Singapore Botanic Gardens

After packing up my stuff for hostel check out at 10am, I chilled at the hostel until my shuttle pickup at 8:30pm, as my first flight wasn’t till 12:30am. I got some find penguins done, used the kitchen, showered and had a nice chill day. The shuttle came to pick me up at the hostel and worked seamlessly to get to the airport at 10pm.

While waiting in line to check my bag at the NOU airport, the first troubles with my water damaged passport happened. I got asked to step out of the line and go to another counter to deal with my passport. Not much was explained to me and I was a little stressed, but it turns out they just wanted me to sign a form saying if anything happened or I was denied entry into Singapore then it wouldn’t be Noucalin’s (the airline) fault. Fine by me as long as they let me on the plane lol. I got my bag checked and boarded the plane at 12:40am!

First a redeye Aircalin flight to Singapore, with a 7h layover in the Changi airport, and then a couple of Cebu Pacific flights to Clark airport in the Philippines (with a 10h overnight layover) and then on to Tokyo Narita!

I slept the whole first flight, except for when the food came, which was much needed although was of course still feeling groggy when we landed in Singapore at 7am. Good flight experience with Aircalin, decent food, but not the most extravagant.

Changi airport was awesome, definitely the fanciest airport I’ve ever been to. They have a butterfly garden in the airport (but airside of not my terminal so didn’t get to see it) as well as a climbing wall and what they call “The Jewel” which is a huge mall with so many food places, multiple interactive exhibits, a sort of suspended trampoline net park, and an indoor circular waterfall that it’s famous for. After finding some luggage storage, I spent my layover walking around the jewel and admiring everything. Very nice ~7h layover.

I checked in to my next flight, and successfully managed to walk on with my heavy backpack as a carryon. Cebu Pacific is a decent budget airline from the Philippines. They even had a fun quiz game mid flight where you could win a pencil case lol.

Everything was going well until I landed at Clark airport CRK in the Philippines. I was all ready to pass through customs and have a little nap in my hotel that I booked for my 10h overnight layover. But when I got off the plane, there was someone holding my name on a card, and they took me aside and told me I couldn’t leave the airport. Because of the ticket I bought, or cebu pacific regulations, the layover had to be spent airside and I couldn’t go through customs. Nowhere on the ticket or online did it say anything about this, and I was quite peeved as I had a nonrefundable hotel booked for the night. I tried to get more info and tried to convince them to let me leave but they weren’t budging.

Oh well. I guess this was my original plan anyway. And I have my blowup mat and a small blanket and pillow with me. But still annoying for it to be a surprise. After they brought me through to the departure gates, I spent the next hour texting Agoda customer service trying to get my hotel refunded. Thankfully after a lot of back and forth, the hotel agreed to refund me, and so I didn’t have to spend $50 on an empty hotel room! Very thankful to Agoda. I got an email saying “canceled and refunded due to natural disaster” lol.

I ate some not too expensive airport food, and enjoyed the loud thunderstorm in the spacious clean terminal. I found a corner in the downstairs part that seemed to be under construction and set up my mattress to nap for a few hours before getting up at 3am to catch my 5am flight out of there.

Because I didn’t pass through customs, to ensure I left the country, a gate agent had to take photos of me all the way until I boarded the plane lol. Very strange experience overall, but finally I got on the plane and had a sleepy uneventful flight to Narita Tokyo airport!

Finally in Japan!!!Read more