors. His father looked at him and shook his head but I found it to be quite amusing: when I was young I was always goofing around with these doors and my father would also shake his had at my behavior ... so I had the greatest sympathies with this boy

The shuttle driver took me and two Australian couples in their mid-70's to the booked hotels. With a little detour to a hotel I don't know - the Voyage Hotel or something, I got out second. The halls of the Meritus were once again home of Flo, the SQ-talking Austrian!

yes. exactly.


My room.

As my friend Karoline left her mobile at work, I had to improvise for my first night's activities and I called up Kyo who was willing to meet me for some dinner and Singapore Slings at the Raffles long bar afterwards. The Slings they served at the Raffles were so good!

So after some internet session with some of my Austrian friends, singaporu_kooku and Jubilee777 I called it a day and looked forward to the day to come.

I woke up at 10 and got my seats at the downtown check in for my next flight to Sydney. Knowing that SQ221 was operated by the A380, I was keen on getting upper deck window seats. Unfortunately the Online Check-in did not work (again!) so I was forced to cross the street and go to the Paragon in order to get my seat reservation done. Luckily, there were not as many people around as I thought and I cleared the queue in no time at all. There was an Australian couple next to me who also took the 221 to SYD on the 7th. I overheard them requesting an upper deck pair of seats as well so I told my agent to hurry up getting me one of those seats. She said there was only one available and it seems that I was lucky: it was 79K - I wanted the K side anyway. She replied that she could not give me the seat though, because there might be somebody with status showing up or a couple who wanted those. Hearing that, I grabbed my purse and showed her my BD Gold card and she instantly reserved the seat. From the neighbouring counter, the agent told the Aussie couple "I am sorry, I cannot give you those seats. Apparently somebody was faster by a few seconds there" ... the Aussies were furious but I kept still. They managed to get the last row on the 380 on the upper deck thouh - the row that does not recline fully. The guy was really angry but he took it anyway. Thank god he was not listening to my conversation, otherwise I wouldn't have made it out alive...

my bording pass on my bed.

I headed for my room again, had an English Breakfast Tea (by Twinings, I love those!) and arranged a meeting for lunchies with my friend Karoline. She picked me up at Bugis station and we headed for some mall there to have some Korean stuff. I had Beef Bulgogi which was awesomely tender and soft. Wow, I feel so stupid having missed out on all these delicacies for all my life. I walked her to her office and we said we'd meet again in the evening at Insomnia. I did some window shopping and headed back home where my feet were nearly killing me. Called up Kyo and re-confirmed the mini-DO at 6 pm. Since staying at the Meritus opens some possibilites I wanted to check and I was hungry anyway, I grabbed my dSLR and went to the last floor where the Chatterbox replaced the 'Top of the M' as flagship restaurant of the Mandarin. The cicken rice was supposed to be quite famous so I had to try it before leaving the next day in the afternoon.

Schoolchildren painting the City Hall (?) station.
This was when I went to the Esplanade. Is it City Hall?


The Mandarin Chicken Rice.
Just looking at the picture makes me hungry

SQTalk Mini-DO in Singapore

Me and Kyo met up at the Raffles Place MRT station and went to his place before going to the hawker center to meet up with the other guys. We thought this DO would be a smaller get-together of SQ enthusiasts but in the end, the evening went directions we surely did not expect in the beginning.

Attendees of the DO were: Kyo, matt_will_fix_it and his lovely girlfriend Sherry (did I recall that correctly?), UMD, SuperJonJon and his fiancée, zander, 9V-JKL and his wife plus myself.

We ordered all sorts of local delicacies and after it became dark the party disbanded and left the group with four people ready to get on some serious Singaporean nightlife. Kyo, UMD, zander and me got a cab to the Swissôtel The Stamford to check out the Equinox and the New Asia Bar at the top.

On top of the Swissôtel Stamford.

Of course, good looking that we are, we met some British girls who instantly could not resist the charme of our party. They especially developed a liking for UMD... but see for yourself. (This should put the sex in the story! HAH!)

The view from the New Asia Bar. Simply amazing!

We had a really great time there and I really felt sad, knowing that my liking for the Singaporean nightlife started off this good and I would not have the chance to resume it because I would be sitting in an aeroplane the next day by that time. We went to the Raffles for some Slings and peanuts and checked out sceneries at Chijmes - Insomnia was actually pretty neat but the coverage of 20 S$ wasn't justified if we didn't even get some free drinks.

The gang. Slinging.

So we seperated after a night with fellow aviation lovers, tasty food, good drinks and stunning British chicks.

All in all this was one of the best nights in my life: I met great people and had so much fun! I hoped I'd get an internship in Australia next year but having partied like this, I am not so sure if I rather want to do an internship in Singapore instead (gotta try my luck and write to all the companies I know there hehe).

[flo]

Flight No: SQ 109
Departing: Kuala Lumpur International Airport
Arriving: Singapore Changi Airport Terminal 2
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200/ER
Registry: 9V-SRE
Seat: 39A

The aircraft finally arrived at the gate and I was happy to see that I would be flying an SQ bird with Star Alliance livery today! I cannot remember being on a Star Alliance livery plane before so I have another thing checked on my first-of's list: first time Star Alliance flight - check.

A true beauty!

I boarded the plane with everyone else; priority boarding was not enforced at all but the red-tied SQ Boy who showed me my seat greeted me with my name. "Mr. Wagner, nice to have you back! ... This way please!" - this is so funny because I don't have my gold status that long, plus I'm not even on KrisFlyer but it was a very nice gesture. The plane had a load factor of about 75% in Economy.

My seat. The legroom is great compared to other airlines.

I took my seat and saw my neighbour: a chinese guy who picked his nose with the same tissue that he would wipe his face with - ewwww. Well, that's the spirit of Economy Class! Anyway, the seat next to me was empty again so I had some more space for my stuff. I took some photos and ordered a cup of coffee. I nearly forgot how good coffee tasted, having switched to being a Coke junkie on my travels. I felt refreshed after the cup of coffe and we nearly instantly landed afterwards.

Sky is clearing...


Approaching Changi!

The funny thing about those KUL suttles is that SQ operates Boeing 777-200 planes to a place that's only 55 minutes away (I heard somewhere that the flight would normally be shorter and it only takes 55 minutes because the Business Class passengers couldn't finish their meal in less time). In Europe, you hardly see things like that: Austrian operates their 777-200 planes to India, Bangkok and the US and uses propeller-driven aircraft on short routes. This is one thing i love about Singapore Airlines - they always bring in the heavies because that's the only planes they've got!

After a rough landing again (!), we made our way to gate 58 which is at the far end of T2. Next to us parked 9V-SYE, another 777 in Star Alliance livery. Unfortunately it was on the other side so I could not get a good picture ...

Sky is clearing...


9V-SYE ready!


This time: heading for the arrival hall.


Here we go - the well-known Immigration!


This is the moment I appreciate the most.
Exiting the cool terminal, letting the humidity take over!