Tag Archives: airport

Bye-bye, Indonesia! Hello… Changi Airport, Singapore!

Yes – to the most luxurious airport in the world. I’ve already written about, and shown you photos of its Jewel shopping and entertainment complex with its ginormously gorgeous waterfall. And here I was again. On this layover, just like last time, I was lucky enough to land at one far end of the complex and fly out from the other.

A reminder for some, new knowledge for others: Changi’s terminals are joined up into a giant letter “U”, so if you arrive at the tip of one of its arms and depart from the tip of the other, walking all 3+ kilometers of the structure is simply a wonderful idea! Of course, you can also ride in comfort between the two ends on the airport’s little driverless trams (something many major airports have had for years now), but Changi deserves to be explored on foot! At a medium-to-brisk pace, you can cover it from end to end in 40-45 minutes. So off I popped…

What’s so pleasing and impressive here is the sheer amount of space. Even though it’s one of the largest airports in the world, you don’t get packed crowds of passengers. Sure, there are still plenty of folks milling about, but the terminal floors are covered with some special kind of carpeting that’s easy to pull a rolling suitcase across – and its pile muffles any excess noise. It’s practically a miracle! An airport with acoustics taken into account: woah!

By the way, this airport even has a swimming pool, though apparently it’s only for first and business-class passengers. Next time I’ll try to arrange a longer connection – and actually test it out.

Here’s the kind of interior design you’ll find in the central areas of the terminals:

Read on…

Bye-bye, Atacama Desert!…

We pile into the cars, double-check we haven’t forgotten any suitcases or bags, and hit the road. Where to? The airport, of course!…

The nearest airport is in the small city of Calama, about 100km from our cozy digs in San Pedro de Atacama:

Read on…

As mentioned, Easter Island – also known as Rapa Nui – had long been one of my dream destinations…

Read on …

Airports around the world come in all shapes and sizes. Some are huge, some are tiny; some are packed with folks, others are roomy and almost empty. Some are efficient and some – not so much. But the brightest, cleanest, most comfortable, and most luxurious airport in the world is the one in Singapore: Changi Airport.

Everything moves real fast here – even though the airport itself is gigantic. It’s spacious, comfy, and not crowded – even though it’s one of the top-20 busiest airports on the planet.

And it’s just plain beautiful:

(You can find tons more pics online)

And that’s exactly how it should be – for first impressions matter. Airports are the “front door” to a country. And Singapore clearly gets this perfectly: the welcome couldn’t be warmer, and when it’s time to leave – you don’t really want to.

Read on…

Turkey’s main city is Istanbul – there’s no doubt about that. But the capital of the country is Ankara, and that’s where we needed to go last week for a variety of important business meetings. Ankara Airport is a modest one but it all the same impressed us with its interior design – featuring even a pool (but without the fish). Ankara Airport also gave us an adventure unlike anything I’ve ever encountered in my highly active and lengthy travel experience!…

So here’s how it went….

Read on…

It hasn’t been a month since I was last in China – and here I am back again already! This time though it’s not on a business trip; far from it. It’s one of my traditional vacation tours of China’s lesser-known natural-and-meditative beauty offerings, followed by my inevitable tales-and-pics from PRC-side for all of my dear readers )…

Before I kick off though, a +1 to the long-neglected – but not forgotten – #dz-information tag. “What’s that?” you ask? It’s when my regular travel companion (since something like the year dot) – DZ – puts fingers to keyboard for, as the tag suggests, an important informational bulletin. All righty. Reins being duly passed over…

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Hi folks!

The last time I was in Pamukkale, Turkey, was way back in June 2004 after a regional partner conference. And as, back then, I never carried a camera around with me like today, I’ve no pics to show for it; all I have are hazy memories. Ever since then, I’d wanted to return, as I was so impressed with what I saw (it’s even made my Top-100, no less), and was curious to see how things had changed since. For now – a single photo; more – later…

Read on…

Indeed time to hit the road, or, rather – the skies…

I’ll get to the where and why I’m hitting the skies in a bit. For now – prelude: snowy airport.

Once seated, out of the corner of my eye through my window I noticed a particular airline’s insignia on a plane’s tail fin:

And here it is zoomed in:

When I started dancing a jig in the aisle I was quickly asked to sit back down by the flight attendant. But why was I jigging? Simple: that there emblem is Qatar Airways’. So what? Well, in the past, its planes would operate only out of Domodedovo Airport to the south of Moscow. But here we were at our ‘local’ airport – the hub that goes by the name of Sheremetyevo, which is just a short drive from the office. Domodedovo takes an hour or two longer to get to. Qatar has, clearly, started flying out of SVO too. Hurray. Jig!

So where were we headed this time? Check out the following pic for clues ->

Read on…

I’ll cut straight to the chase: herewith, a commentary on life today in international hub-airports, where there were always crowds of travelers rushing about here and there: many – tourists, some folks on business (like me), some going to another country in the hope of finding better work, others perhaps almost by mistake buying tickers to fly off somewhere – anywhere (not a strategy that should be laughed at – only the brave may even consider it, and who says it’s not the ‘right’ strategy re where one lives, stays, or migrates to or from around the globe?).

Wait… what was all that? And all in one long sentence too? And all I wanted to do was upload a few photos ).

All righty. What I’m getting round to saying in a very long-winded way here is that, last week, I ‘tested’ a full three international airline hubs personally (plus Moscow’s Sheremetyevo, which is also a hub, about which I can tell a great many tales. Maybe I’ll get round to that one day?)…

So. Airports…

First impressions: dismal.

London’s Heathrow Airport seemed to be up and running as per its usual busy self, but maybe I didn’t look round well enough.

Copenhagen Airport was also lively as a hub should be, or at least certainly getting there.

But my real astonishment came while waiting for a connecting flight in Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport…

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Goodness me. The only thing being talked about, written about – worried about – of late is… I don’t even have to name it it’s so obvious to everyone except cave-dwellers…

Sure, seasonal viruses are commonplace, but this one sure looks anything but commonplace-or-garden. This ain’t just a kind of flu. But this also ain’t something so pandemically awful as the Spanish flu or the 1968 flu outbreak. I wonder – would today’s medicine have been able to nip those two in the bud early? Well here’s hoping today’s medicine will do so for today’s coronavirus. Btw, curiously, outbreaks like these occur almost exactly every 50 years. Spanish flu – 1918; then there was the 1968 outbreak; now – just over 100 and 50 years later, respectively – corona. Spooky coincidences.

As the world enters panic mode, with quarantines, economic downturns disasters, cruise ship passengers locked-down, frenzied bulk-buying, face-masks, gloves and hazmats… what’s to be done? Get to work, I say. But extremely responsibly: social distancing, working remotely if possible, checking your health regularly, and reporting to the doctors if you suspect anything wrong. Exactly what I’m doing at the moment. But before things got really bad I had a very long business trip. Thus, as per, it was: suitcase > airport > takeoff > …Berlin!

Read on…