Mark's Travels

10 years of travel blogging from 35+ countries around the world

My Emirates Flight from Singapore to Brisbane 2nd September 2004 in Singapore, Singapore


The stop off in Singapore was quite short. I was only able to walk around the airport for about 45 minutes while the aircraft was refuelling. The first two things I noticed were that the police didn't look very friendly or stable and that it smelt kind of like food, which struck me as odd being that we were there in the late evening and airports don't tend to smell of anything.

I did a short walk around the airport and headed back toward the check-in for the flight. The security there scrutinized my passport quite a bit using a magnifying glass and feeling the pages and visas trying to authenticate the document. Eventually I sat down in the waiting area and watched Channel News Asia for a bit. I was shocked to see the news in English. I know nothing about Singapore but I wasn't expecting to see localised news in English.

One of the stories told of a new law to stop Expatriates from working in the country until they are 23 years old which would result in 30% of the demand for maids going unmet. I know if Britain or Germany had introduced similar laws I would still be sitting around in Calgary wondering what to do with myself.

The one thing I had noticed by this point is that breaking the flight up into 7 hour increments makes the journey much more bearable. This trip would take me half way around the world but it felt quite shorter than my flights from Canada to New Zealand and Australia which were of a similar distance.


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