Flying. At its best you can see the world from a whole different perspective, cruising high above the landscape in serene skies.
But it can also be hours confined to a narrow seat constantly disturbed by the random bumps of unsettled air.
The problem is that you usually don’t know which it is until you are already underway.
My life feels defined by a desire to be up in the air and a fear of doing so.
After falling into a deep sleep while the others are still watching tennis on the television, I wake early, a sense of apprehension already building within. I know that I should be able to cope with the turbulence of the flight, but I don’t believe it.
I check the turbulence forecast on Turbli and turbulenceforecast.com while the others remain asleep. The former looks a bit smoother than before, the latter is scary. The thrust of a jetstream eddy north into our flight path. Swathes of storms between Sydney and Singapore.
But what can I do? Nothing. I’m going through with this.
At least we aren’t leaving late in the day when a weather change and storms are predicted to hit Sydney.
The others eventually awaken and we check out with only ten minutes before our shuttle bus departs to the airport. We were going to walk to the domestic terminal and catch the train from there, but this is less effort and not that much more expensive.
We already checked in online 24 hours before. I managed to reseat us right at the front of the wing, one row back from the bulkhead, exactly where I want. Now we collect our boarding passes and bag tags from the automated kiosk and use the automatic bag drop off.
Avoiding the crowds of selfie tourists, we go straight to the smart gates and security. Waiting as one man has to pass through the scanner five times and another lady is forced to remove the woolly ankle leggings over her stockings.
Then it’s time to run the gamut of the duty free maze. Doctor Bones, a skeleton, demonstrates how their cream will clear your skin: Right off.
It’s bright, it’s shiny, it’s full of luxury goods. We head up to the Qantas Business Lounge. I don’t think that using my Qantas points for club membership is good value for a breakfast of fruit salad and pastries (or eggs and sausages for B), but at least there’s somewhere to sit and bathrooms.
I try not to throw up. Anxiety.
It’s another bloody bus gate for us today. We always seem to be getting them now. At least there is somewhere to wait until our flight is called. Outside a Cathay Pacific 777 waits, its passengers using an airbridge to board.
The one advantage of a bus gate is the view from the ride to the plane. You get to appreciate just how large the widebody jets are from the ground.
Our aircraft is a Finnair Airbus A330-300. We flew Finnair before, on their A350-900s between Osaka and Helsinki and on the A321 to Copenhagen. Qantas is wet leasing the A330s while Finnair suffers due to Russian airspace restrictions due to the war in Ukraine.
Up the stairs and into the aircraft and I am delighted to see that the cabin looks almost as fresh as those new A350s. Not quite as spacious, but the white interior with grey fabric seats looks very clean, very Scandic minimalist.
I go straight to the entertainment system. Yes, it’s got the forward and belly cameras (the latter disabled until takeoff) and the fantastic interactive map, better than Qantas. There is quite a selection of movies and yes, there’s music. Unfortunately, the latter isn’t categorised and scrolling is slow. I eventually find a Hans Zimmer versions album that will do, but I think I will be relying on my own devices for music this flight.
I suffer a few reboots of my IFE screen.
The pilots all sound Finnish. They provide a detailed description of our route, but fail to mention a smooth flight. I’m not sure whether to be concerned. It is what it is.
The morning cloud has burnt off and the skies above Sydney are bright blue with only a few wisps of high cloud hinting at the coming change.
The cabin crew, who stand up for, but do not perform, the safety briefing, are mostly Asian, possibly based out of Bangkok, where Finnair also flies for Qantas.
I’m so busy fiddling with the entertainment, trying to find the Hans Zimmer album again, that I don’t pay much attention to the taxi to the southern end of the runway.
There are a few planes ahead of us, then it’s our turn. Racing down the runway, then up. There is the novelty of looking below on the bellycam as we head over the Inner West, then out towards the Olympic site, Homebush and Parramatta.
Over the Nepean River at Penrith. Is that Pondi Beach? I don’t know.
The sandstone cliffs of the Blue Mountains are faintly visible through the haze, there is a line of brown smog merging into the clouds on the horizon.
The cabin crew can me through serving bottles of water and nut and crackers snacks. It feels a little like the old days of travel, but without the warm towels.
Cloud begins to hide the brown lands below. I can see glimpses of the great inland river systems. There are those that flow into the Murray-Darling and reach the sea, and those ephemeral waterways that head into Kati Thanda and the salt lakes of the interior, destined to evaporate away.
About an hour and a half into the flight and we hit that finger of the jetstream. Just after the announcement that the lunch service will begin, the seat belt lights are switched on and food is delayed.
For the next 45 minutes we pass through high cloud, bumping away. It’s okay, nothing terrible, but distracting. It helps knowing that it will end.
Eventually we get our lunch. It is a choice between kung pao chicken with fried rice, beef burgundy stew with mash, or couscous for vegetarians. I choose the beef. It’s definitely Qantas catering and it’s quite tasty, though I think there are mushrooms in the sauce, which I avoid.
The meal is served with garlic bread and a pack of cheese and rice crackers, which is nice, because I associate cheese and crackers with flying, back to when Alex was a baby and used to eat them.
I chose a Coke No Sugar for a drink. Sadly they do not stock Finnair’s wonderful blueberry juice. They should, as a way to convince people to use their service!
Later, an almost frozen Murray Street salted caramel and chocolate ice cream slice is served for dessert. I’d prefer a nicer dessert was served, but this is the way of Qantas and has been for years.
We have reached the interior of the Northern Territory now. I try to watch a movie, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice or Alien Romulus but I can’t focus. The guy in front has reclined his chair into my face. Maybe I should listen to a familiar movie instead. They have some Christopher Nolans.
I play a bit of Angry Birds and the IFE. It’s nice not to have the constant advertising interruptions of the mobile version and I completed the entire game last Finnair flight. Yep, I’ve still got it.
But I don’t feel like staring at the screen now and switch back to external cameras or the map.
My phone is going flat and has a dodgy USB connector so I switch phones for photos. The IFE has both USB A and C connectors which I use to try to recharge it.
I fall asleep for maybe half an hour. That’s rare for me, usually the niggles in the air keep me awake. Maybe it was my relaxing flight music, especially Adrift, which I found for meditation while doing a flight anxiety course.
As we cross over the Northern Territory and into northern Western Australia, we have to dodge storm clouds. The trick is to avoid downwind. It does make for interesting skies. Nearing the Western Australian coast we hit the vast cloud and storms showing on the turbulence map, making a large detour to the north of one system before returning to the route.
Outside is white, but finally as I write this, the blue of the ocean has appeared.
It disappears again close to Bali, where big storms lurk off the coast, massive columns of cloud, expanding to encompass the larger sky at the top. We weave our way around them.
More high cloud, then a smooth expanse of white below. Afternoon snacks are served, I opt for the arancini balls over the pork and kimchi dumplings. The balls are rather doughy.
Don’t want to eat too much, saving up the stomach for Singapore.
I play some more Angry Birds, but the high cloud and turbulence south of Borneo is distracting. Not looking forward to this descent, but can’t wait to be on the ground.
With less than an hour to go, shortly before our descent, we pass through some high cloud and what is obviously a developing convective patch. I feel pressure on my rear, we are being push up and up. And suddenly, inevitably, we are dropping down again with a gasp sounding across the cabin.
I knew it was coming and I didn’t like it. I clutch the pillow, hoping it will not return.
That’s the worst turbulence of the flight. There are a few more bumps as we begin our descent, but nothing close to that bad.
Our path into Singapore takes a long and winding route, looping around the nearby Indonesian islands to delay us. There are glimpses of sea, of the islands, of the magnificent, dramatic cloudscape.
Around and around. Finally, down towards Singapore itself, the famous view of the waiting ships is obscured by rain.
The grey weather outside seems to dampen that sense of arrival in another country. We quickly disembark the aircraft and hurry straight to the bathroom, having survived an eight hour flight without using one.
We activate our phone roaming packs. Immigration is a breeze, automated by the passport and the prefilled online visitor registration.
It takes longer for our luggage to arrive.
Before heading off to find a taxi we stop by the forest in the Jewel, passing through a Lunar New Year tunnel to the giant central waterfall. John Williams music from Harry Potter is playing, a callback to my last visit.
The familiar taxi drive to the Roxy Square in Katong isn’t as exciting as my last visit, grey wet streets replacing the golden light of the past trip in, evocative scenes of an exotic tropical destination.
I am only staying one night here before heading out tomorrow on a train to Malaysia. The other two won’t join me for a few days, flying instead. So we have booked two rooms for the three of us.
Everyone is getting hangry and once we have dumped our bags in the rooms, we head down to find food at the Marine Parade hawker centre across the road. No more overpass with the bougainvillea, now it’s underground via the brand new metro station.
More than anything, we have come to Singapore and Malaysia for the food. I start light, ordering popiah rolls and rojak salad. The others order Hokkien noodles and we drink calamansi lime.
I can smell the durian from the fruit stall.
We cross over to the Parkway Parade shopping centre. I have my reasons for coming here. There’s a Begawan Solo shop selling kuih on the bottom floor. I want my kuih lapis spekkoek!
We grab some curry puffs from Old Chang Kee and Alex a Pikachu doughnut from Dunkin’ Donuts, then return to the hawker centre for a bowl of Teochew fish, simple food.
Alex is unreasonably tired, without the excited energy of B and I about returning to one of our favourite places. It’s getting late, the three hour time difference is kicking in. So we return to the hotel for the night.
I’m pretty pleased with the way I handled the flights here. I was much more relaxed with the turbulence than previously. Still not sure if I feel like taking any short flights between Malaysia and Singapore on this trip. Glad it’s strictly land for the next few days.
