sg diary: p4, day one part one

woke-up to the pilot's announcement that we were going to be early by 35 mins. the sunrise was beautiful... the sun was nowhere to be seen but the sky was every hue of pink, orange, red and blue.. the aircraft turned beautifully over the colourful sky and turned a few times more.

unlike the take-off, the landing was quite close to the terminal... the pilot then announced that he had overshot the landing gear and that the aircraft will now have to be pushed a few metres backwards to align with the landing gear... so much for reaching early! the whole exercise took about 20-25 mins. it wasn't discomfitting at all... the hosts had meanwhile gotten a message that the arrival was early and had rushed to the airport. the changi airport was huge.. the distance between the terminal to the immigration was close to half a km. the airport even has it's own candy, the 'changi airport candy' ... the immigration check was super-quick and then the exit gates and into the happy faces of the hosts.

we went to see terminal 3 where they had a lego display and an aircraft museum and a place where you could sit for hours and watch the flights take-off and land... the number of paper-planes hanging in this museum is equal to the number of planes that land at changi airport each day. and the paperplanes are of different forms denoting different air-crafts. the airport itself is worth a few hours of dekko.

the three terminals of the airport are interlinked by a metro... that runs overhead and follows a rather curvy track... spread across the terminals is a butterfly park, a fern garden, a swimming pool, a fish pond, an orchid garden, a sunflower garden, tv lounges, eating places, shopping outlets(including a bata outlet) and entertainment centres. it's like a tiny town in itself.

breakfast was at '' outlet in the airport. tea(called teh) and kaya... tea was made the way it's made in india.. and kaya was a sandwich - white bread with kaya-spread inside.. the sweet kaya-spread is made of coconut, sugar and eggs, and is super-delicious. the token was a circular brown thing... whose LEDs flashed when it was our turn and the token vibrated too. now that was serious fun. i told my hosts that i was tired and sleepy.. so we took a taxi to their sprawling 2 b/r apartment.

after an hour's worth of catching up with each other's lives, lunch was rice and drumstick sambar and ghee and sabzi... and some heavy-duty catching up on the much-needed sleep.