The Changi Experience

The only thing amazing about the Changi airport is the bus driver that thinks he is a Formula-1 driver! The rest is meh…
It had been quite a while since I had to pass through Singapore. This trip was in and out from Bali-Singapore-Jakarta-Bali for my Indonesian work permit referred to as a KITAS.
In all honestly I was looking forward to it as I had just enough time to enjoy, what I had thought would be an amazing, out-of-this-world experience. Just look at the amazing photographs everyone is posting and how amazing the airport looks.

In The End…

It’s the same shit but a different pile. Lipstick on a Pig is made up to be this amazing tourist attraction that covers up the shortfalls of this nothing but average airport.
Before you all jump on me and call me a fool. Remember the one and only purpose of an airport, please. Move passengers from point A to point B, C, D, E and F efficiently right?
Oh I was so looking forward to an easy de boarding, easy immigration process and a good meal since I didn’t have much of a breakfast in Bali.

So How Did It Go?

Let’s start here. I tried to look up the form I needed to fill out for landing in Singapore since I was pretty sure there would be something to fill out.
As I was filling it out the system told me my email was being rejected and so I left the form thinking I must have the wrong link or I didn’t fill it out correctly. Sure enough, the form was needed, and had to do it last minute. I’ll take blame and I’ll give credit to the nice Changi man who helped me out.
But then, armed with my screenshot and passport I went to the next step. A self-check-in process to enter the airport. First of all, it was the same thing. Piles of machines and line-ups of people. Much like any other airport, it seemed.
The line moved slowly but maybe, possibly quicker than most. Maybe except for the fact that the line I was in bogged down because of a system failure. OK, so now what!? A Russian man before me was rejected and had to go to regular customs. Same thing happened to his wife who was stuck between two plastic partitions not being able to go through or back. Thus she too was rejected by the system that then had to be reset.

I Was Told To Wait

Until another staff told me to insert my passport and move on in between the plexiglass partitions. So I did and the system accepted my passport. However, I was rejected in the finger print process. So, I was kicked out of the line and rather rudely told to go to the manual check-in.
Off I went and my impression of the amazing Changi airport was tarnished. After checking in once more I made it past immigration.
I then had to go to terminal 4 and this was the most fun part. The bus driver was awesome. He took each corner like a race car driver and I made it to Terminal 4 quite quickly.