Singapore - Changi Airport

For our flight over four weeks ago our travel agent managed to ensure we had a very short transit stop in Singapore which was good. But this meant we didn't get to have a good look around the airport and given we had never done so thought we would take opportunity to do it today. So after lunch we grabbed our bags and headed to the MRT to go to the airport. 

The trip didn't start well in fact it was almost a blimin disaster. We were getting to the first platform and I spotted the train we needed with it's doors open waiting to go. So I jumped aboard. What I didn't see was the red flashing warning lights saying not to jump on. No sooner had I done so and the doors started closing with me on one side and Sarah on the other. Shit! I initially yelled out I would wait for her at her first changeover station but that sounded complicated so then I yelled I would wait at the next station. Fortunately she heard and understood that, I hoped. So at the first stop I hopped out of the train and waited. 5 minutes later the next train arrived and there was Sarah. Phew. Could have lost her!? Who would buy me snacks if that happened? 

We continued to the airport with our two line changes without any other incidents. We finished our check-in that we had started online and dropped off our bags. All done via the kiosks that work really well. We also submitted our electronic arrival declaration for New Zealand while we had WiFi at the hotel. 

We set off to explore the airport. First stop a place called Jewel. Which is a separate building between Terminal 3 where we started and Terminal 2. The Jewel is circular and 5 stories tall above ground and 5 below ground for parking (I assume). It has many shops around the outside circumference. In the centre is the world's largest indoor waterfall at 40m tall. It's called the Rain Vortex. Around the outside are housed around 3,000 trees and 60,000 shrubs of 120 species that live in high-altitude tropical forests from around the world. It's quite breathtaking and you need to see it to believe it. See short video we uploaded. There was WiFi at the Jewel so we video called Kate and Emma to share the view of the waterfall with them. Emma was in the car with Braydon so they had to pull over but soon we were sorted and flicked the video camera on. Isn't technology amazing these days?! We repeated the process with Dad. 

Next we walked and travellated (is that a word?) to Terminal 2 thinking we could see a sunflower garden mentioned on a geocache page I had read. But you can only access it if you are transiting to a flight. We therefore hopped on the sky train back to Terminal 3 where we started. We have now entered the in transit area so can't go back out but there are other things to see here including the butterfly house. It was time for a coffee and a sit down. A flat white, medium size, was $8.90 SGD but I was okay with that. It was coffee! Sarah had a coke zero instead.

After a rest and recharge of us and our phones we realised that the Butterfly House was directly beside where we were sitting but we had no idea. It's such a great place to look around and take photos of the butterflies and with a bonus of finding a geocache while there. On exiting the structure I noticed another side alleyway heading to another part of the terminal and a sign saying Sky Train Terminal 2. Duh you can travel between each terminal and stay in the intransit sections. We probably should have figured out that was possible. We therefore went to Terminal 2 and visited the Sunflower Garden and a virtual cache that was there. I had a go on the stress relieving punching balls with some success. Actually I wasn't even stressed. I've been on holiday for 4 weeks! 😂