I had arranged to get picked up by a shuttle bus to go to the airport. The bus takes you to the airport and picks you up on your return and drops you back to your front door. It is a good service and at $90 return is about $30 to $40 cheaper than grabbing a taxi each way. I arrived with plenty of time to spare. The airport was full of people from the World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations that were held in Sydney a week ago. They obviously had spent some extra time in Australia and were now heading onto their next destination or heading home.
I went through immigration O.K. but got stopped at the Security check scanner and had to open my carry-on bag.
Before leaving Australia I had asked Stewart & Jeannette who I am staying with in London if they wanted anything bought over from Australia. All Stewart wanted was a large bottle of Vegemite as in London they only sell small bottlesand are quite expensive. When I was packing my case I was right on the 23kg weight limit with a couple of thing still to pack so I took out the TWO bottles I had bought for him and a tube of Vegemite I had bought for myself to use and put them into my hand luggage. BIG MISTAKE.
I had forgotten about the new laws about carrying liquids and gels onto planes in your hand luggage and the two bottles were taken from me. Also taken was the smaller tube as it was over the 100g limit on those items. (It was 145g)
I was then o.k. to proceed through the check point. Imagine my surprise when directly after the duty free bottle shop was a food section selling Vegemite. So I then stocked up again.
I also had to change some money into Singapore dollars as I had got some currency previously but I had neglected to get any Singapore dollars.
I flew for the first time on British Airways and would considerer it equal to the service on Qantas. The plane left on time at 3.30pm and the flight took 8 hours to get to Singapore. I enjoyed the flight, the food was good, 8 movies to choose from although I just read a book I had bought along and listened to the music channels. The plane had many of the WYD people on it who were heading back to Spain and Italy.
I arrived in at 9.30pm local time (11.30pm Sydney). Only about 20 people off the plane actually got off in Singapore as the rest were travelling on to London. By the time I had walked to the luggage carousel my bag was already there so it was a quick exit from the airport.
It took about two paces outside the terminal for the humidity to hit and I quickly had to take off the jacket I was wearing. I was met by my friend Oli in his car. He and Branka live about 25 minutes from the airport. So it was not long till I was at their apartment. They have moved since I was last here in 2005 and this is a nice apartment. Oli’s parents Richard and Petsy are also visiting with them to see their new grandson as Branka has just had a baby boy Kyle, who was a sleep when I arrived so I had to wait till morning to meet him.
Collecting:
Being a big part of the trip, but also not of interest to a lot of people, I have decided that I will add my collecting finds at the bottom of the update so not to bore anyone not interested in it.
I picked up some M&M’s figures in the Duty Free to add to the M&M’s figurine collection.
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