I'll get to witness CGK flying in Y!

[KeithMEL]

A couple of minutes later, he was carrying the baby and giving the mom a couple of minutes to organize the stuff for the journey ahead.

Awwww.... Good on ya, CGK!

Thanks for the hilarious update, jjpb3!

[jjpb3]

CGK in Y: Part II

We boarded the flight late-ish, given that we had been imbibing some Singapore Slings in the SKL. CGK had already adjusted to the show-me-the-card mentality at LHR, so he breezed right through the gate checks.

Now a foreshadowing: given SQ’s enforced board-from-the-back-rows boarding procedure at LHR, the only ways someone could’ve beaten us to our seat area were: (1) the passenger possessed *G status, or (2) the passenger had babies or young children. Guess which was the case with CGK’s seatmate on this flight?

.
.
.

When we got to the front of the Y cabin, we discovered that the woman in CGK’s row had recourse to reason #2. But more on that later…

For now, here is my journey as CGK’s translator to the Y experience :

• First to-do: ensure that you’ll have a bottle of water with which to re-hydrate yourself. I asked CGK whether he remembered to take a bottle from the LHR CH, and he asked, “What do you mean”?
  
  I had to explain how, in Y, you didn’t get your own private bottle of water. Having your own bottle which the SQ Girls / Angels could refill was a lot more convenient than waiting for the refills that came in a small plastic cup.
  
• After the hot towel service, they handed out the menus. CGK flipped through his; looked back to where I was sitting; and, wide-eyed, remarked, “They gave out the wrong menu!”
  
  “What?”
  “They gave out the wrong menu. Mine says SIN-LHR.”
  “Um, CGK? Look in the second half of the menu.”
  
  Virtual lightbulbs flashed as CGK acknowleged the revelation.
  
• At the conclusion of the meal, CGK got up to use the toilet. Later he came up to me and said, sounding amazed, “There was a line for the toilet!” At the end of the weekend, CGK confessed that the rules for using the Y toilet was a bit complicated for him (remember, he's the type of passenger who would let another step ahead of him if there were a doubt about who had the right of way): you had to remember who, from two potential directions, got to the front of the queue first. I tried to explain that it was just like coming to a 4-way stop at an intersection: you just note which one got there first, and let the process run accordingly. I had forgotten than CGK doesn't drive in his home city.

When you travel with someone, you do get to learn his or her quirks and to decide whether those quirks mesh well with your own.

I learned that:

1. CGK can sleep on planes much better than I can (even in Y!). That, SQfg, is the main reason you don’t have a picture of me sleeping. I was awake more than CGK was.

2. CGK is a total sweetheart. (This isn’t a new discovery, more like a confirmation of a belief . ) I was worried about him having to deal with a baby next to him, because I myself would have been mortified. But I after I had stowed away my carryon, I looked towards his row and found … him chatting and smiling with the mother. A couple of minutes later, he was carrying the baby and giving the mom a couple of minutes to organize the stuff for the journey ahead.

I’m hoping that someday I’ll develop the same kind of unflappability and genuine niceness to other people. In the meantime, I’ll try to curb my orneriness and learn from people like CGK.



P.S. Yes, CGK’s quirks mesh well with my many.

[CGK]

Well, no one greeted me from my SQ Y long haul. So, there you go. No picture will be posted.
But, some has seen my photo collection fresh from the camera 4 hours ago!

[KeithMEL]

No can lah ... not yet anyway. I won't have the connector to my camera until I get back to London.

*taps foot impatiently*

[SQflyergirl]

No can lah ... not yet anyway. I won't have the connector to my camera until I get back to London.

holds breath!

[jjpb3]

No can lah ... not yet anyway. I won't have the connector to my camera until I get back to London.

[SQflyergirl]

Whammies Schmammies! Where are the pics?

All I hear are mouth watering descriptions of things I would give the right half of my PPS card to see........ only to be cruelly told that there ARE none....

[SQFAN]

CGK appears to be 'lost' in the world of travelling in economy , eh eh? Can't wait for the rest of the story.

[KeithMEL]

ONLY 1 glass of bubbly!!!

Pics, pics, pics please!

[jjpb3]

CGK in Y: Part I

Well, here's the first part of the highlights from the LHR-SIN leg (including pre-flight activities).

This trip began on the upswing for me. No dramas in packing, no dramas from work, and practically no delays going from home to LHR. Both Business Class counters were occupied, so I was gently guided to the First Class counter. There, I met a Pinay -- well, an ex-Filipina who immigrated when she was 6, who noticed my surname and asked me a question (correct polite forms too!) in Tagalog. All in all, a very pleasant checkin process, though it did include a mystifying request to attach a baggage tag to which she had affixed a PPS sticker. That was the first time I had encountered such a request.

The BAA security circus took less than 15 minutes, so even though I was starved for some breakfast, I had time to browse (and buy from ) the selection at Ferragamo. That's where I got the SMS from CGK that he had landed. He met me outside the store, where he told me that the SQ counter wasn't open yet and so he had no BP with which to enter the VS CH. He asked me to go ahead.

One hour later, still no sign of CGK. Hmmm... This was worrying. It turned out that the transfer desk didn't open until past 10.00 so CGK got to the lounge very late, so late that he could consume only ONE glass of champagne -- a rather inauspicious, even uncivilized, stat to his Y odyssey. But this being CGK, he was his unflappable self. He gamely posed for a picture in the lounge with his newly issued Y BP.

Then off he went to take a shower -- to "give a good impression of Solitaires in Y", in his words. Then the second whammy: none of the dryers were working. CGK came back from his shower with his hair flying around his head, a sight so incongruent with his usual well-groomed self that I couldn't contain my laughter. No, I didn't take a picture of CGK with flyaway hair.

Soon it was time to board so we headed off to the departure area. I got my BP looked over and was guided to the line to which they were funneling Busines and First Class passengers. CGK ogt his BP examined and was guided to ... [third whammy] the much longer Y line.

He takes a look at my much shorter line ... and then the metal barrier separating our two lines ... and finally asks, "Hey, why am I not in your line?"

"Did you show them your card?"
"Why? I have a Solitaire sticker!"
"You need to show them the card."
"But the sticker!"
"CGK, this is LHR. Show them your card."

With a mini-huff (this is CGK, so big tantrums don't really happen), he marched back to the checker; showed him the TPP card (smiling when doing so, of course); and was allowed to join the shorter line (with the admonition, "You needed to show me the card, sir").

We headed towards the gate, to be ready to be one of the first to board in Y so we could ensure that we had the space in the overheard lockers for our stuff. Only, we waited, and waited ... and finally heard an announcement asking Business and First Class passenger to go see the gate agent. Then the blue and red BP holders (sans a usual member) marched back through the entrance to the departure area. CGK investigated, and we learned that [whammy no. 4] there would be a delay of an unspecified duration due to the absence of equipment to take the plane out of its parking position (or something to that effect). Ah LHR .

So we went back to the SKL, where, courtesy of the same card that allowed CGK into the shorter line, we got to the side that made tall, refreshing Singapore Slings. The second good thing that came out of the delay was that CGK was able to get a bottle of water for his journey. I had forgotten to remind him that in Y, water came in small tumblers rather than your own private small bottle.

Soon the announcement to board came, and we trooped back to the departure area. They had just boarded the very back of the Y cabin. Flashing our *G cards, we went right through, and finally were warmly welcomed by angels clad in the equally welcome familiar kebayas.

So, pre-flight tally: 4 whammies, and lessons about the importance of flashing your card in LHR andtrying to get water to compensate for the less individualized service level in cattle class.

Stay tuned for the in-aircraft installment of CGK's adventure in long-haul Y (not Peter11's definition of a total Y experience, but plenty Y from the vantage point of someone with a travel profile like CGK's) ...

[SQflyergirl]

So, no picture of the sleeping beauty.

Right... and how much did you get paid to not post those pics?

[CGK]

I survived the Y travel.
It was so comfortable, and I was sleeping almost the whole flight.
So, no picture of the sleeping beauty. (Well, the cabin was pretty dark)

[SQflyergirl]

I'm waiting more for pics of JJPb3 than anything

[KeithMEL]

Well he's surfaced in another thread on SQTalk about his LPP run, so hopefully he'll supply an update soon.

[Lobster]

So did CGK survive it has gone very quiet here.