Not the Inaugural flight - SQ25 on A380 JFK-FRA-SIN

[CarbonMan]

I have been in NYC for the past 2 weeks for work. Came over on the non-stop SQ22 but decided to fly SQ25 back to SIN since I haven't done this flight for a few year now as I prefer the non-stop and also because previously it was operated with the 747-400.

Let me start off with a few pics of NYC just to set the scene.

The view from my room at the Hilton Times Sq - midtown area.


Fifth Ave where many of the branded fashion shops are.
Temperatures last week was hovering +/-2degC.


The Apple shop in NY is quite a place to go to. While I did not enter this one,
the one I visited near Lincoln Center had a whole basement set up just for
training anyone, from the use of the iPad to Apple software - something I
have not seen any other company do.


The horse carts near Central Park waiting for customers. The pungent smell of
horse waste fills the air with pigeons helping "recycle" the waste.


The south-east end of Central Park. One of favourite places for a walk on a weekend. A great way to de-stress from meetings. The museums and
art galleries that dot the huge perimeter of this Park, are just fantastic.


The skating rink


The city from Lincoln Center with the ubiquitous yellow cabs.

[CarbonMan]

At JFK Swiss Lounge

On with the topic. Booked a limo to get from NY to JFK. It was a long day at
work, and it was helpful to just book a car rather than get a taxi at the
airport. The ride took just under an hour, thankfully traffic was minimal. The
sun was already setting and by the time I got to the airport it was dark.

Straight to the check-in counter. Queues have already formed. Fortunately
J was pretty thin, though a 5-min wait was required before it was my turn.


There are two lounges available to Gold and J class pax. Decided that Swiss was better as there was shower facilities there.




It was smallish but cosy.




There was a simple selection of food and drinks.




But this was what I was after - shower facilities! After a day at work,
this is a blessing before a long 21-hour flight. There are only two showers - one
for the guys and one for the gals. Fortunately no queue. Unlike Kyo, I've
nothing pixelated to exhibit here.


Be aware that the Swiss lounge is OUTSIDE the secured area, so one must
start making one's way to the boarding gate a little ahead of time because the
queues can get quite long. This is possibly because JFK was designed prior to Sep 11.

[CarbonMan]

9V-SKG

By the time I got to the gate, almost everyone had already boarded - despite
being 30mins before STD.


The Whale awaits. Boarding is through two doors on the lower deck of the plane.


A closer look at the 3yo 9V-SKG.


The send-off committee In the US, I can't help but think whether they were expecting a tip from me.


Took my seat - got my drink, magazine and switched on the telly.


As you can see (or not) it's quite boring out the window on a night take-off.


Taxied to runway 31L, 14572ft long for a westerly takeoff. Apologies for a
very grainy shaky pic (1/8sec, f2.5, max ISO500) - didn't have time to
meddle.


The plane tipped left after takeoff giving a nice view of NYC for the starboard
window pax then made a hard left again for a easterly route towards Europe.




Onwards for a 6hr 30min flight to FRA.

[CarbonMan]

The flight JFK-FRA on SQ25

It was a pretty low load with only the front end of J fully occupied while the
back end was only half occupied.






The food fest starts with drinks and peanuts.


The menu for this leg.


The starter - Tian (what?) of crab


The main - Lamb shank with ratatouille




Dessert 1 - Ice cream - which was still hard after 5mins


Dessert 2 - The very observant Chief Stewardess noticed I was struggling
with the ice-cream and enquired if I was having issues with it. I told her that
the ice-cream was really interesting as it seems to have viagra as one of its ingredient. She gave me a creme brulee instead.

[CarbonMan]

Almost to FRA

At this juncture, I was really pleased that I was on a J seat, as my tummy
closely resembled that of a sumo. But when the cheese came, I requested for
almost everything they had on a tray, just so I have a nice setting for this
pic.


So much for meal one. The cutlery were cleared, the glasses removed and the
sweet voices of the stewardesses abated. Window shades down, lights went
off, and everyone settled down.

As the plane flew into the Atlantic, I decided that a short nap would help in the
digestion of my previous sin.

Popped! I was woken up with the harsh lights coming on - what happened to
the nice gentle slow lights that mimicked dawn (at least that's what Airbus's
marketing said)?!? Perhaps I slept through all of it.

Quick check on the nav screen showed that we just entered air space over
the UK, west of Wales.

Breakfast 1. Before my groggy jet-lagged mind knew it, my table was set and
fruits, coffee and croissant was on the table.




Apologies for the above pics. I was too groggy to know what I was doing.

Thankfully it was a relatively simple meal.

Sunrise was coming up according to my iPad app, so I pushed up my window
shades only to find a pale of monotonous grey that looked like a typical day in
Beijing. Damn, there goes the glorious sunrise pics.


Presumably to stack up and to get into the right landing direction, the flight went east past FRA for about 15mins before doing a 180deg turn back to the airport.


Visibility broke about 250m above the runway. It was drizzling and
temperatures were 3degC. Not much better than NYC.


LH territory


This time at FRA, the upper deck doors were accessible unlike JFK.

[9V-SIA]

Lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing

We did almost identical things in NYC!

Did the carriage ride through Central Park, Times Square, Apple Shop / FAO Schwarz, Lincoln Centre

[CarbonMan]

FRA Airport

Landed at 9am and that means we had over 2 hours to kill at the airport.

Firstly, I found it very nice that they did not require the transiting pax to go through another security check to get back into the secured area. That saved queues, and all that trouble of removing one's winter wear, laptops, tablets, and shoes.

Tried to access the Senator lounge near gate B41 but was told that it was reserved for only LH premium customers. This is despite all the signs at the gate saying it was available to SQ PPS customers.

So off we go to the other Star Alliance lounge near gate B44. Much better than the Swiss lounge at JFK. More snacks, more drinks. But can't compare with SQ's SKL at Changi.



Love this coffee machine.




Very computer friendly, with lots of parking slots.


But the real food is found outside towards the central core. And it was really
good hearty German stuff from what I could see. But there was no way, I
could stuff a mouth-watering Frankfurt weiner after all that I consumed on
the flight. My iPhone calorie app was shouting "STOP!" There's even an "Asian" stall though I don't see anything I recognise.





Decided to buy some duty free chocs instead for CNY - like the dark ones.

Back to the boarding gate and usual crowds are milling around waiting for the boarding announcement.

[CarbonMan]

SQ25 FRA-SIN - The eating continues

As the plane taxied towards FRA's third runway - Startbahn 18 West - the
plane passed the glassy terminal building which allowed me the opportunity to
take a few shots of 9V-SKG. Prefer the second one below but it's mucked up
by the rain on the window.





We're off on the second leg through Europe, crossing into Asia via the Black Sea into Georgia towards Afghanistan. Flight time to SIN, 11 hours.



The food starts with the satay service. Because it was so delicious and more
so because my brain wasn't functioning I forgot to take pics of it. My bad.

Only until I slurpped up the nice crunchy satay sauce (made sure my
neighbour didn't notice it), that I realized my subject was in my tummy.



Starters came. Another round of food.



The crab was very well balanced by the salty preserved meats, and the
sweetness of the tomatoes.



For the mains, I ordered, the pork knuckle with mash and sauerkraut (which I
hate ....). The knuckle was cooked very well, melts in your mouth, moist but
not quite moist all over. The mash potato was well mixed with a good does of
butter at just the right consistency. Sauerkraut, I won't touch with a pole.



For dessert, I decided on the gateau, because it had more color than the ice-
cream (and I didn't want to go through a second experience of trying to eat a
golf ball).



Finished off with a TWG Paris-Singapore, one of my favourite green tea blends. So full of aroma and fragrance, enough to get me into the mood - to sleep.



With the sun set over the Black Sea, I unfolded my lie flat bed, to get some sleep.

[CarbonMan]

SQ25 FRA-SIN - just let me sleep

Before I slept, I remembered activating the DND button, as I needed to get
some quality sleep. "Mr X! Mr X!" I heard a scream that tore me out of a very
sweet dream. Tearing off my blinds, jerked up, I saw sweet stewardess,
Nicole, staring down at me, mouthing "Mr X!". Unplugging my 32db-rated ear
plugs, I heard her ask, "Mr X, would you like breakfast?!" ARRRRGGGGGHHHH,
don't you see the DND light! I wanted to scream! But Nicole is so sweet - and
I didn't. She must have seen me snapping pics in my previous meal and
thought I shouldn't miss breakfast - because, seriously, I don't look one bit
hungry. So I replied very nicely, "No. I don't" and promptly crashed back onto
my pillow.

But ... sleep wouldn't come back ... and I needed to head to the head (why
did they call it that?!).

On my way back to my seat, sweet Nicole saw me from way back the J
section, rushes up and smile ever so sweetly, "Mr X, have you changed your
mind?" "Yes! Yes! I give up! Give me more to eat - but can I, with your
permission, please skip the mains??".

And so it starts .... again. My second breakfast in 12 hours ... at 0430
Singapore time.



Mr Steward, wanted to help me with the photography and suggested he wears white gloves to hand me the dishes. Where can you find such superlative service?









After breakfast, with some coffee in my brains, I decided to go low.



The tone of the lights was playing havoc to my P&S white balance, and no
matter how I tweak the settings, it came out a little redder than it ought to
be.

The flight took us down the Straits of Malacca, swinging east just north of
the Karimun Islands towards Batam Island for a landing from the south.



At 0630, it was still dark, so no clear pics came out for the landing - my hope
for a sunrise was not granted.

After 11 hours, everyone can't wait to get off the plane.



And this, my friends, is what I love to see everytime I land in Changi - no queues.



The End

[CarbonMan]

Lovely pictures. Thanks for sharing

We did almost identical things in NYC!

Did the carriage ride through Central Park, Times Square, Apple Shop / FAO Schwarz, Lincoln Centre

Thanks, 9V-SIA. Glad it brought back sweet memories.

[sqdazz]

Awesome pics . what camera are you using? thanks for the report

[CarbonMan]

Awesome pics . what camera are you using? thanks for the report

Thank you, Sqdazz. 4 months ago (while in NY) I invested in a Olympus XZ-1 compact. Not as small as I would've wished but the lens is remarkable, with a really fast f1.8 at the wide-angle end. It has enough arty-farty features to keep one looking arty-farty without really trying.

[sqdazz]

Thank you, Sqdazz. 4 months ago (while in NY) I invested in a Olympus XZ-1 compact. Not as small as I would've wished but the lens is remarkable, with a really fast f1.8 at the wide-angle end. It has enough arty-farty features to keep one looking arty-farty without really trying.

It does an amazing job, the pics around NYC look fantastic

[Singapore Guy]

Great trip report. I like the high resolution food pictures.

[9V-SIA]

I actually wrote in to SQ in 2009 about the ice cream being too hard.

I made the point that it costs them nothing ( these being belt tightening times ) to serve the ice cream that is properly thawed.

And since that feedback I haven't had problems.

I guess it's time to remind them..