16 Dec - Singapore-Nanjing Flight

16 Dec - Singapore-Nanjing Flight

The flight was about half-full when it departed Singapore for Nanjing. We were seated at the first row of the economy class on the starboard side of the plane, with a seat between us. "The flight's not full, so we will give you the entire row (of three seats)." The check-in counter staff told us. She even helped us change our seats from one row back to this front row.

The First and Raffles (Business) classes are empty on this Singapore Airlines flight to Nanjing. The flight attendants promptly drew the curtains and kept the lights of those sections switched off. The rows of economy class seats are occupied at an average head count of 4 to 5 per row of 9 seats.

I guess it is either SQ is really expensive or it is really the lull season for this Jiangnan tour that I'm on. Perhaps both.

The flight was smooth and pretty uneventful, and the absence of wailing babies on the plane was a bonus. In fact, any flight with crying babies is a misery for the passengers. Till now, I still believe that babies ought to be lightly sedated during take-offs and landings. No exception. This way, no one suffers. The parents are relieved of their anguish, the babies of their discomfort, the flight attendants of their worries, and the other passengers of their auditory discomfort.

In so many trips I have taken, there was only ONE instance when this chief stewardess on an SQ flight took over a baby from a fatigued mother and calmed the little one down, quietened him, and lulled him to sleep as the plane prepared for descent. I must say that the airline is blessed to have magical hands like hers and even though she is probably in her 40s, her ability with babies is unmatched. Whoever said that we should only have pretty, YOUNG things on the flight? [I guess no one would take grammatical offence if I had written "pretty young things" as well. Ok, I admit. I was reading "Eats, shoots and leaves".]

So I digressed. But what is a good blog entry without digressions? To digress is to let you into more of my world.

What was available for breakfast (main course) was made known to our noses long before the menu reached us: rice with Chinese sausages and Mushrooms wrapped in lotus leaves. And when the food came out, the main course was indeed wrapped in lotus leaves! I am impressed.

But as glutinous rice gives me indigestion, I opted for the omelette instead. Talk about bad luck! But the sausages that I tried, offered by my travelling companion, tasted good. Hm... I still recall the time when I took the S$128 flight to Bangkok during the heights of the price war between premium and budget airlines and SQ had the audacity to serve fried rice with ketchup! Well, this is a great improvement.

Breakfast went by, drinks came. Service was good: there were enough rounds of drinks to keep any one reasonably hydrated. Then the snacks came. Ha! The puff pastries were cold but thankfully, they tasted good.

Along the way, I was channel surfing KrisWorld. There were so many movies to watch and I ended up watching Wallace and Gromit - I didn't think it would make sense to watch plasticine figures in a cinema and I was right. I browsed through the rest and played some games.

Before long, the plane landed in Nanjing. There was only ONE moment that I complained that the 4h 40min trip was BORING. And it was because I was too overwhelmed with options on KrisWorld and ended up taking a break from the information/entertainment overload. Oh, yes. There were lots of stuff to shop in the air as well. Goodness gracious! A flight these days are so different from just a few months ago. And I guess the airline you choose makes a difference as well.

We disembarked rather quickly into the cold but slightly damp Nanjing Airport.