No Reservation for You

 Thursday was Jane’s last day of class, and the day we moved to the Changi airport due to our early flight the next morning. We spent the morning consolidating our things into our suitcases, and while Jane went to school, I ferried our stuff over to the airport hotel. A shell sell off my suitcase during the flight over, which makes it super unwieldy when full - but we still have a warranty on it so I’m not ready to replace it until I get home and can cash that in.

Once I got there, I took a trip around to see the Jewel, the centerpiece of the airport, the garden/shopoing/dining center built around a fountain, the one Beth described previously. During the day it was a sight to behold for sure.

I had two errands to run - one, to deep Jane’s Singapore phone, and second, to get some more of the Earthworm perfume Jane formulated. Selling the phone was easy enough - I found a shop a quick subway ride from the hotel and was able to sell it without much trouble.

Getting the perfume was trickier. I made my way to the same lab Beth and Jane had visited previously, armed with my preconception that it would be a routine thing for them to punch up Jane’s formula on a computer and mix some up for me.

I was wrong. First, the door was locked, and I only got inside when a maintenance worker came out and let them know someone was there. Clearly I should’ve made an appointment. Then, I asked for a bottle of the prior formula. Did I have the card? No, but I had the name and date - surely they had it in a database somewhere? No, they needed the exact date so they could look it up. Fortunately, si had this nlog and was able tk get the exact date.

They opened up several cupboards before producing a bin of formula cards. The man flipped through them looking for the one I needed, which Jnspotted when he got to it. Ok, problem solved. He asked me to wait a moment while he mixed some.

I already felt pretty awkward about messing up their flow. But they were very polite. After about fifteen minutes, he came out with a mixed batch for me to smell. It was fantastic, and he even commented on how good a scent it was, subtle but with some bold notes that many folks are afraid to use. I was thinking, yeah I know, my daughter made that. He bottled it up and asked for payment. I said cash would be best… he hesitated saying that the owner had the key to the cashbox and was away on their honeymoon. He asked someone else for help, who said I could pay using a special code number and pulling from my Singapore bank account, which J have, right? I apologetically said no. After some more searching for the cash box key, I said credit card would also work.

Ok, they do have a credit card machine. It was in a counter in the next room over. The maintenance guy was working in that room, and had moved a lot of other items and furniture in there as well - opening the drawers in the counter was now impossible. Eventually we worked out that I could round up to the cash J had, he would throw in something else tk justify the cost, and it would all work out. So we were able to wrap it up just in time for me to head to Clarke Quay to meet Jane.

Jane and I met up, and decided to take a cab to the airport hotel since we were both pretty exhausted by this point, and get dinner at the Jewel. We dropped off her things, checked our suitcasss in for our flight, and went to the Jewel. I had made a reservation for “the best burger at Changi”, so we set about fining it.

In the way we got to see the waterfall at night, which was striking. At the 8:00 hour, a special light show took place:

We then headed up to the burger cafe where we had a reservation. When we got there, we were told that the kitchen had actually just closed. But wait, we have a reservation - here’s the email! Oh, no sir, they can’t guarantee a table for reservations made the same day, some junk about the system they use for their reservations, etc. It was frustrating hearing all of their contradictory excuses for turning us away, so we left and went to Shake Shack instead, which was really really good. I’d never been to one and highly recommend their spicy chicken sandwich.

Since we were getting up for a 6:25 flight, we made it an early night. Tomorrow we fly to Osaka!