I survived my first 16+ hour flight and now it’s 3:40pm and I really want to go to bed. My watch says my body battery is 5% or less. I’m about done!

Let’s go back to Thursday, when Jeff and I had to take Hank to see our vet after Jeff noticed Hank had a really obscenely puffy eye!

When the vet saw him, I think he thought it was just bit by something (dog or bug) but once he lifted the lid, he said the white of his eye was all red and it is infected. He thinks it is possible he poked it on something when I had him out for that walk up Mary McLeod on Monday. We were given antibiotics and eye drops for him. He was not keen on the eye drops!!

Poor Hank and Jeff have to manage solo while I’m gone. It’s not easy to get those drops in, especially when his eye is so swollen!

The next day, Friday, I was off in the noon hour for my first of 3 flights to get from Dawson City, Yukon to Singapore.

I only had an hour or so layover in Whitehorse. On the second flight, I spotted the Carcross desert!

I had 5 or so hours to kill in the Vancouver airport. I worked on rehydrating and adjusting where I had things packed, and then I checked my luggage in again for my Air Canada flight to Singapore and then wandered around the international terminal.

Two of my colleagues who are going on this same work trip met me at the gate before we boarded. There are only 8 of us meeting in Singapore and 3 of us were flying out of Vancouver!

Our flight left Vancouver at 10pm. I was really quite anxious about this flight and how miserable it could end up being. How do people sit and sleep in the same spot for so long? It was going to be a first for each of us.

I was incredibly fortunate. I was in the middle section, on the aisle, and no one was in the middle seat! It was nice to have the extra space!

They feed us not too long after take off. I had the chicken and rice.

I watched some movies and then tried sleeping. I bought a new neck pillow and brought my eye mask and wore a hood. Eventually I lost track of a couple of hours. But then there was a lot of kerfuffle and I peeked out of my face mask to see a brick-sized … something… and a couple of cookies being put on everyone’s tray table?

Could it be…? No way.. There is no way they are feeding us all tuna salad sandwiches. But they were. Halfway through the night. Or was it night? Time was irrelevant. We were in this dark cave for 16+ hours. The windows stayed dark the entire trip and the lights were dimmed for most of it.

Anyway, I only ate about a third of the stale sandwich, and then watched more movies before I managed to get another hour or so of sleep. It was hard to know for sure. I got up to walk to the bathroom several times, just for something to do, and to keep the blood flowing through my legs!

I watched 5 movies, and they were all pretty bad. One was horrific in just how bad it was. One was just stupid. One made me bawl. Let’s see if you can guess which. I watched:

• Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Road Trip
• Anaconda with Jack Black and Paul Rudd
• Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
• Song Sung Blue with Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman
• Longing with Richard Gere

Is this what happens when you get to your 50’s? I couldn’t believe how much these actors have aged – Paul Rudd, Kate Hudson, Richard Gere, Jack Black, Rene Zellweger, Jim Belushi, and Hugh Grant. I guess as you age yourself, every star you’ve watched for decades has too. Of all of those, Kate Hudson is definitely aging the best!

So which one was horrific? Longing
Stupid? Anaconda
Made me cry? Surprisingly, the newest Bridget Jones one. It was so sad, throughout! Plus there is some phenomenon that you bawl more when watching tear jerkers on a plane. I swear. It’s real.
Song Sung Blue was the best of the group. It is about a Neil Diamond impersonator. The music is excellent (especially if you like Neil Diamond music as much as I do!).

Anyway, all three of us were pretty surprised how well we did on the flight.

So we left Friday night and landed in Singapore at 5am Sunday. Our hotel check-in wasn’t until 3pm, so we decided to wander the airport, find the water fall thing we’d heard about, and wander the attached mall.

Only problem – everything is closed at 5am on Sunday morning!

Even the water fall thingy wasn’t flowing, and wouldn’t until 10am. Could we kill that much time?

Should we check our bags in somewhere?

Or should you do what we did, just wander with our suitcase for hours on end.

We found washrooms and washed up a bit, changed our clothes, put on shorts and headed to find the waterfall.

Here is where the water is supposed to be falling, in The Jewel. Only it was still. And dark.

There were many floors of mall around this dome structure. And it was sooo humid inside of it.

It wasn’t really that long until the sun came up.

There were a few other people around, also with suitcases. And as every hour went by, more people appeared. We took so many escalators, going up and down everytime we thought of something we could go see or do (or eat) to pass the time.

Slowly breakfast places opened, and the 7-11.

And robot floor cleaners!

And at 9:58am, we joined a ton of other people to point our phones to where the water was to appear!

Were we going to get wet?

Here’s a video so you can experience it too!

By then more of the stores were opening and the air conditioning was kicking in so it wasn’t so humid.

We were starting to feel like Tom Hanks in that movie where he lives in the airport though. We decided to take the airport SkyTrain to the city train, then train into the city where we our hotel rooms would eventually be waiting.

Singapore is incredibly humid and hot. Over 30°C. Fortunately, even the trains were air-conditioned. But the walk to the hotel was so hot and sticky and after travelling for hours (days?) we were eager for showers. We were sooooo happy our rooms were all available early so we could shower up and relax.

Not wanting to sleep though, so we could acclimatize to the timezone for the week, we went out wandering again to find some lunch. Or dinner. Or what felt like the 7th meal of the day. But we couldn’t tell when the day even started anymore.

Here are some quick shots as we wandered around the Bugis area of town, which isn’t too far from where we are staying.

My impressions of Singapore so far:

• there are a lot of people here
• it’s clean
• but even clean, with heat like this, any smells are strong
• people are nice and friendly
• there is a lot of food I can’t go near. With a shellfish allergy, so many things are in broths in the hawker centres, so I’m just playing it safe. Like with pizza:

The afternoon has been very dark with clouds and thunder, which makes it feel much later in the day, because it is dark. I bought a cheap umbrella at the 7-11, so I’m set for the daily rain. OR the sun! We’re so close to the equator, it felt like we were getting sunburned after just walking a block in the sun!

The flight we took from Vancouver only goes a few times a week, so we ended up being here a day early before we need to, so we have another day to settle in, explore, and catch up on sleep.

Until then, good night from Singapore. No wait. It’s still afternoon.