Spending a day at Singapore airport

A week ago I “finally” arrived in Townsville. “Finally” cause it took me two and a half days to get here. On paper it looks like it took way too long but I chucked in a 21 hours layover in Singapore. It was either 21 hours or seven in the middle of the night with nothing to do. And since I always wanted to see Singapore I’ve decided that now would be a good time.

And this is what I’ve found out:

1.Singapore Changi Airport is basically a world in it’s own

Four terminals, dinning and shopping areas, as well as an outdoor swimming pool and several gardens making Singapore Changi Airport a small little world in it’s own. There is basically nothing missing, they have a playground for kids, snoozing and entertainment areas with free games and a movie theater for the bigger ones. They even planning on creating an indoor rain forrest soon (see here). No wonder it’s voted best airport in the world for six years in a row.

2. Spending 21 hours at Singepore Changi Airport is not enough

After arriving in Singapore I’ve checked myself into a transit hotel, rested for six hours and then explored the airport as well as Singapore. But even after 17.000 steps I still didn’t get to see everything. I missed out on the butterfly and cactus garden and didn’t have a look for the Secret Staff Canteen (16 things to do at Singapore airport). So next time I will try to actually leave the airport and explore more.

3. Singapore airport offers free sightseeing tours for transit passengers

All passengers in transit who have more than 5.5 hours until their next flight can participate on a free sightseeing tour through Singapore. The tours are sponsored by Singapore airlines, Changi airport and Singapore tourism board and are designed to show people what singapore has to offer so they wanna come back for a longer period next time.

4. Singapore is actually a country, not a city in China

Due to my poor geografic knowledge I somehow thought that Singapore would be a city. And that it was located in or at least around China. But it’s actually not. Not even close. It’s a small island city-state south of Malaysia that is actually closer to Indonesia than to China.

5. It’s possible to travel from Germany to Australia for only 350 EUR (~550 AUD)

Since this summer Scoot airlines, a low-cost airline of Singapore Airlines is operating between Berlin and Australia with prices starting at 300 EUR (~475 AUD). For 300 EUR you basically just get the flight and then add luggage, meals or specially seats if you want to. So if you decide to just travel with hand luggage and bring your own food and water it can be really cheap. The only “extra” I paid for was my aisle seat cause I don’t like being cramped into a middle or window seat (especially when I have to pee and the one at the aisle is asleep).

6.  Scoot airlines is cheap but not cheap

People would probably think that cheap means that the flight attendends are rude and the seats are uncomfortable. But they actually not. The “scooties” are all very friendly and accommodating. The seats had still enough legroom (considering that it’s a low-cost airline) and hadn’t been too hard.

7. Singapore is a really beautiful and clean city

Thanks to their strict anti-litter laws Singapore is really clean and tidy. Anyone convicted of dropping litter can be fined up to S$1,000 (550 EUR). If they do it again up to S$5,000. They even fine people for putting chewing gums anywhere else but the bin.