Singapore Airport

So I have arrived in Singapore for a 4 hour stopover, and what people say is pretty correct, it's a really huge airport. You could spend days here and not be bored, why even go into the city? So the airport is very large and nice but at the same time any stopover is not really that great because you are tired, in NZ time it is midnight right now and not 7 in the evening. And of course there is a baby that just won't stop crying. And annoying instrumental music playing somewhere.

There is not much point sitting down and eating because they feed you so much on the plane (Singapore Airlines really do have much better service than the others), but there are some really yummy looking cafes here, there is a Guylian chocolate cafe. And loads of chocolate shops. I wish they gave free samples. There are actually signs making it horrible clear that you are not allowed to sample the chocolate. Very sad. There are so many shops here, it seems like more than in the whole of Invercargill. And considering that there are three terminals and they all have so many shops maybe there are more shops than in Invers. Although you do see the same shops over an over. But still they are shops you would never see in Invercargill like Gucci and Burberry and Prada. Of course I can't afford to buy any of the pretty stuff (there are always a lot of jewellery shops at airports) and even if I could I have already gone way over my baggage allowance. I got caught out in Christchurch and had to take stuff out and stuff it all in my handbag and put coats on. I hope they don't weigh my bag again because I've put it all back of course.

And when you get bored of shopping (or window shopping in my case), there is a hotel in each terminal, a swimming pool, hairdressers and spas, gyms. And a lot of free internet, for your laptop and just computers all over the place, tvs with gaming machines, rooms for lanning, all for free. And a movie theatre in each terminal and cafes with live music. It is a very friendly airport to transit passengers. And just sitting in the middle of all the shops are these gardens. I am sitting in front of the Orchid garden, and there are so many more thnt what you could see in NZ, all different colours and sizes, and growing inside too. And in the middle of the garden is a Koi pond - they look like goldfish only much bigger.

Only the airport does seem very hot, they usually go so overboard on the air-conditioning that I was rather surprised at how hot it is in here. And if you go to any of the gardens that are outside, like the sunflower garden, it is like you have just walked into a sauna.

Of course I don't really have that much to compare Singapore Airport to yet because the majority of my time in transit so far has beein in Brunei, because for all my other flights Brunei Airline was the cheapest. And Brunei is tiny, the airport is tiny and it is just not as nice. But I am sure there are many airports that are very nice like this one. The carpet is very ugly though.

So I think I am done rambling about the airport, I guess I will go wander around some more. Try to make sure that I'm tired enough to sleep on the plane. Of course by the time they feed you and stuff there is not really a huge amount of time to sleep, it is only about a 7 hour flight from here to Dubai. And even if I do sleep I will still be a wreck when I arrive. And it will be 2am there and 4am by the time we get to Abu Dhabi. But I have a week to recover before going to Ireland, and if I hadn't been stopping to visit Mum the flight straight to Ireland would have been 25 hours! And I don't even know yet what to do and where to go when I get to Galway so it is good that I have another week yet to organise myself.