To secure a biz points reward flight to Cuba for the beginning of the school holidays, it meant a 2-day bounce around three continents from Perth: Singapore, Beijing, Montreal before finally landing in Havana. R is taking an alternate route with fewer stops: Singapore, New York to Havana. Warning: many selfies on planes ahead!
Singapore Airlines
The Singapore stopover was eighteen hours, which meant a nap after arriving at 6.30am, then a bit of a walk to show R some of the sights, since he hadn’t left Changi Airport on his stops in Singapore before. We started out by wandering down to the Bugis Food Centre, where we checked out a number of food stalls before R settled on Hainanese Chicken Rice and I chose my old favourite: rice dumplings. Washed down with sugar cane juice, of course.
Then we checked out the Bugis markets, and were asked to have our photo taken with an Indonesian family on holiday. Almost famous! By this point, the humidity was starting to take its toll, so we took refuge in a couple of the malls. Black sesame gelato amongst other lovely flavours – delish!
Salmon and icecream?
One highlight was the number of vending machines, which I hadn’t noticed as much last time I was in Singapore. The best pairing was one selling salmon, right next to a skill-tester style ice cream machine. Why not both?
R in heaven
After killing time until The Auld Alliance, a whisky bar R was very keen to try out, was open, we headed into the well-airconditioned, leather chesterfield-filled small bar. R was almost faint at the sight of all the whiskies, and I was happy to see there was a champers available by the glass. A match made in heaven!
Me in a happy place
A few whiskies later and an altercation with the MRT ticket machine (why does it not take $1 or $10 notes?) we hit the underground to the airport, reorganised luggage and checked in.
Getting tired… Singapore flight 2
The Singapore Airlines flight to Beijing was very comfortable, and I managed a few hours’ nap, which was great as I needed to stay awake for five hours before the third flight, to Montreal and then on to Havana. This one was on China Air, an airline I hadn’t flown before. Again, quite comfortable, with purple decor, and the staff were very helpful, and their English was a lot better than my Mandarin! We had a two-hour delay because of the morning’s thunderstorms in Beijing, and then we joined the queue to hit the skies.
Very tired now… Air China flight
I had been surprised that they offered a weekly extension to their PEK-YUL flight to HAV, and had assumed that there must be enough people wanting to fly the whole connection to make it worthwhile. On this flight there was only two of us, as I found out when we arrived at Montreal, as we had to be whisked through passport control out and in again, even though we were staying on the same plane.
The plane was now filled with mainly Canadians heading to Cuba for the weekend, and starting their partying early. The service on the flight also changed – from chinaware and metal cutlery on the long haul leg, now we were given food in plastic containers with plastic forks, and the group next to me were doing their best to drain the galley dry, first of white wine, then red wine, then anything they could get their hands on. They were still demanding drinks as the plane was descending, and the poor hostie was trying her best to clean up all their dirty glasses.
And then I was in Cuba!
Two Weeks Away 