I’m not sure as I ‘tap’ this out on my iPhone if I’ll publish this on Monday or not.

I’ve been pretty good lately at doing a Monday post and sharing some link love from the Canberra Food Bloggers Facebook group. I won’t be able to do that this week because I’m spending most of my day flying to Manila for work. I’m flying from Canberra to Manila via Sydney and Singapore. All going well I should be in Manila by 2300 AWST (0200 AEDT 20160216 [Tuesday]).

My day started at 5 am doing the last minute shut down and lock up of the apartment making sure everything was secure and there weren’t any perishable items left in the refrigerator. Have you ever gone away and come back to a refrigerator failure? I have. It’s not pleasant. Putrid and rancid odours assail the nostrils.

When I arrived at Canberra Internationl Airport I had some fruit for breakfast and a small skim flat white to wake me up.

I discovered while in the Virgin lounge that the free Wi-Fi ‘thinks’ YummyLummy.com is unsafe. I couldn’t open my page!

I flew to Sydney on VA637. An uneventful flight which landed ahead of schedule.

The snack was a raspberry muffin which had a use by date of 20161021! My goodness I wonder what preservatives it contained. I wonder if I could treat patients with fungal infections with that muffin 😃

Making my way from the domestic to international terminal wasn’t difficult. Virgin Australia puts on a bus.

Domestic to International terminal drama

When I got to gate 46 for the international terminal bus we were told there was a 30 minute wait and then the trip would take longer than 30 minutes because of a traffic problem around Sydney International Airport. We were instructed to catch the train. I’ve never caught the train from Sydney Domestic Airport before so this was a new experience. I followed some other passengers who seemed to know what to do. In the end it worked really well. This may be my standard method to get between terminals in the future.  
The border control processes were smooth as silk. The Singapore Airlines lounge is a short walk from border control. I stopped and changed some Australian dollars into Philippine pesos and then entered the Singapore Airlines lounge.  
Boarding my flight to Singapore via Singapore Airlines was pretty easy and when I got on SG232 I saw what must be the widest business class seat ever 😃
After boarding lunch was served pretty quickly.

Chicken in rice paper roll with mesclun, cherry tomato and nam jim dressing

 Garlic bread Grilled riverine beef with horseradish butter. Bordelaise sauce, celeriac dauphinois, green beans (which were squeaky), baby carrot and red capsicum.  Khiffir lime-coconut sorbet with passionfruit coulis.

 Woodside Mclaren Camembert, pyengana mature cheddar and trinity cellar blue cheese with grapes and sweet paste.

 The lunch was delicious.

The seats on the SG232 Airbus 380 are really wide. The widest seats I’ve experienced. I was able to work the entire flight from Sydney to Singapore except for when I was eating. The Singapore Airlines Airbus 380 is equipped with AC power plus two USB ports. It also has Wi-Fi but I wasn’t going to try that assuming the cost would be prohibitively expensive.

Close to the end of the flight we were served with a refreshment.

Braised egg noodles with seafood and mushroom in oriental sauce. It also came with a nice little bowl of green chilli in soy sauce.

 

There was a little turbulence throughout the flight but not enough to disrupt my work or any of the service.

The flight attendants were all very friendly and helpful. I’d say the service is amongst the best of any airline.

Getting into Changi Airport was pretty smooth and finding my way from terminal 3 to terminal 2 on the airport shuttle train was easy.

Do you want to know how big this airport is? The signs add walking times!

My next flight is SG918 SIN to MNL. As we board we’re told there is a delay because anther flight had to make an emergency landing.

The flight was smooth and the food was good.

Classic gravadlax cured salmon with dill, asparagus, mesclun salad, salmon roe and mustard dill dressing.  Char siew rice Chinese barbecued pork with steamed rice and leafy greens.

 Iced parfait of lychee and coconut with passionfruit coulis.

 I need to stop here. I landed in Manila quite late and I have an early start.

Suffice to say I hope I sleep well.

I’ll fill in some details in the next post.