Chapter 8: In which zanzibar leads an expotition to find home
8.8. So long Singapore!
We were finally on the final day of our trip. It had been a most enjoyable trip, but after a month on the road, we were both keen to get home. I was over living out of a suitcase. Ben was over going out sightseeing every day. We were both over having to find somewhere to eat all the time and trying to keep on top of the laundry without being able to just throw a load into a washing machine. We both missed the dog like crazy!
We had gotten through most of the packing the night before, just had to throw in a few last minute items, which we would do after breakfast.
We headed down to meet Mum and Dad at the hotel buffet, but were informed that our final night hadn’t come with breakfast included. Drat. Mum and Dad had already started on the buffet, but came over to discuss the options with us when they noticed we were having issues. We only had about an hour before we needed to get packed up and leave for the airport. They ended up shouting us another very expensive hotel breakfast so that we could spend that last bit of time together. I went back to the buffet 3 times to make sure we got our money’s worth
After breakfast, we headed back upstairs to gather the last of our things, and organised to meet back downstairs in half an hour. Mum and Dad accompanied us for the walk to the train station. We actually discovered a great new path to the station through parklands (photos stolen from Mum’s collection!).
Mum and Dad were planning to get a train in the opposite direction to start their day – I think they ended up at the Botanic Gardens.
It was an uneventful train ride to the airport, although Ben had forgotten how long it was and was convinced we’d missed our station. We hadn’t of course, and did eventually arrive at the airport.
Our final flight was with Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low cost carrier. Although we had splurged on the premium option, it did not come with lounge access. After checking in our luggage, we headed across to Jewel to check out the shops and garden there.
We found a Disney type of store (similar to the one at the Disney Floral Fantasy display), where we browsed for a while. They had cute wax melt burners on a BOGO special, so I picked up a pair for me and my bestie. Great buy, we both love them! However, they were a bit bulky to have to lug around on the plane (and then again when I had to lug it across the country to give it to my bestie).
We figured we’d better head to our proper terminal. All smooth again, and soon we were sitting at the gate lounge twiddling our thumbs.
As premium passengers, we had priority boarding and seating towards the front of the plane, which was nice. The seats were pretty comfortable with a decent amount of leg room.
We were given our pre-ordered meals fairly early into the flight. We had both downloaded some movies onto our devices to keep us occupied. Interestingly, we were not allowed to put our earbuds in until the seatbelt sign had been switched off. We also had to take them out for landing.
Unfortunately it was a bit of a bumpy flight. Nothing too serious, but after about the first hour, the seatbelt sign stayed on for most of the remaining 4 hours or so.
We finally touched down back in Perth! Immigration is a breeze now with the e-passports, so there were no hold ups there. There’s always a bit of a hold-up at customs in Perth though – being such an isolated part of the world, we have pretty strict biosecurity laws, which are enforced pretty strictly too. Being premium, we were hoping that our luggage would be early out. Nope. There was a bit of a wait and the line at customs had started building up.
As we grabbed our luggage and headed to join the line, I suddenly realised I’d left the wax melt burners in the overhead locker! I’m not used to travelling with anything in there (always put my backpack under the seat), so I’d just completely forgotten about it. We traipsed over to the customer service desk within the luggage area and explained the situation. They said they’d contact Scoot to send someone to retrieve it, and it should be available at a counter in the check in area. They took my name and number just in case. We were probably there for 10 minutes, and by that time of course were last in the line to get through customs. It would have been close to a 20 minute wait to get through, even though we had nothing to declare.
We then tried to find this mysterious counter that we’d been told about. Eventually we managed to find something that seemed like it could be it, only it was closed! After looking around for a while, there was a number to call, so we called that and were told to hang tight and someone would be with us shortly. There was a handy seating area nearby, so we wearily sat there waiting… and waiting… Finally, someone appeared with our missing bag, so we claimed it and went to find an uber.
Since we had left from Grandma’s, we had the uber take us back there. It was getting quite late by then, so we had a quick cup of tea with Grandma and then headed home. Luckily the car battery hadn’t died while we were away!
We finally made it home at about 10pm. The dog sitter had left earlier that day, and Evie was deliriously happy to see us! We stashed our luggage in a corner and, after showering Evie with attention, dragged our exhausted butts to bed!
Thank you to everyone who has followed along!
