East Asia Trip - day 0
(Only a nerd would have day 0 of a trip. So — nothing unexpected here.)
Day Zero is the travel day. Singapore airlines is going to take us from San Francisco to Singapore in around 20 hours with an hour long stop in Korea.
I had to go through extra screening by the TSA. As much as the TSA is inherently evil and misguided, the woman who did the screening was brisk and professional and not at all unreasonable. I was not touched in an inappropriate manner, I was not unreasonably delayed, everything that was being done was explained to me. I really can’t complain, which is quite disappointing.
Next up are a couple hours waiting around at the gate, boarding, and settling in. Singapore Air has some very comfortable planes, and their flight attendants (at least the female ones) look just like the women in the old Singapore Girl ads. Just splendid.
During our one hour layover in Korea, we got off the plane, went through security, and re-boarded the plane. I have absolutely no idea what purpose is served by doing this instead of letting us all stay on the plane. Barring that, I’d think we could still just hang around the gate without having our bags and persons re-checked. Still, what do I know about security. I can’t understand why I can’t bring a real-sized tube of toothpaste on board.
In an extremely unusual turn of events, I managed to sleep during the flight from Korea to Singapore. Yay Unisom!
We arrived in Singapore at 1am, then had to wait almost an hour for our transpo to the hotel, the Copthorne King’s. Our wing of the hotel had an interestingly moldy smell to it, but what can you expect in the tropics?