Text 23645, 78 rader
Skriven 2015-02-04 08:34:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: latest trip 159
=======================
3K 765 SIN MNL 1630 2010 320 14DE

Lilli agreed to breakfast in the executive lounge, which
offers most of the things I would want and enough to satisfy
her, especially after I informed her she could order an
omelet or other special eggs from downstairs. She ended up
having scrambled anyway. There are no longer bottles of
Chandon (Australia) bubbly out for self-service. I didn't
check to see if it was available on order but suspect it is.

We had 2 pm checkouts and at that time reversed our route
on the subway, getting to the airport early with few false
steps. We'd consolidated bags so as to have to check only
one, which was accepted without fee (I think this is a
negotiated deal with Expedia).

Passport control took seconds.

Lilli was shaking with hunger but insisted on soldiering on
until it became clear that there wasn't any food near this
particular gate area, so we backtracked to Immigration,
where she had seen numerous (as it turns out illusory)
restaurants. We ended up at a food court on the second floor
where I could get a beer (something like $12) and she could
get some crunchy gucka from Texas Chicken (less than that)
that turned out to be not too bad. Mashed taters (from an
unknown source and manufacturing technique) and gravy (from
beef bouillon) were wretched, and a biscuit was laughable.

We returned to the gate area around last call. Security and
boarding were a snap, and there was still plenty of overhead
space when we got to our seats, which had wretched Asia-size
legroom but were otherwise okay. Our seatmate at the window
had to get up several times, but that was okay.

A bumpyish flight.

At some point Lilli, who had extra Sing dollars in her pocket,
wanted wine and offered to buy me an Asahi for S$6. Well, a
Budweiser and party snack combo cost the same, and Asahi is
not substantially better, so that's what I had. Her Barossa
Shiraz (strange name, Kook's or something) was better than
airplane wine usually is, though a little sweet and obvious.
Party snack, by the way, includes wasabi peas, fava beans,
peanuts, spicy cracker things, and assorted floor sweepings,
though not bad for that.

The flight came in quite early, and the bags came out within
10 of landing, so we were on our way before the scheduled
arrival time, immigration taking mere seconds and changing
money (not a bad rate at the kiosk) not much more than that.

I'd e-mailed the hotel about getting a car service, with no
response. Optimistically, I went off to see if the car from
the hotel had come anyway, which it hadn't. Some tout came
up and offered to call the hotel for us. He said the number
didn't work. I was sure he called a dummy number. Luckily,
Lilli's phone has an international calling capability, which
she'd never used before. It came in handy, even at $2 a
minute. I got hold of the front desk, which told me that
they'd discontinued the car service (this hasn't been
communicated to Venere, Agoda, Orbitz, Expedia, and so on).
The tout triumphantly led us to his company's kiosk, where
a battered rate sheet showed P1200 for the trip. Having
done our research, we knew that the private car was P660 and
a regular metered taxi was going to be P200 or under. We
said no to the guy, who looked very crestfallen. We went off
and another tout accosted us. P440. What the heck, I said,
we'll do it. In retrospect, this appears to be a multilevel
scam: the 1200 tout is there just to prepare us for the 440
tout, but if he gets a bite at 1200, so much the better.
Anyhow, the ride was in a brand spanking new clean van, with
a driver who seemed competent. We were at our hotel in half
an hour, traffic being as it is.

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