And So It Began...

Thankfully I'm not alone on my impossible mission. Andrew and Ron are my squad mates on this foray to the far east. In preparation, we were given a 3-week crash course in nihongo (Japanese language) by our sensei Etsuko Ishihara, who drilled and prepared us for survival in Japan. Many thanks goes to our lovely sensei for cancelling her leave in order to train us. 石原先生、お疲れ様でした！

Our flight was set to depart near midnight from Changi Airport Terminal 3. Being my first time to visit Terminal 3, I was bemused to see this strange robotic flower at the departure hall:

This fibreglass ship propeller on a high-precision robotic arm is the work of German architect/artist Christian Moeller. Named "Daisy" and created in 2007, it signifies Singapore's significance in air and sea travel. For some reason, it reminds me of an electric shaver :P

My past employment involved a lot of air travel, and I've gotten used to going to the airport alone. For this flight, I am grateful to Angela and Alice for taking time off their exam studies to give me a little sending off at Terminal 3. It was so nice of them. Study hard girls! I'm rooting for you get your doctorates (^^)/

On to the flight. From May last year, Singapore Airlines started operating Airbus A380 flights from Singapore to Tokyo, the fourth city in the world to receive A380 commercial flights. If you like me haven't flown on one before, let me tell you this, the A380 is a HUGE beast. A super-jumbo with twin decks, it's supposed to be the quietest large passenger aircraft ever built, and to deliver substantial fuel burn reductions per seat kilometer over the next largest aircraft. It's quieter, cleaner, greener and did I mention HUGE?

Because it's wingspan is so large it had to use a wing fence design (the arrow-shaped wingtip thing you can see in the photo above) to stay under the 80m wingspan limit and minimize lift-induced drag caused by wingtip vortices. I remember watching a documentary on this ;)

The cabin is noticeably more spacious and luxuriously designed. I had a window seat and there was lots of room between my seat and the window. The seatback mounted consoles include a power supply socket and a USB port. The personal screen is also impressive - easily the largest, and highest quality display by any aircraft standards I've encountered thus far. One can also access business software for editing documents, spreadsheets and presentations. I would've explored more of its features if the flight wasn't so late (11:40pm) and I was trying hard to get some rest.

Time for this post to rest. Next up, our arrival in Japan.