Day 1- Fly to Singapore

My journey started today, Sunday 3 June when I flew out of the Palmerston North airport at 6:45 pm for Auckland and after a four-hour wait, I would hop on to Singapore where I expect to arrive at 6:40 am. That was the plan, but like all good plans, this one went awry. I got to Singapore at 6:30 AM on 4 June, but there were a few hiccups on the way.

Blair arrived from the 5 PM on a large Toyota Hi-Lux. I checked that everything was turned off and the windows closed then we loaded my cases, and I climbed into the Hi-Lux with some difficulty. An excellent trip to the airport, the Hi-Lux drove like a big luxury car. Blair dropped me off, and I wandered up to the check-in kiosks where a kind gentleman asked me if I needed some help. I said yes please, and luckily I did because the system checked my bags okay but didn't produce a boarding pass for the Singapore flight. After several cancellations and re-tries, the man eventually got my two boarding passes. Now all I had to do was wait one hour until the Auckland flight took off at 6:45 PM. Unfortunately one of the external lights on the plane stopped working. They brought in an engineer and finally we got airborne from Palmerston North at 8:20 PM.

Arrived in Auckland about 9:30 PM and took the bus across to the international terminal. Here I rushed up the escalator and looked for the Premium/Business class entry to immigration. No way could I find it they are rebuilding significant sections of the international departure area at the airport. Eventually got through immigration after a long queue only to get on the tail end of another long queue to get into security. Just as I got to the security desk about 20 people and airline uniforms jumped ahead of me. Eventually, I got through and started filling up the trays with all my belongings to go through the x-ray. I asked the man do I have to take off my braces and he said no. So I walked through the sensors triggering all the alarms and had to stand there with my arms out horizontally while another man walked around me with a handheld probe.

Now through security, I headed for the Strata Lounge. I knew where it was, but most of the area was boarded up because of the alterations. Finally, I arrived there at 10:30 PM. The lounge was very comfortable good food and plenty of rooms I set off for gate 9 and once there I managed to board the plane immediately.

From now on everything went as planned. The plane took off on time, and after a couple of periods of turbulence, we landed at Changi airport in Singapore 10 minutes ahead of time. It was now 6:30 AM on June 4.

The seats in Premium Economy were extraordinarily comfortable, and I had plenty of leg room. I slept at least six hours and when we landed my legs were OK and managed to get off the aircraft with everyone else.