Changi Airport

I woke up pretty early around 6am and worked on my blog. Hunter and I went to breakfast around 8am and enjoyed our last morning at the buffet. I took a final set of photos of everything too because it was just a really amazing spread of food.

Before sunrise looking out our window

Sunrise starting

Hunter's cute morning snap chat he sent to our friends

Fruit and french toast

Omelet

Juices

Drink station

Candy station

Breads

Frozen yogurt

Sauces

Fruit and noodle station

Cold section

Cereals

Yogurts

Coffe and drinks station

Noodle station

After breakfast, we returned to the room where I began carefully packing our suitcases. Today is our departure day to Phuket, Thailand! Hunter and I have confirmed tickets on Scoot, Singapore's low-cost carrier. We had to buy tickets because we don't yet have ZED privileges, we also couldn't ZED on most the airlines flying this route anyways. It was only ~80 USD each, so we were happy to have confirmed seats for that!

Distracted while trying to pack

After packing up our room, we checked out just before noon and headed to the City Hall train station. It was completely accessible from our hotel via underground tunnels. On our way to the airport, we had to change trains once, but transit is super easy to understand here. Hunter navigated us through the complex web of tunnels and then a short ride later we were there.

Walking in the tunnels to City Hall

Transit signs. We remembered these from 2018!

Switching trains

When we arrived at the airport station, we went to transit services where we got our transit pass deposit refunded. We then headed to the Jewel Changi Airport. It's a huge complex of shopping and attractions with the centerpiece being the world's tallest indoor waterfall, the Rain Vortex, which is surrounded by a terraced forest setting full of hidden experiences and activities! When we arrived we first decided to check-in for our flight to have our boarding passes. It was easy as the Jewel is connected to the terminal our flight was leaving from. Once we had tickets we quickly went to the lounge we had access to in the Jewel with our Priority Pass to see if they had luggage storage. Unfortunately, they did not, but we did get Coke Zero drinks which were nice after all our walking. Hunter had researched a luggage storage place across from the lounge called smart cart and they would take our luggage for 20 SGD, which was perfect as we had a transit refund of 20 dollars. We needed to store our luggage because the activity we planned did not allow wheeled luggage. Sadly, they did not take cash, so we had to pay with a card. We then decided to make great use of our transit refund by getting lunch! We had the Asian take on a burrito at a place called Stuff'd. They put mashed potatos and cuoscuos in it along with the normal burrito toppings. They also offered kebab meat and a variety of asian inspired sauces. Hunter had a spicy thai cream sauce in his burrito with kebab beef while I had chicken. The restaurant was halal certified and clearly catered to a primarily muslim audience. We have had good luck with asian/mexican fusion before in both Asia and the US and this was no exception. It was unique and delicious! After getting our lunch, we made our way up to the top of the Jewel to the Canopy park where we found a nice bench under some trees to eat.

Exiting the train station

The airport lobby

Walking to the Jewel from the train station

Hunter took a picture of the waterfall when we walked pass trying to get to T1 checkin

The stall we bought our lunch at

Lunch!

In the canopy park area, we had tickets to some of their exciting attractions: canopy park (discovery slides, foggy bowls, petal garden, topiary walk); canopy bridge; hedge maze; mirror maze; and the walking net. The mirror maze was a lot of fun and they gave us pool noodles as "guide sticks" since otherwise we would have found ourselves faceplanting into the perfectly cleaned mirrors. We found our way out fairly quickly but had a ton of fun doing it! We then enjoyed the gardens on our way to the discovery slides, which while being designed for children, were also a ton of fun as an adult. I went down one of them and it was pretty cool. Hunter meanwhile climbed to the very top of the slide complex and took some pictures as it had an excellent view of the entire jewel and waterfall. After the slides we went to the walking net, which was so col but Hunter thought it was so scary. Hunter said it wasn't so much because of heights, although it was quite high up, it was due to the fact that they used an incredibly open weave net. This probably helped make better pictures but had the added effect of making the entire thing an ankle breaking trap. Luckily, we both made it off ok. From there we went to the canopy bridge which was a really cool glass walk cantilevered out over the jewel. It made a good spot for pictures although it was quite busy. I went out on the bridge first where Hunter took pictures of me, and then Hunter joined me to take pictures together. I also left before Hunter so I could get pictures of him. It worked pretty well! Finally, we did the hedge maze which featured some unique obstacles and was pretty fun. I found an emergency exit fairly quickly and thought I had won it, but Hunter then showed me that actually it was just a staff/fire exit and we had a long ways to go. We had a lot of fun at the Jewel and definitely reccomend anyone with a few hours in Changi check it out.

Mirror maze

See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil

The slides

The amazing view from the slides

The slide entrance and also the rope entrance children were climbing out of

The ropes

Going to go down the slide

The canopy walk

Hunter making the climb up

This was incredibly uncomfortable to sit on, but the picture is great!

Looking down

I almost fell here haha!

The bridge and train tracks under it

Its me!

The interior was so green and luscious!

Hunter joined me!

The water briefly stopped

Hunter's bridge photo op!

Hunter took a picture of me!

Hedge maze

Amazing hidden flower wall

A gate in the maze

Standing on the lookout post before exiting

The maze from above

The afternoon passed quickly with our fun activities and before we knew it we had to go catch our flight. We went through passport control and then headed to one of the lounges for a snack since we didn't have a dinner planned. The lounge didn't have any Coke Zero, but it had Schweeps dry ginger ale which was nice. After snacking we went to our gate where we had to go through the security checkpoint at the gate rather than how they do it in the US, so you can't bring drinks on the planes which sucks, but we hydrated in advance and thankfully it was only a 2 hour flight. 

Snack before the flight

In line for bag check and boarding

Hunter and I were seated in seats 37E and F on a virtually brand new A321neo. This plane was packed to the absolute max capacity and lacked first class, galleys, the midship and first class lavs, and basically everything else they could take out of it. We had a pleasant time on flight, but definitely wouldn't want to fly them on a much longer route. As we floated into a stormy Phuket night we had a very rough landing and a short taxi to the gate. We cleared a temperature check, health document check, and customs in short order. We were given seperateable landing and departure cards on the flight and were expecting to keep one side and turn in one side. However, I ended up being given the entire card to keep whereas Hunter's agent took his entire thing and waived him on without it. Hopefully this doesn't cause issues later!

Quantas A380

The air conditioning condensation was intense

From there we made our way curbside where we discovered that Grabs (the local Uber competitor) cannot pickup at the Phuket airport. Hunter had read about this online, but since the app let us book it we were thinking it may have changed. While I tried to get us a ride Hunter got us some Coke Light since we expected we would want some that night. Despite the app letting me book a Grab, it turned out the driver could not actually pickup at the airport. We figured out that we had to walk off the airport grounds to be able to book a Grab so we stomped through the rain following another person who seemed to know what they were doing to a random roadside a half kilometer away where what we think was the same grab we were initially unable to get on picked us up. He was very nice and drove extremely safely in his car as many other cars did very unsafe things. We were both thankful he got us to the JW Marriott safely and just before we left his vehicle, he showed us two more apps for cheaper transit which was so nice!

The driver showing us the apps

When we got out of the car we were presented with a delicious purple welcome juice and some small gifts. We were then shown to our (upgraded) swimming pool room. The room was amazing and we had a snack box waiting for us along with a note welcoming us to our stay. Once we were left alone, we decided to go for a quick late-night swim. While it was windy and rainy at the airport, the bad weather seemed to pass our hotel and the night was lovely. After enjoying our pool we showered and went to sleep for some much needed rest.

The purple drink

Showing us to our room

Snacks and notes

Our amazing pool

Happy!

Date: Monday July 11, 2022