subscribeChangi Airpoirt, Singapore
By Marla Apt
For a California girl any trip to India is accompanied by an egregious amount of travel. If you put your finger on the globe it becomes immediately clear that there is no short cut to getting half way around the world. Upon landing into the unwelcoming arms of LAX, after a trip that ushered me through seven airports, I am reminded of being carried through my journey in the gentler and far more public minded transit station of the Singapore airport.
The vast Changi terminal, Singapore, is designed to satisfy every desire of the weary traveler, mostly sleep. Upon stepping off the plane, you can sit in one of the free calf and foot massage chairs littered throughout the terminals to settle for 15 minutes of muscle squeezing and lymph drainage. Or head directly to one of the hands on massage or foot reflexology lounges. Whereas most airports provide chairs and benches with armrests to ensure that transit passenger remain vertical, there is no location in the Changi airport where it would be considered undignified to sleep. From long padded benches to couches and even reclining chaise lounges, spreading out and relaxing are encouraged. The dozens of TV lounges provide over-sized padded chairs circled around a large screen broadcasting (according to the lounge’s theme) international news channels, sports or the daytime talk shows. Those who prefer not to fall asleep in front of the Oprah Winfrey show can settle into one of the reclining chairs in a secluded resting lounge, a corridor facing a stone wall water fountain. Or for complete privacy the transit hotel rooms equipped with attached, bathroom are available for 6 hours. For a three-hour nap you can rent a small room with a bed and attached bath. For $10 you can use the gym (gym clothes and shoes available for rent) and showers.
Free internet computers are plentifully scattered throughout the airport as well as free wifi and charging stations. You can stand on a bridge and watch the robust koi fed daily at specified times in the sleek back marble pond or experience the local climate in a screened-in butterfly garden. Hanging folded from trees, apparently butterflies also sleep at night. Waking entertainment includes shopping malls, a 24 hour free movie theater, local craft demonstrations, children’s playrooms, or a stroll through a fern or orchid garden. Food courts offer plenty of Southeast Asian dining as well as dim sum, Indian, Italian cuisine or the usual American fast food franchises. And to stay awake as you prepare to arrive in your next destination in the early morning, you can choose coffee from the American chains, Italian espresso, or sample the local kopi, a strong coffee concentrate mixed with hot water and condensed milk. Or to put you right back to sleep, have your kopi with its traditional Indonesian breakfast of soft poached eggs stirred with soy sauce into a brown soup served alongside wide toasted slices of fluffy white bread spread thick with butter and kaya (coconut custard).
