For our trip to Singapore, Dad booked us on a super cheap Australian airline called Jetstar. It was something like $70 per person. Because he booked cheap plane flights, we were able to get a pretty swank hotel, but more on that later. Now when I say cheap, I mean cheap. You have to pay for everything except a carry-on weighing no more than 10 kg (22 lbs). You have to pay for checked baggage, for a drink of water, for a little bag of peanuts, for everything. But it wasn't that bad. It was only a three hour flight, and we brought a bag of shrimp chips and some dried mangos.
When we got to the Manila International Airport, the Jetstar line was by far the longest. It was super long because there was no one at the counter. There were two separate lines. One was for regular check-in at the airport, and that line was incredibly long, and we stood in it for a while before we realized that there was a separate line for online check-in. Thankfully, there were only a few people in that line and we continued to the light security and on to our gate. Dad had already changed all of our cash to Singaporean dollars because of a rule stating that you couldn't have more than P10,000 or its equivalent on a flight. Because we were out of cash, we couldn't buy any food or coffee while we waited the two hours we sat at our gate. There was a large TV playing NBA TV at our gate. Filipinos are very much into basketball. I'd say that the majority of airport TV's play NBA TV.
We landed in Singapore and it was the nicest airport that I have been to. We take a stop in the bathroom, and it's spotless. There is an outlet for electric razors by the rightmost sink. There are paper towel dispensers underneath the mirrors at every sink. There is a touch screen monitor that lets you rate the cleanliness of the bathroom. All along the terminal there are 'travelators' which are the treadmill type things on the floor at airports. Dad and I noticed a free leg massage thing. You sit down on the bench, and in front of you there are these cloth sacs that you put your lower legs into. The advertisement for it said "Experience pain with pleasure" or something similar. We were too scared to try it out.
We got onto a Skytrain, a train system that goes from terminal to terminal, to go to Terminal 1 to get onto the MRT, the local subway system. Before we could get onto the MRT, we had to deal with customs. Because of our trip to the bathroom, we were practically last in line for Customs. It was very orderly. There was a separate line for Singaporean citizens, and once that line was empty, anyone could go into that line. We got through customs in around half an hour.
We headed downstairs to the MRT station and got three-day passes to travel throughout the city. The MRT is an incredibly simple subway system. At every station there is both a map of the whole system and of the line that you are about to get on. There are 4 or 5 different lines that go across the city, and most of the names of the stops are fairly self explanatory. When Dad was asking around work for advice for our trip to Singapore, someone told him, "It takes a few days to figure out the New York Subway, while it takes a few minutes to figure out the Singapore subway." One of the cool things about the MRT trains is that they are really long, and the cars are about 15 meters long, so you can see the curvature of the track by watching the cars bend at the junctions.
It takes about an hour to get to the stop nearest the hotel. We get out onto the street and are utterly lost. Dad and Rebecca are arguing about which way to go because this map said this, but no one really remembers the map. This went on until a stranger asked if we needed help. She asked us where our hotel was, and pointed us the right way.
We got onto a Skytrain, a train system that goes from terminal to terminal, to go to Terminal 1 to get onto the MRT, the local subway system. Before we could get onto the MRT, we had to deal with customs. Because of our trip to the bathroom, we were practically last in line for Customs. It was very orderly. There was a separate line for Singaporean citizens, and once that line was empty, anyone could go into that line. We got through customs in around half an hour.
We headed downstairs to the MRT station and got three-day passes to travel throughout the city. The MRT is an incredibly simple subway system. At every station there is both a map of the whole system and of the line that you are about to get on. There are 4 or 5 different lines that go across the city, and most of the names of the stops are fairly self explanatory. When Dad was asking around work for advice for our trip to Singapore, someone told him, "It takes a few days to figure out the New York Subway, while it takes a few minutes to figure out the Singapore subway." One of the cool things about the MRT trains is that they are really long, and the cars are about 15 meters long, so you can see the curvature of the track by watching the cars bend at the junctions.
It takes about an hour to get to the stop nearest the hotel. We get out onto the street and are utterly lost. Dad and Rebecca are arguing about which way to go because this map said this, but no one really remembers the map. This went on until a stranger asked if we needed help. She asked us where our hotel was, and pointed us the right way.
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