After Singapore

I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more

Category: article

  • Travel Marathon Recap

    That five weeks has been very interesting to me. I’ve flown four different return trips (two were company paid), to five cities in four countries, using five different airlines. At some point I felt like George Clooney in Up in the Air movie. Two of my journeys were recorded in my blog, but I don’t feel like writing the other two, hence let me just do some recaps and point several interesting things here.

    Airlines
    The first airline I took was ValuAir. Compared to few years back, they had rearranged the seats so that the cabin could contain more seats. Unfortunately that also meant lesser space for my legs. On the bright side, the seats were new and clean. The next flight was Air Asia, but there was nothing special about it. As usual we were served by prettier flight attendants and was subject to flight delay due to unavailability of the airplane.

    Air France was the first non budget airline I took after several years. Generally they had a good service and delicious meals, especially on their long flight (my flight was from Singapore to Paris). The shorter flight (Paris to Napoli) used smaller planes with only snacks provided but same hospitality.

    On my Beijing trip, the company provided me Air China, which was surprisingly unsatisfying. With larger cabin size compared to budget airlines, they provided only two restrooms for economy class. As you can imagine, I had to queue for few minutes before I could answer my nature call. And as you can read in my other post, there was an incident during my flight back to Singapore, where the engine stopped just before we taxied to the runway.

    For my last trip to Indonesia, I tried to use the Indonesia’s national airline Garuda Indonesia. Whilst the online booking process was harder compared to other airlines, I was truly impressed by the revamped on board services they had given. Costing only +/- SGD 250 for round trip to Jakarta, the plane was equipped with brand new seats and in flight entertainments (though the flight was only 1.5 hours long). Free local newspapers were also provided before we boarded the plane. Unfortunately the last flight back to Singapore was plagued by almost two hour of delay.

    Effect on Weight
    Just few weeks before my first travel, I bought a digital weight scale with the interest of tracking and trying to reduce my weight. With help of Excel, I managed to plot a chart of my daily weight. Though until now the weight reduction program has not been fruitful yet (partly blame to the travels), but when combined with my travels the chart has become more interesting. A copy of the chart is shown here, with real values blurred for privacy reasons 🙂 however, I can tell you that the distance between the lowest and highest point is 3 kg.

    The straight lines determines the oversea travels, since I don’t have access to my scale. On my first trip to Indonesia, it did not affect much on the weight. What was contrary to my initial assumption was my Napoli trip turned out reduced my weight significantly, though I ate a lot of pasta and pizzas there, and sometimes double dinner in the plane due to time zone shift. The Beijing trip gave more body fat to me, since there were more beers and fatty and oily foods (you know, Chinese food..). I also gained weight on my last trip to Indonesia, especially due to the fact that this was my final trip during this year summer break.

    One conclusion I can take from the statistic is, your body may well use your calories reserve during long flights and jetlags. Therefore when you want to reduce weight, try to spend more time on planes 🙂

    English Grammar
    Finally, if you think that the English grammar in my blog posts is awful, well, you’re not alone. My friend Paulus who noticed the same thought that I should revisit basic theory of English by reading some English grammar books for high school students. Kindly enough, he gave these books during my latest visit to Jakarta. Therefore you can expect my grammar improves on the next posts (will be a challenge for me..) Thanks Paul!

    If you think that nothing is wrong with my grammar, well, you’re not alone too. I think that my grammar is still at acceptable level 🙂

  • Singapore MRT Tips: Get a Seat from Airport to City

    It’s been a very long time since my last post. During my semester term at NUS, it’s practically impossible for me to write a story.

    Anyway, just a short post on a tip to get a seat in the MRT (Singapore’s train system) when you land at Changi Airport and want to go towards the city. As you may know, from Changi Airport, the only train available is the “green” line. You will surely be able to get a seat here, since the train in fact departs from Changi Airport.

    However, after two stops you will have to switch train in Tanah Merah Interchange. And if you do the same thing as every other people here, most likely you won’t get a seat in the new train, since many people from airport (and possibly from Expo station) will transfer to this train, too. That’s pretty bad especially when you need to bring those heavy bags with you.

    The trick very is simple, that to just wait for the 2nd train to come. Most passengers from airport would take the 1st train available for them, therefore occupying the train to city. Since the frequency of the latter is higher, you may get the 2nd connecting train before another train from airport comes; of course with much fewer people.

  • Troubled with Budget Airlines? Try Call the Right Person!

    My vacation to Bali with friends from college was planned nicely for February 2010. They’ve booked promotional tickets from Air Asia few months ago, long time before the actual flight date. Though I didn’t get the promotional price (I will depart from Singapore, while they will be in Bandung), I also booked the flight for myself early.

    The schedule was just nice: the plane will take off at 10 AM, and reach Bali at 12.30 PM. Then I only need to wait few hours for my friends to come from Bandung. But then for some unexplained purpose, I was informed that my flight would be moved to 4.45 PM. It’s way beyond my friends arrival time! By the way, after the change, there was another Air Asia flight with the same route departing at 10 AM (seems that after my flight has been moved, they want to sell again the “prime time” schedule).

    To be honest, at first I merely accepted the change as this is a risk of taking budget airlines. Although I can easily reschedule it through the website, but it will cost me another $40 plus the difference between the new price and the old one. In that case, my flight wouldn’t be a budget one anymore. But then came a news from Rika that she’s managed to change the flight at no cost at the airport counter, so I decided to give it a try on a Saturday morning. The return trip from my place to airport takes 2 hours (and $3.34), so I don’t want to fail.
    Unfortunately, when I was there and asked to change the flight, the lady who served me refused to do it. She said that I have to wait until 2 months before departure date to be able change it. Wait a minute.., I don’t want to waste my 2 hours for nothing! So I argued her that if I delay the change, the seat might have been already full at that time.

    “At the moment the seats are all empty, sir!” she replied.

    “Yes, but this is promotion flight, it will be full soon!” I argued.

    “Then you should call the call center”, sir!” she replied again while giving me a name card containing phone numbers of several call centers.

    I gave up, then I tried to call it anyway. But alas, the Singapore call center couldn’t be reached. Probably there were too many people wanting to change their flight, too. so I came back again to see the lady and complain that I couldn’t connect to the call center.

    “Try the Malaysia number, Sir!”

    “But that’s international call!”

    “Yes sir, but if you call Singapore number, it’ll be redirected to Malaysia office anyway!”

    “Arrgh! Yes, but it’s local call for me!” (this one was only in my mind, I don’t want to show my kiasu-ness to her). Instead I just asked “may I have your [office] phone to call the Malaysia number?”. And you’re right, she didn’t allow me to do it.

    Then, when all hopes were fading, I decided to call an international number anyway. But rather, I would call the Indonesia number. It’s for two reasons: (1) The flight to Bali is in fact managed by Air Asia Indonesia, not by the main company itself; and (2) I speak Bahasa fluently, and the operator must be, too – it should help me a lot.

    Surprisingly, the call was very smooth, even smoother than I thought. The guy allowed me to change the schedule back to 10 AM at no cost. And even more surprising when I checked my call log, it only took 5 minutes of call! The price? 64 cents using StarHub’s HomeConnect budget call. If only I know I could do that earlier! Now the only thing I need to hope is that they won’t change my flight again. But in that case, I know who to talk to now 🙂

    In summary, here’s your choices on rescheduling your flight:

    Time Cost Remark
    Website ~ 15 mins $40 minimum N.A.
    Sales Counter (wrong person) ~ 30 mins ~ $3 max 2 months before departure.
    Phone (the right person) ~ 5 mins < $1 calling is easy, finding out who to call may be difficult.

    Image taken from Wikipedia