Mixed Feelings and Foggy Heads

Thursday morning, October 6th was final packing day! We both agreed we had mixed feelings - a bit of excitement that we were returning to Asia but some sadness leaving family, good friends and a certain enjoyable lifestyle behind.

Happy Birthday
to John

Nonetheless, the night before we had celebrated John's birthday at the recently opened new location of The Capital Grille in Boston where we enjoyed a truly sumptuous steak dinner followed by an outrageously delicious dessert trio of cheesecake, chocolate cake and coconut cream pie! That surprise bonus was surely the result of the charms John had bestowed upon our server, Laurie all that evening.  Anyway on this last morning prior to our departure for Singapore, John would go into Veson's offices to pack-up the last bits there and enjoy birthday cupcakes as a final farewell!

Later that afternoon we arrived at Logan Airport with three bags each plus carry-on. Flying internationally we knew we were allowed two bags apiece and our third would be extra. The only thing is we didn't know how much extra that would be. It turned out to be $149 per bag - a bit excessive don't you think? We certainly did but what can you do when you are at the airport with all your moving "kit" in tow? So of course we paid it and put it down as a moving expense.

Next hurdle was an unexpected one that caused some momentary panic (at least for me)! We had one way tickets to our final destination but the attendant checking us in then asked if we had visas which we had determined in planning our trip were not required by Singapore. However, our not-too-kind attendant informed us that as U.S. citizens without a visa we had to then have return tickets within 90 days of our departure. Inside I'm frantic and thinking we're sunk but John in his very calm, methodical way replies that we will solve that problem momentarily though I haven't a clue what he means by that.

John then kindly reminded me it so happened that just the day before I had decided to go ahead and book my return flights for December so if I could acquire proof of this itinerary I would be okay. John however had not yet made his reservations but he quickly proceeded to do so through the company travel agent only to learn it would take close to two hours for his itinerary to officially register. That of course meant we would not make our first flight to NYC in time. Then John had a brainstorm and wondered if our Hong Kong permanent residence ID's would prove helpful. To our surprise (and despite the fact that mine is officially expired), that did the trick! Our new friendly check-in attendant was happy to proceed and soon we had boarding passes in hand! Whew!

Our flight to JFK went as planned but of course we then had to make our way to an international terminal (and go through security again). Fortunately all those bags had been checked through to Singapore from Boston so at least we didn't have to lug those around again. Before boarding our flight John was informed that his assigned seat was broken and wouldn't recline but the middle seat between us was empty and did work. That actually worked to our advantage as we then had the three seats to ourselves - at least until we arrived in Frankfurt, Germany for re-fueling.

In Germany we had to de-plane and go all the way around through security yet again which I totally don't get but by that time we felt like ultra-secure passengers. Unfortunately now we ended up with a passenger on the aisle seat in our little three seat row and John was squished in the middle for the longest leg of this journey (another 11+ hours to go)! In addition, the plane was an older Boeing 747 configured with personal little screens in the back of each seat with on-demand movies, tv shows and music. That was all fine but the sound was of very poor quality and made it almost impossible to understand much of the dialogue. So much for that part of our flight entertainment. Food was as expected - typical plane-fare and quite mediocre. We did manage to sleep for several hours both between NYC and Frankfurt as well as on this segment.

Still, it did become quite an endless trip and we were quite ready for our arrival in Singapore which finally occurred (23+ hours after our departure) at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 8th a bit dazed and foggy in the head as you can imagine. Our apartment complex offered a car service to pick us up which was a nice perk we were happy to accept. But first we had been instructed by other friends here we must stop in Duty Free to purchase some liquor because it was extremely expensive elsewhere in Singapore. Even at that the prices were high by comparison. Absolut Vodka was $33 SGD (about $25 USD) and white wine that we would normally pay about $15 for was nearly double that! Aiiyahh!!

After locating our driver in the airport lobby and a short ride later we had arrived at the service apartments where we will stay for the next month!