I got a taxi to the airport with plenty of time to spare, assuming there’d be all kinds of extra hassle getting through security. I was wrong; from arriving curbside to dropping off my bags took less than five minutes. Of course, if I’d left a bit later I might have remembered to pack my jacket, or my power meter, or one of the other things I’m going to discover I forgot when I disembark at the end of my travels. Ah well, there are always credit cards.
Up by gate B9 in Changi Terminal 3 there is a nasty smell of cheap toilet cleaner, and also the smoking room, which had two Singapore Airlines flight attendants smoking disconsolately. Because everything about air travel is glamourous.
I didn’t realise until today that there’s a cinema in Changi, showing movies for free all the time. (Finding free things in a city like Singapore is always an experience that feels nothing short of miraculous. None of the films (an entry from the X-Men franchise, a film with the Rock in it) felt very apposite when they could have screened Sully or Final Destination (or at least Tom Hanks in The Terminal). I moved on to the butterfly garden, a moment of quiet calm near jet engines, where I contemplated the beauty of nature. I watched a butterfly languidly flap as it sat on a leaf. A small boy walked by and looked at it, then smiled at me. I smiled back, sharing in the wonder of nature, and then he reached out and swatted the butterfly. So that reaffirmed my faith in humanity.
Still, I have peace and quiet, or at least I have noise cancelling headphones, so there’s very little to complain about.