We both woke up at 6.30am, having had a decent nights sleep and ready for a day of travelling. My phones internet wasn’t working any more, no body knew why and we didn’t care enough to get a new sim card or find out. I linked up to Edds hotspot to check my messages and then got up, needing to pack the last bits and get ready.
 
We were ready at 7.40am and sat at the ‘reception’ area for our taxi, chatting to the owner of our guest house for a while. They had a 3 month old baby girl, who was very cute and Edd discussed with the owner what part he played in the upbringing of his daughter. His reply: I make the money, the wife looks after the baby. Edd liked this idea, I reminded him that ‘the wife’ didn’t work, ‘the husband’ brought home all the bacon. He changed the subject.
 
Our lift arrived at 8am and we piled our bags into the back, saying goodbye to the owner and his wife and climbing in. The driver was very talkative and told us a lot of entertaining stories, ending with a long list of questions regarding Apple iPhones. It ended with him asking us to bring him one, next time we visited Lombok; he’d pay us for it, but it was much cheaper that way than buying one in Lombok or Indonesia second hand. We agreed to bring him one, if we came back. His beloved and coveted iPhone 4 would be obsolete by then, but that bit of information was lost in translation.
 
He dropped us off at departures and we said goodbye; he was the cousin of the guest house owner, who was ‘sharing his business’ with other people. A bit of community upliftment, if you will.
 
We checked into our flight and went through security, massive container of biscuits and all. Edd ate some of the supply of biscuits, while I sat and listened to music. Our flight was on time and we boarded promptly, leaving after the scheduled time, but with it only being a 20-25 minute flight and us having 4 hours to kill between flights, we weren’t too fussed about it, nor were we fussed when the captain announced that we’d probably get delayed when landing.
 
We landed at 10.30am, grabbed our bags and walked to International departures. Next stop: Singapore. We couldn’t check in though, it was 3 hours before our next flight, so we minced around the shops and then stood in the queue in anticipation for the desks to open. Inspectors walked around, touching peoples bags and then going back to a machine to test for explosives. Bizarre, but the truth.
 
We checked in and the guy printing our boarding cards suddenly got up and walked down to an office; we weren’t sure what it was about, as he hadn’t explained where he was going or why, so stood there for a few minutes a bit perplexed. He came back and filled in ‘Invitation to airport lounge’ cards; Edd and I were very confused and he asked us if we’d applied for them. I immediately replied with ‘yes!’ even though neither of us knew what it was about.
 
We paid our departure tax (20 USD per person), which I thought was quite sneaky considering we'd already paid for visas, and went through security. There was something in my bag, of interest and it was taken apart, nearly at the seams. A round, dense object. It turned out to be my little metal jewellery box; it being metal made it ‘of significance.’ I repacked my bag as quickly as I could, just shoving my things any which way they would fit.
 
We made our way to the Premier Lounge and got comfy couches at the back, dumping our stuff quickly and making our way to the food on offer. Edd got us soup, while I made a dent in the skewers; we ate up and then went in search of drinks, helping ourselves to orange juice, 1 coffee and a few sweet treats. He then spotted a guy helping himself to beer and his jaw nearly hit the floor. ‘Can I just help myself to beer?!’ He looked at the juice and coffee we’d collected and wondered for a second if it would seem piggish to also get a beer; the thought left him as quickly as it arrived and he went and got a free beer. As we walked back to the couches with our collection of drinks and sweets, he looked at me and said ‘I think I’m as happy as a pig in mud!’ (He didn’t say mud, fill in with an adjective of your choice).
 
The internet was horrendous, so a quick Skype session with his parents, at 6.30am - their time, was not particularly successful. We started walking to our departure gate 30 minutes before our scheduled departure time, with a few Rupiah still in Edd's pocket (we’d saved it for a snack at the airport, which we then didn’t use as we had food in the airport lounge). We decided to get a few bits from a shop close by, donating the last 5 000 Rupiah to the lady that had served us. She was taken aback and very pleased.
 
Our flight was running late, being Jetstar we weren’t surprised; we were half expecting to change planes again. We sat right at the front again, having booked the seats months in advance and got 10 Singapore dollars towards food / drinks each, again. 2 little bottles of red wine and a 'snack pack’ (bag of mixed nuts and a beer) later, we settled in for the 3.5 hour plane ride to Singapore. I was laptop-ready-to-rumble with blogs that were behind, again.

 Our flight was about 3 hours and I finished up blogging about an hour before we were scheduled to land. Edd put his seat back to get a short, uncomfortable nap and the woman behind him pushed his seat back upright. A conversation ensued where she told him that he had plenty of extra leg room and therefore did not need to put his seat back and inconvenience her. He replied with ‘well then maybe you should pay extra for the leg room next time.’ Apparently she couldn’t as she was travelling with her daughter, who was under 15 years old. She was met with a ‘sucks to be you’ type reply. We’d paid significantly more for the bulk head seats; paying for an extra privilege did not give random people in the second row the right to decide you weren’t allowed the standard ones. He put his seat back and had a nap.
 
Our flight landed and we collected our bags, excited to be in Singapore, they give you a 3 month tourist visa free, on arrival. I personally think this is because they milk you for everything else in the country, so they want to entice you in with the idea of a free visa. Like cooking a frog from cold.
 
We had decided to get the MRT, instead of a taxi, to our hotel. We got on a train, took our bags off and got comfy on 2 seats as we embarked on a long ride to the other side of the line. The train got to its third stop and a hole load of people got off - Edd and I figured it was probably a hub like Charing Cross, Waterloo or Bank. The train chugged off again and we realised we were moving backwards; a man sitting next to us realised our confusion and explained that we also needed to get off at the ‘hub’ and change trains, as the one we were on only did 3 stations between the ‘hub’ and the airport, delivering people to the main line and going back again. We had to get off at the next stop, change trains, go back to the hub and then change again to the main line down to Clarke Quay.
 
A young man offered me his seat, as I was struggling to hold my large back pack between my legs, along with my small back pack and hold on to a rail, in order to not fall over. There were campaigns all over the tubes where ’stand up Stacey’ gave her seat to someone who needed it more and ‘move over Martin’ moved down the carriage so more people could get in. There seemed to be a push for people to be more mindful of the people around them - London’s tube should take a leaf. A million stops later, we got off and consulted a map to figure out which way to go.
 
It turned out that we were 2 streets away from where our hotel was and quickly made our way there. It was a cute little 4* place, Edd’s mum had kindly booked for us. She was concerned that the room was really small, but considering the rooms we were used to, size was not much of a concern to us; it was more like: bed bugs, clean shower and geographic positioning. The reception staff were very friendly and we went up to our room on the 5th floor - the same floor the pool was on. Result!
 
The room was small, basically designed around the bed, but there was a tv, the mini bar was free (only cool drinks and water, but still free), a fancy mini coffee maker and we were given a wifi password that could be used for 3 devices. There was a space under the bed for our bags and we had 2 pillows. Cat swinging was not possible, but it was an amazing little hotel.
We had a quick shower, changed and met Edd’s school friend downstairs - she’d been in Singapore for 6 years and her and her boyfriend were joining us for dinner. We went down to Boat Quay and were told that the seafood restaurants were a complete rip off and 2 guys that were walking out told us categorically, to not eat there, they’d just been ‘stitched up.’ Again, short sightedness.
 
We decided to eat a pub-like vibe and ordered burgers and a bottle of wine - it was happy hour, so everything was cheaper. The food was really good, but far too much and the wine was delicious.
 
We left just after 10pm, after having a lovely evening. They had to work the next day though, so needed to get a decent nights sleep - Edd and I struggled to get to sleep upon getting back to our hotel, neither of us were particularly sure why we didn’t sleep well, but attributed it to the change of diet for the evening. Not even sleeping pills helped, it was going to be a long night..