Singapore

Watch: Light & sound show at Jewel Changi Airport

Events, Uncategorized, , , ,

Greetings from Singapore

Jewel, the new over-the-top attraction at Changi Airport, hasn’t officially opened to the public. But thanks to ticketed previews for local residents and, of course, all the media reports, word has been getting around.

The venue is part mall, with 280 swank and unusual shops and restaurants, and part forest theme-park, with the world’s largest indoor waterfall right in the center.

The flow of the waterfall and the size of the droplets can be controlled. And somewhow each evening the water becomes a screen upon which two different 360-degree light & sound shows are projected each evening.

Take a look.

This video is courtesy of Changi Airport. I took a video too during one of the preview nights, but there were so many thousands of people and cameras in front of me that my version features the back of someone’s bald head.

Getting ready for the World’s Longest Flight

Flights, , ,

I travel to Los Angeles today so that I can join United Airlines for the launch of their LAX to Singapore flight tonight.  At 17 hours 55 minutes, this will grab the title as longest flight from the U.S.

I’ll be one of the lucky ducks flying in the cabin of a 787 offering United’s swank Polaris service and surroundings but, still, that’s an awfully long time to spend on a plane.

So I’ve been putting together a list of activities and projects to make sure I stay occupied, entertained and productive.

Here’s what I have so far:

Watch some movies.
Learn some Italian (Next month: trip to Florence!)
Hem pants
Get to inbox zero
Have (only) one drink
Check out the menu, but don’t eat too much.
Charge Fitbit. Get my 11001 steps.
Interview at least 4 other passengers about how they are staying occupied.
Finish two or three assignements due next week
Start that will.
Outline my next book.
Finish reading that book about King Leopold.
Sleep some. Or a lot.

What else should I add?

Of course, I said yes to flying to Singapore because what many believe is the World’s Greatest Airport is there. Singapore Changi, with multiple gardens, free movie theaters, a giant slide, cool art, over-the-top floral installations, shops galore and much, much more, is a destination unto itself and while I’m in town a brand new terminal opens.  Joy!

See Singapore Airlines’ glamorous new safety video

Safety, Safety videos, , ,

Singapore Airlines has unveiled its new in-flight safety video, which not only reminds passengers of the safety procedures to be mindful of, but takes viewers on a panoramic journey across Singapore.

In the video, passengers follow the Singapore Girl as she travels to landmarks such as Boat Quay, The Intan Peranakan Home Museum, River Safari, Haji Lane, Adventure Cove Waterpark, Henderson Waves, Capitol Theatre and Gardens by the Bay.

 

Take a look:

 

Report: Singapore World Street Food Congress

Food,

01_World Street Food Congress

Visitors to the recent World Street Food Congress in Singapore were urged to celebrate heritage dishes and street food culture worldwide and dine on “food that you can’t even pronounce.”

With dishes like gudeg, sisig, apom and hoy tord on some menus and close to two dozen carefully selected stalls representing specialties from Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and nine other countries, that wasn’t at all hard to do.

Hungry? Here are some dishes spotted at the international street food fest.

02_Singapore_White Carrot Cake_

Bearing no resemblance to the moist, dark, carrot-flecked cake covered in cream cheese frosting you might find in a U.S. coffee shop, the white carrot cake popular in Singapore looks more like a potato pancake. This one, by Chey Sua Carrot Cake, is made with rice flour and white radish (called white carrot) that is first steamed and then fried with garlic and eggs.

03_Singapore_SoftShellCrab&Calimari

Known for its Chili Crab (made with spices and thick gravy) and a dish called Moonlight Hor Fun, Singapore’s Keng Eng Kee Seafood (KEK) dished up a seafood sampler platter with soft shell crab, calamari, eggplant and a trio of tasty dipping sauces.

04_Indonesia_Gudeg-Jackfruit

The traditional Javanese breakfast dish, gudeg, is a sweet stew made from unripe jackfruits and cooked – for up to 3 days – with a variety of spices. At its stall, Gudeg Yu Nap, from Indonesia, served the stew with greens, crispy cow skin crackers and grilled chicken.

5__Phillipines_Truffle Lechon Diva_Pork with Truffle Rice

In the Philippines, the much-heralded private dining venue known as Pepita’s Kitchen is famous for the special twist a stuffing of white truffle oil paella gives to the popular street food fare, lechon, a roast suckling pig dish. At the World Street Food Congress, a plate of Pepita’s Truffle Lechon Diva included roasted pork slices and crispy pork skin pieces on a bed of that flavorful rice.

06_Germany_Currywurst

In addition to authentic German bratwurst – a chunky pork sausage – Singapore-based Bratworks served up Germany’s national street food: currywurst sausage blended with masala and covered with Heinz curry tomato ketchup.

07_New York_Deep Fried Anchovy

Street food from the United States was represented with churros sundaes by Portland, Oregon’s Churros Locos, two Asian-inspired dishes from Austin’s East Side King and a Jersey-style deep fried anchovies dish by Bon Chovie, from New York City.

Big plans for Yotel hotel chain of tiny rooms

Hotels, , , ,

If you’ve endured long layovers at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport or at London’s Heathrow or Gatwick airports, Yotel may already be part of your travel vocabulary.

Yotel Room mockup, June 2010Designed by Rockwell group, NY

New York City Yotel room – Courtesy Yotel

Since 2007, the small chain has been well-known for its short-stay, in-terminal hotels offering hip, ultra space-saving rooms inspired by the design of first-class airplane cabins. Because the average stay is about seven hours, these locations have a very healthy 200 percent occupancy rate.

The brand’s first off-airport hotel was the 669-room Yotel New York, which opened near Times Square in 2011 and quickly became popular with both leisure and business travelers seeking affordable, amenity-rich lodging in one of the world’s most expensive cities.

“It’s a mix of tourists looking for a bargain and business people on a budget,” said Chris Heywood of NYC & Company, the city’s marketing and tourism organization. “You feel like you’re in a cool place, but the amenities make it easy to get business done.”

Now a deal has been announced for construction of a 600-room Yotel on Singapore’s bustling main shopping street, Orchard Road, which is home to numerous upscale malls and many four- and five-star luxury hotels.

“Yotel is another fantastic partner, bringing its unique ‘affordable luxury’ and offering travelers even more flexibility in their accommodations selection in the heart of our central district,” said Serene Tan, regional director for Singapore Tourism Board Americas.

Singapore’s Yotel opening is set for 2018.

“We want to use the Singapore deal as a springboard for expansion into Asia and are targeting a number of cities and airports there,” said Yotel CEO Gerard Greene. Meantime, he said, additional Yotel properties are being planned for other major cities and their airports in the United States and Europe. Details about some of these locations will be available in a few weeks, but Greene is confident “there will be sites that will open before Singapore.”

Rooms (“cabins” in Yotel-speak) at the Singapore and other in-city Yotels will have the same ergonomically attentive, compact design as those in New York. There, basic “premium” cabins are about 170 square feet (small even by New York City standards, but larger than the 100 square-foot airport cabins) and include a motorized bed that converts to a couch, a large flat-screen TV and a small desk with multiple power ports. A curtain separates the work/sleep space from the sink, shower and toilet nook, and there are complimentary hot beverages in a 24-hour kitchen on each floor. Room rates (which in New York begin around $200,) include robust property-wide Wi-Fi and a breakfast of muffins and tea and coffee.

Yotel robot

Yobot robot stores luggage at New York City Yotel – photo Harriet Baskas

There’s no word yet on whether any of the new Yotels will have a robotic arm, or Yobot, like the one that can be seen tirelessly storing and retrieving luggage in the lobby of the Yotel New York, but I sure hope so.

(My story about the expansion of the Yotel hotel chain first appeared on the CNBC Road Warrior blog)

Even more gardens at Singapore’s Changi Airport

Fun Stuff, ,

Among the many amenities at Singapore’s Changi Airport are themed gardens – a cactus garden (Terminal 1), an Orchid Garden and a Sunflower Garden (Terminal 2) and the Butterfly Garden (Terminal 3). There are also an ever-changing array of seasonal floral decorations that can take your breath away.

Changi butterflies

Evidently that’s not enough. Because now there’s a brand new garden at Changi Airport: in place of the Fern Garden, there’s now an “Enchanted Garden” in the Terminal 2 departure transit mall.

CHANGI ENCHANTED GARDEN 2

In the center of the garden are four giant glass bouquet sculptures decorated with a mosaic of reflective and shimmering stained-glass. Freshly-cut flower and ferns are nestled inside the glass bouquets.

The garden isn’t just pretty to look at: it’s interactive. As passengers walk by, motion sensors trigger nature sounds and the ‘blooming’ of flowers as well as sparkling lights in the floor. There’s also a fish pond stocked with koi and archerfish and opportunities to feed them.

CHANGI ENCHANTED GARDEN 3

(Enchanted Garden photos courtesy Changi Airport Group; Butterfly Garden: Harriet Baskas

World’s largest kinetic sculpture at Singapore’s Changi Airport

Art, Changi Airport, , ,

Turbulence

Singapore’s Changi Airport has unveiled which the airport claims is the world’s largest kinetic art sculpture.

“Kinetic Rain,” is in the renovated Terminal 1 Departure Check-in Hall and has multiple patterns including turbulence, a hot air balloon and an airplane.

Hot Air Balloon pattern

Airplane pattern

The 16 programmed shapes also include a kite, a dragon and a flock of birds.

Here’s a short video about the “making of” Kinetic Rain.

At Singapore Airport, iPad-toting team helps flustered fliers

Assistance, , , ,

One more story about Singapore’s Changi Airport…

For my ‘At the Airport’ column on USATODAY.com this month, I reported on an afternoon spent observing the crack team of Experience Agents at Changi Airport.

Apropos of an airport with a butterfly garden, a rooftop pool, a three-story indoor slide and 500 complimentary Internet kiosks among its award-winning amenities, Singapore’s Changi Airport is determined to best other airports in the customer-service department. Last March, the airport introduced a 90-member team of salaried, iPad-toting Changi Experience Agents (CEAs) tasked with roaming the four terminals assisting travelers with way-finding, check-in, transfers, lost luggage and other travel-related issues. In some cases the CEAs seem to all but read travelers’ minds in anticipating their needs.

The program is part of an ongoing effort the airport descibes as providing a “positively surprising experience for all visitors and passengers.”

For example, a CEA found Kenneth Ocastro staring in bewilderment at the digital flight directory in the departure hall of the Changi’s busiest terminal.

The young man had purchased a non-refundable ticket to Manila on a budget carrier, but arrived at Changi too late to make his flight. “It was raining very hard and I had to wait a long time for the taxi to come,” said Ocastro, “And when I got here the gate was closed.”

Ocastro was beginning to panic when Changi Experience Agent Johnwin Custodio stepped in. “The passenger was looking around and seemed very nervous,” said Custodio, “So I approached him and offered my help.”

Rather than simply pointing Ocastro to the long line at his airline’s counter – an exercise apt to be futile – Custodio used his iPad to check rates and schedules for alternate Manila-bound flights. It took about 20 minutes, but he found a good option, walked Ocastro over to that carrier’s ticket counter and hovered nearby, solving other travelers’ problems, while Ocastro waited his turn.

“At most airports, you need to go find a customer-service agent at a booth, but here we are creating an impact the moment you step into the airport,” said CEA Maxime d’Alexandry. The 22-year-old was hired for this, his first job, after serving a mandatory stint in Singapore’s army and received Changi’s 2011 “Personality of the Year” award for helping a stranded wheelchair user who’d soiled himself wash up and then shop, buy and change into a new set of clothes.

“It’s just an example of the things we do on our job is to reduce passenger stress,” said d’Alexandry.

To that end, the 90 CEAs together speak a total of more than 20 languages and dialects, including Hindi, Japanese, French, Tagalog and Thai; a reflection of the wide range of cultures represented among the airport’s more than 45 million annual passengers. And when confronted with a passenger whose language they do not understand, CEAs use the Google translation app on their iPads. “That helps us cut down on the number of passengers who miss their flights because they can’t find the right check-in counter or gate,” said Ira Fanador, a CEA supervisor,

The iPads also allow the CEAs to help passengers buy last-minute tickets or apply for visas; tasks which are often cheaper when completed online even if a traveler is already at the airport.

Fanador says since the Changi Experience Agents were introduced, they’ve been able to resolve most, but not all, problems they’ve encountered. She’s still sad that they couldn’t help a frightened and wounded woman trying to return to China without the passport her employer had taken from her, but is proud her team was able to assist the three African men found crying on the sidewalk outside the airport.

“They’d come in from the Philippines and discovered that tickets on to their home in Senegal turned out to be bogus,” explained Fanador. “They had no money and didn’t know what to do.” A team of CEAs helped provide meals for the men, tried to work something out with the airlines, and contacted a local charity, which took the men in and eventually sponsored their tickets home. “By the end of the ordeal we were all friends,” said d’Alexandry.

Changi’s experience agents don’t just deal with the sticky problems. During an afternoon following d’Alexandry and several other CEAs around the airport, I saw them give directions to transfer gates and to the various airport gardens, help search for a lost passport and tell a tired-looking traveler that he needn’t stand waiting for an open slot at the cellphone charging kiosk because there was another free one just down the hall.

“Flying is just so stressful,” said d’Alexandry. “It’s just a good idea for an airport to do what it can to reach out.”

Rate the bathroom at Singapore’s Changi Airport

Bathrooms, ,

Some of the world’s best airport restrooms are at Singapore’s Changi Airport.

This restroom not only has these lovely pedestal sinks, it has a separate ‘powder room’ area where women can freshen up and apply the cosmetics they’ve purchased in the store just outside.

There’s even a digital feedback screen, asking travelers to rate the restroom.

In the few moments I hung around taking pictures, a half dozen women stepped up to the screen, smiled, pressed excellent and were on their way.

And, yes, the woman in the picture was there on duty keeping the restroom neat and tidy.