The Flight and Arrival
February 27, 2025
There’s no way around it, a 17 ½ hour non-stop flight is brutal. They say flying from San Francisco to Singapore is currently the second longest non-stop you can take, with NYC to Singapore being the longest at 18 hours. It’s funny that planes leave from each city 2500 miles apart and yet they land within ½ hour of each other. It sounds like a high school geography question on how to calculate global air routes. Regardless, we were very lucky to fly with Singapore Airlines which is considered one of the top carriers in the world and we wouldn’t dispute that!
The plane was on time for both take off and landing, cabin staff was amazing, the food was delicious and there were literally hundreds of TV shows, movies etc. to watch. So considering all the things that could have made us miserable, it really was a tolerable trip.
The Singapore Airport is truly something to behold. They spent $1,000,000,000 fixing it up to a facility tantamount to a theme park. Sadly, we didn’t see any of the attractions like the world’s largest indoor waterfall at 120 feet or the butterfly gardens, as we staggered to customs in a stupor. We pulled out our passports, marched up to a couple of empty kiosks of out of about 100, inserted our passports as required, got our pictures taken and our little door swung open with a green light. It seriously took a max of 30 seconds. It was AWESOME. Things got even better when we got to baggage claim and all our cases were out by the time I came out of my pit stop to the ladies room. We headed out the exit and within 10 minutes a guy showed up with my name in bold letters on his tablet and we were off. From deplaning to getting in the car couldn’t have been more than half an hour.
It was dark and of course we were rummy and exhausted so we settled in for a snooze for the drive to Conrad Hilton Centennial Hotel (let’s hear it for Hilton Honors points!) at the Marina Bay. Our driver was a really nice guy but kind of a yakky doodle. The drive was peppered with constant jabbering like “How was your trip?”, “Where are you coming from?”, “Have you been to Singapore before?”, “Look, there’s the light show at the famous Marina Sands Hotel and gardens! Have you heard about them?”, “What can I tell you about Singapore?”. Tod baled and turned his hearing aids off so I was stuck with trying not to be rude. I figured I could get him to stop asking questions by encouraging him to go into detail about how much it would cost me to buy a car in Singapore of which I had heard was quite costly. He was happy to prattle on about it but of course, had to ask another question, “How much do you want to spend on the car?” Drowsily I said, “60 grand”.
“Oh, you could NEVER buy a car for 60 grand in Singapore!!”
Eye roll, “Ok – 120 grand” I moaned. He was off and running . “Well, first you have to get a COE – a certificate of entitlement which is permit to own a vehicle which is the cost of the car you want to buy. But that is only valid for 10 years. So now you’re up to 250 grand. Then there is 2 grand for your driver’s license, an Additional Registration Fee (ARF), Goods and Services Tax (GST), and Excise Duty. Then there is the insurance and a road tax that is based on the engine capacity of the car. Of course, insurance too is based on the value of the car. After that, gas is $l0 a gallon and parking costs are astronomical. The speed limit in Singapore is only 80 km (50 miles) per hour so if you buy a Ferrari or something and want to drive fast, you have to jump the border to Malaysia where the speed limit is 110 km (68 miles) per hour. Do you still want to buy in a car in Singapore? HAHAHAHA”.
Good grief, talk about crazy rich Asians. It makes California and it’s gas prices look like the bargain basement for cars. Luckily, we were at the hotel at this point and we thanked him profusely for the friendly and informative drive in. Check in was a breeze and in no time, we were on the 27th floor staring across at the Marina Bay Sands hotel ($700/per night) and the gorgeous Singapore waterfront at about 9:00PM local time. We weren’t really hungry, but I told Tod that if we didn’t eat something substantial, our eyes would pop open in 4 hours, we’d be starving and no food would be available. He agreed so we picked up a couple of burgers from the Shake Shack across the street. We fell into bed at about 6:00AM our time and Tod growled, “I can’t believe we’re in freaking Singapore eating Shake Shack burgers”.
“Things will look up tomorrow, I guarantee it! Night night”, I said before I fell into a very deep sleep.
Written March 2, 2025
I