Rushing Through Singapore...

I love travelling and last weekend (not the recent one) I went on a planned trip with my brother to Singapore.  At the time we had purchased our tickets, it was intended to be a day trip with us spending a few hours in the Lion City.  A nicely timed 11am flight via Jetstar to Singapore and an 8pm flight back via AirAsia.

Luck had it both airlines rescheduled and infomed us of the retimings.  Jetstar left almost an hour before the original time and that was fine by us.  Supposedly more time to roam around.  Now AirAsia on the other hand made more drastic changes.  An 8+pm flight had been retimed to 5.35pm which is an incredibly huge jump.  Seriously, 3 hours short?  Which left us with possibly at most a 1 1/2 hour timeframe to enjoy Singapore.  Needless to say, I was deeply disappointed.  To add to that, it was my brothers first time there and I really felt bad he wasn't able to explore the country more.  What was even more agitating was the fact that AirAsia was not contactable via their new "Premium" call centre ("The number you have dialled is incomplete") and their non-existent Live Chat service which basically said that all their operators were unavailable for chat.  I've never had that problem before with companies like ComGateway or HP.  I had to instead fill up a form with my enquiries and guess what, I received a reply more than 24 hours later.  What a damper.  Imagine if it had been a business trip and the meeting ended later than 5.35pm and I'd bought the ticket for 8.30pm?  If the variance was an hour it would've been easier to reschedule or itinerary for the day.  But I guess it's just better business to get people to miss flights and get them to buy new overpriced last minute tickets instead eh?

Anyways, there was no apologies or compassion on the insane rescheduling.  I probably should've just cancelled the whole trip.  Would have if it wasn't because I'd promise my brother the trip for many months.  Not only did we miss our flight (as expected), we had to purchase a brand new ticket and since there was no early flight even for Jetstar (earliest was at 10+am while AirAsia only flew 1 flight direct to KK at 5.35pm) the next day, we had to fly to KL then get another sector to KK the next morning on the 6.50am flight.

Although tired, we managed to enjoy the trip and took a more positive look at the whole experience.  After buying the new tickets, we checked in early (dropped off our bag closer to departure time) and had lunch at 6pm.  Before missing our flight, we went to Orchard Road (I love that place) and got to check out Ion Orchard which I personally find to have by far the most confusing building layout ever.  After our "lunch" we decided to head on down to Bugis Street and was happy my brother loved it and managed to do some shopping for himself.  We weren't rushing as much then.  Earlier on we practically breezed through Orchard and it was less that satisfying for the shopaholic in me (fortunately I reminded myself the trip was for my brother).  Maybe next trip.  *smiles*

I'll post my purchases (i.e. haul) on my beauty blog which is currently on 2 blogging platforms (OnSugar and Blogger).  I'm testing out a different platform to see if it suits the nature of the blog better.  I'll be renaming the Blogger version of the site to the new one on OnSugar soon.  Still trying to figure out how my header should look like.  I want to have more content (hauls, reviews, first impressions, etc) on there.

Back to the story of the trip, we were basically crazy exhausted.  To make things worst, both of us didn't get enough sleep the night before the trip and would've been fine if everything had gone to plan.  We thought about checking in to a nearby hotel while waiting for our connecting flight to KK from KL but decided against it due to the short time in between (4-5 hours).  We felt it wasn't worth the extra cost.  After 2 hours, sleepiness was already creeping in.  By 4am, we ended up sleeping at one of the corner eateries til the hustle and bustle began at about 5am.  Haha.  Fun times.  It was probably the longest time I've spent with my brother in a long time.

Soon as I got back, got home and went to get ready to see my bestie who I was supposed (and promised) to do her make up for her shoot that day.  Felt bad I wasn't there in the morning as promised but I did managed to salvage her afternoon shoot some what (I hope).  I love make up and having the opportunity to try it out on someone other than myself was just a thrill.  Maybe I'll get that opportunity yet again some day.  *beams*