Ok. So I am in Calgary now. 25hrs and 3 countries after I left Singapore, here I am, in Canada. A long, but thankfully, a largely uneventful journey so far. However, for the sake of this blog, I will point out the more interesting points and observations.

1) You need to know the route of your flight well before hand. I always thought it was direct from Sing to San Fran, but nope! Its via Korea. And I was soo surprised to find that out…especially since I was halfway TO KOREA before I realized. I was wondering why there were so many Koreans on the flight! Going into that terminal brought back a sense of déjà vu, from the time I was there 2 months ago. Nothing’s changed, everything thing is still in Korean, even the wireless connections which I was intending to use to update my blog. I also realized late into my flight that I can access the internet from inside the plane. If I had known that earlier, maybe I could have chatted with you all on MSN, and not have been so bored. By the time I realized that such a facility was available, it was uneconomical to do so( yes…you have to pay! USD$9 for the 1st hour, 14 for the 2nd hour onward, or USD$26 for unlimited usage for a 24hr period.

2) I was disappointed with the service that SQ provided, especially from Korea to San Fran. The usual standards just weren’t there. Yes the plane was full, with quite a few demanding passengers, but still, you’d expect the trademark service with a smile, but this time, I felt that they were more aloof, and, in some cases, almost rude.

3) However, and I have to admit, the stewardesses were prettier, and the better quality eye candy made up for the lack of service… well…almost anyway. :p . Special mention goes to the Korean stewardesses. Having been to Korea, I can say that they were far above average looking ( I suspect that they might have gone under the knife…and if they have, they are a testament to the skills of their surgeon…hmm, maybe I should go there :p) , They also spoke good English.

4) Be careful who you sit next to. My co passenger was nice, but he had this disconcerting gaze. And he kept looking at me in the weirdest way. I would fall asleep , and when I woke up, I would see him gazing at me. It was quite freaky. He also had this annoying habit of coughing ON me. Oh well…what to do!

5) Also, bring along a spare set of earplugs. A large number of young kids can be quite irritating, especially when they start to cry. Its almost like they are trying to do Pachelbel’s Canon, only in wails! First one starts, then another from a different part of the aircraft would join in, till the aircraft echoed with cries. Dolby Surround in the most annoying way possible.

6) Just because a flight lands early does not mean that you WILL be early. The flight landed 15minutes ahead of time. However, due to the boarding ramp being otherwise occupied, I eventually got off the plane 1 hour AFTER the scheduled arrival time. To compound my problems, I was given the wrong immigration form, which meant I had to stop to fill up the correct form before I could queue up for immigration in San Fran, and because of the delay, we had to queue up with ANOTHER flight, meaning a major queue.

7) Then, I HAD to pick a trolley with a lopsided wheel that tended to veer to the left. And while my ticket said Air Canada, the flight was operated by UA. While the Air Canada terminal was right next to the international arrivals, UA was diametrically opposite… and NO one told me! So I walked with a defective trolley, all of 600+ m, and then realized that there was a shuttle train which I could have taken! YAY!

8) Watched 1 movie(the longest yard) , and 4 tv shows(2 episodes of Becker, 1 episode of scrubs and 1 episode of House…yes, all medical related tv shows). The movie was great, and the TV shows were hilarious. Extremely funny! Becker and House I liked before anyway, but Scrubs was new, introduced to me by a certain med student from Melbourne. Thanks Wen! It is funny! Predictable, but funny anyway. I liked it!

9) The plane from San fran to Calgary was delayed due to mechanical trouble. Now that is NOT something you want to hear. That the plane you will be boarding has mechanical trouble. Kinda scares you. But board we did, and the view from the plane was spectacular. The rocky’s are SOO amazing! And the ground…wow. It was a small 50 seater plane, but it captured the “feel” so much better than a jumbo ever could. Can’t wait to go hiking! And when we were above the clouds, looking out of the window was seeing a sea of white criss crossed with rivulets of blue and green, stretching to infinity, ending at the feet of a golden sun.

Really captured the imagination.

Ok… need to sleep now. Really tired for some reason.