Toyoko Inn, where I had stayed the prior three days before last night, was certainly not the only place providing free breakfast buffets on my trip. Chitose Station Hotel, where I stayed last night, did as well, which was nice since it was a fairly expensive hotel compared to the type of hotel I usually go for — my room cost around 17,000 yen for the night I believe, which was around $130 CAD. Actually, the APA Hotel on my very first night in Narita also provided a free breakfast of some sort, I just had to leave too early and was long gone before breakfast was served. My upcoming Singapore lodging doesn’t though, but it’s not exactly a hotel anyway.

Anyway, although I had a plane ride scheduled for 10:10 am today, and wanted to leave for the airport by 7:10 am or so, breakfast started early enough here that I just dragged luggage down into the house dining room (on the second level, next to the reception desk), had a dainty breakfast there, and only after that did I check out of the hotel.

The breakfast on display looked like this:

I took a bit out of most of the main dishes onto my main plate in order to sample them, along with a side bowl of the beef stew on top of porridge. That side bowl was really nice, and the selection was very good in general. I wish I had the time to eat more or was staying here longer!

But I wasn’t, so after downing breakfast, I returned the keys and headed off to the station to catch the train for the airport. I was a master of navigation through Chitose Station Plaza now, having levelled up overnight and put some skill points into it, so I even found a nice heater to stand next to while waiting for the train, until it became too hot and I had to vacate my spot for an older lady.

My flight itinerary today looked like this:

Feb 12
AirAsia
D7 9551 Sapporo (Shin Chitose / International Terminal) 10:10 am -> Kuala Lumpur (Kuala Lumpur / Terminal 2) 6:00 pm
AK 721 Kuala Lumpur (Kuala Lumpur / Terminal 2) 8:35 pm -> Singapore (Changi / Terminal 4) 9:55 pm

So a 9 hour flight, a 2.5 hour layover, and another 1.5 hour flight.

While the scene at the airport wasn’t as crazy as yesterday, especially since I was at the International Departures end of the airport instead of the Domestic Departures one, the AirAsia checkin and baggage drop line was still really long, and even with eight counters open it took around 45 minutes to get through that line. Security and Immigration after that was really quick though, and the airside area of New Chitose Airport’s international departures seemed small but cozy.

There was also a neat little food court section that wasn’t open until just before gate boarding for my flight:

However, for whatever reason there seemed to be no water dispensers at all on that side of security, and I had a deja vu sort of feeling as I wondered if I was going to start off the Singapore leg of my trip with a sore throat and loss of taste as well. There was a vending machine here, but 250 yen for a bottle of mugi tea was too much on principle, although it was probably a slightly better deal than what I paid in the aircraft later for hydration. Not by much though, and at that point I had no idea what AirAsia’s food and drink policy was like.

It should also be noted that there was actually a lounge in the airside area where I was that I could have gotten access to, but by the time I arrived at the airside area it was just over an hour left until boarding, and I decided to spend that time exploring the area instead. I then found a nice place to sit down and charge my laptop while writing my blog, only to realize after some time that the charging wasn’t working. Whatever.

The flight itself was delayed slightly for unknown reasons — although the plane was scheduled to depart at 10:10 am, boarding did not actually commence until 10:24 am, and it was 11:06 am until we finally went wheels up off the ground. We touched down at Kuala Lumpur at 6:21 pm local time though, and started to disembark at 6:32 pm, so a bit of time was made up along the way too.

Also, here’s a traveller’s protip stemming from an announcement that was made while I was on board and still conscious. Apparently if you are taking a day flight from Sapporo to Kuala Lumpur, say on the AirAsia D7 9551 flight that I was on, it is better to sit on the left side of the aircraft, particularly in their window seat, as there’s a decent chance to catch a great view of Mt Fuji as the plane passes by about 1 hour 5 minutes after wheels up.

When buying my ticket for this flight, I had bought a package that gave me a choice of a meal from several different options, and there was an option to buy a second one too for a bit extra, which I gladly did, since this was a nine hour flight. I didn’t think that AirAsia was such a budget airline that it not only did not provide a blanket (they were available for rental for the duration of the flight minus the last 60 minutes or something like that though!) or cushion for the flight, but the seats had no built-in entertainment screens, there were no charging ports, and absolutely no complimentary snacks or drinks were provided.

Also, while I did order two meals, for whatever stupid reason only the first meal came with a small bottle of water, the second one did not because there was a limit of one complimentary bottle per flight. So in the end I did end up buying one additional bottle of water for 4 MYR ($1.39 CAD) and a packet of Ribena for 8 MYR ($2.79 CAD) to tide me through the flight. The crew was also extremely slow in going through the aisles to give out food and collect trash.

My first in-flight meal was “Pak Nasser’s Nasi Lemak” and looked like this:

And I was delighted to find that when I peeled back the cover, the stuff inside was laid out the same way as displayed on the cover, minus the nuts and ikan bilis that came in a separate bag:

It was pretty good. In addition, I have no idea why but I had a significant surge of pain around my left eye and upper left face during take off, and then it was the reverse during landing, with my right eye and upper head area that had these pains instead, like the veins in my head were trying to declare independence. I was completely fine during the flight itself once we reached 40k elevation and began to coast though, and also completely fine on the second flight later on in the evening.

Outside of all those minor unpleasantries, the flight still overall passed quite pleasantly, especially since the seat on the other side of the person next to me did not fill up, so she moved there and the both of us ended with a free seat between us for extra space. I actually caught a couple hours of sleep on the plane, and for some reason I’ve never really thought to do this before, but since I was so far behind on my blog, I basically spent the entire rest of the trip drafting the last day’s post, plus most of this one as well by the time the second leg from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore was done, so that felt good and saved me hours of my actual off-plane vacation time.

And my second in-flight meal, Uncle Chin’s Chicken Rice, looked like this:

But the chicken inside was slanted different from the picture. How dare they!

They gave me big packets of soy sauce and chili to add to the rice, so I doused the entire thing in the sauces:

Also pretty good! Better than standard airplane fare but not as good as the real thing obviously. But I was going to Singapore to fix that, wasn’t I.

Because we arrived at Kuala Lumpur a little late, I didn’t do anything notable at all at the airport besides walk aimlessly around for a bit before going to the gate to wait for the plane. The most excitement that happened came because I couldn’t find my passport and boarding pass while at the security area even though I knew I had it in hand when approaching the area. Turns out I slipped it into one of my sling bag’s side pockets without consciously recognizing that I had done so. I also took this picture of a nice-looking shop:

I also want to note here that I was somewhat worried about AirAsia and its own 7kg total limit for carryon luggage and personal item, because I had heard or read somewhere that they enforced it quite vigorously. Neither flight today actually checked my luggage weight though, even though there was a weighing machine placed ominously at the gate of the first Chitose to KL gate. I think I would probably have been fine by just putting my heavy phone in my pocket and then also moving one of my two lithium batteries into another pocket until I was past the weighing, if it would have been enforced and it turned out that I was slightly over the limit, but thankfully that was a non-issue.

It does highlight how stupid the weight rule is though, since there isn’t a total personal weight limit either (and that would be social suicide for an airplane to try to implement that… probably.) It’s the equivalent of just wearing more clothes so one’s luggage bags weigh less. Not to mention the issue I alluded to a few days ago where it runs counter to insisting that all lithium batteries are in carryon luggage.

The second flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore was quick and also uneventful, except we apparently had to circle Changi Airport for ten extra minutes before the air control tower cleared us to land. As mentioned earlier, unlike the first plane, I experienced no pain or discomfort during takeoff or landing. I even managed to doze off for a little bit in there too. Also, the package that gave me the first meal on the first flight also gave me one meal for the second flight and I saw someone else get a bag with theirs so I requested mine to go too since it was such a short flight. They obliged and gave me a little thermal-lined bag to go with the food too, free of charge. And I got the one complimentary bottle of water too. That’ll show them.

Arriving in Singapore and going through immigration always worries me a little after what happened the first time I returned here, but like the last time I stopped by Singapore, I waltzed right through the gates, no problem at all. I had even given them my old dead name and everything for the 72 hour pre-arrival form we had to fill in, under the question that asked whether I had ever entered the country on a passport with another name. I did that last time as well. So although my CMPB officer never answers my texts, I think my status is indeed currently in an (indefinitely?) suspended state where I can enter and leave without issue with my Canadian passport despite technically (but not physically) still holding a Singapore one.

I had wanted to navigate to my hotel via train, but I had underestimated how tired I would be at this point, so a 20-25 minute Grab (equivalent of Uber in North America) ride for $25.90 SGD sounded far more appealing than 1 and a half hour ride/walk at 11 pm at night to save $20 or so. I did learn that because I booked the ride befure I set up my credit card on the Grab app, it would not allow me to use my linked credit card to pay for that ride and I could only do cash. In the end I gave the driver $50, accepted $20 back in bills, and let him keep the other $4.10 as a tip as well even though tipping culture doesn’t really exist here. He was super happy about that and that made my night too.

I then did my late check-in at my residence, the Greatwood Residence at Devonshire, and made my way up to the room.

They had upgraded my room to a slightly better one than the one I had paid for, which I appreciated, and I took a shower, then settled down for the airplane dinner.

This one was also an “Uncle Chin’s Chicken Rice”, but instead of Hainanese Chicken like the last one, this one was “Nasi Ayam Uncle Chin” instead, whatever that implies. Also the chickens were NOT slanted in the bowl this time, whereas the picture this time DID show them slanted. Terrible. I’m jesting about this part though. I also bought a cheap eSIM while I was here, $12 for 100 GB over 14 days is a great deal and apparently that’s the tourist sim that is widely regarded to be the best deal and is sold by Singtel and I think the other two major telecom companies in Singapore as well. Only tourists can use it though, and a passport and face upload is needed to activate it.

After that, I had two problems left to resolve the night. One was that I needed to wash my clothes, which took forever because I never really understand how washer/dryer combo sets work, and I ended up washing the clothes, then seeing them get locked in an infinite drying cycle, then washing + drying them again while trying to figure out how to “just” dry them for a set period of time. This was another thing I eventually pointed Gemini at and told me to find a manual for, and it promptly tried and errored out too, so it wasn’t just me. We eventually figured it out though, and Gemini explained the symbols on the machine and what they meant, and hallucinated one that wasn’t on the picture that I fed it at all, but the steps to make the machine just dry and do nothing else eventually worked, and I retrieved my clothes after going to bed and waking up again. They were all fresh and dry!

The other thing I realized was my second mishap of the trip — I did not have a Singapore adaptor for my Canadian electronics, particularly the laptop. This one I consulted Gemini on too, and it first suggested visiting a Donki that was about 15 minutes away on foot. I decided to try it out and ended up partaking in a liminal walk down Orchard Road at 1 am in the morning. It was actually really nice. It wasn’t too hot since the sun was down and there was a warm breeze blowing, and it wasn’t too cold because I was no longer in the middle of Chittering Chitose and Snowlocked Sapporo surrounded by snow and ice statues that were radiating darkness and ice.

There were still random shops open here and there too:

And some pretty sets that were probably very busy and hard to take nice, clean pictures of during the daytime:

I did not find the travel adaptor that I needed at Donki, only ones meant for Singaporeans that were going abroad, but Gemini also suggested trying an NTUC FairPrice supermarket chain store that I had passed on the way to Donki, and I indeed found what I was looking for there, for $6.90 SGD ($7.46 CAD). I jaunted on back to my room, took another quick shower minus wetting the hair, and called Dad to chat with him while charging my laptop and firing up for the catchup run on my blog posts. Now to explore Singapore and loot all the pamphlets and ephemera!

As a footnote, for some reason my home computer had lost power (or got turned off by someone) and I had requested my rental office to go see if turning it on again was something they would do, since I had already given them permission to enter my apartment to check for leaks, bring in mail etc every now and then. Even if they said no, it was important for me to ask just in case they had been the ones to turn it off to save electricity or some nonsense like that, though I had no proof of that.

I had also enlisted Jon to visit my place to turn it on as a backup when needed, but that would have been on his own schedule since he would be doing me a favour by doing so. Thankfully though, the office came through, and someone went there to turn it on again, at which point Tailscale kicked in and I had access via my laptop again. Checking the event logs just talks about an “unexpected shutdown” the day before, at about 11 am, whereas the staff member who turned it on again did so today (Thursday locally) at 2 pm. Hmmm. I Remote Desktop into that computer to do work from abroad though, so that I don’t have to enter credentials and stuff on my local laptop, so one way or another I am glad that it got fixed, and also glad that the “outage” happened on a day that I had taken off for travel purposes anyway.