Killing a day
Due to the time difference, I woke at 0430 but dozed till 0630, and then till around 0800. We have the day to kill in the city-state until our flight after midnight tonight.
Jess, my step-bro’s girlfriend dropped us off in the city. We priced some electronics at Sim Lim Square and continued to Raffles City for more window-shopping. We ate at a big busy market where it was very hot and humid. But the Nasi Lemak and Rojak hit the spot. We cooled down with an ais kacang at Raffles City.
Singapore is really lucky to be blessed with third world neighbours for produce and labour. Even at the Raffles City upmarket “Food Junction”, a meal was only SGD3-4.
With the SARS epidemic many staff there were wearing “I am fine today” badges. They had probably been temperature checked and vetted for symptoms today.
We taxied back to the house for a rest in the afternoon.
In the evening, step-dad took us out for dinner at Serangoon Gardens where hawker food was available at Chomp Chomp and nearby markets. The selection of food, including Malay, was pretty awesome. We had satay with ketupa, pohpiah, otak-otak and tahu-hua.
Leaving Singapore
After packing back at the house, step-dad dropped us off at Changi airport where we went to the Emirates office once again to collect our ticket. We were handed handwritten paper tickets which had a couple of mistakes, not reflecting our updated flights for the return portion but our original flights.
Once we had that sorted, we checked-in and proceeded airside. We were directed through a special “Channel B” to have our hand luggage weighted. I believe for certain flights, there is a likelihood of people turning up with too much hand luggage and our flight is one of them. With SARS we were also temperature-scanned on the way through to passport control.