Day 0 - Changi

Finally, the day to fly arrived.

What started as a short budget getaway ballooned to a 6D5N trip to Melbourne. Evolved from a stayover in Pulau Ubin idea, then morphed to a few days getaway in Bali, then further away to Darwin, then Perth, then oh-Brisbane-looks-nice, how about Cairns, and finally the big question:

Hey how about Melbourne?

Hmm, Melbourne seems expensive. Darwin's quite good for a road trip actually. We can drive around to explore aboriginal culture, that big piece of rock, and... and... hmm... nothing else? *ponder* ......

You sure you don't want Melbourne? Seems it has more to offer.

Expensive leh...

More worth it you know? Blah blah blah...

And so the story goes.

Each of us has some story to tell. Let's start with Paul.

Paul has the most social experience among the four. As such, he has flown much more than the rest. Singapore Airline is his natural choice of carrier, but going on a trip with a couple of miserly dudes who strived to make every cent count meant that he was forced to try an Australian airline for the first time. Being a great sport, of course he didn't object. In fact he didn't mind experiencing the service by an Aussie air stewardess (of which he heard plenty about), but the on-board experience left him with much to be desired. To start off, there was not much leg room and definitely no leg rest. The crumbling experience was further exacerbated by the flight stewardess who misheard his drink order of coffee and nonchalantly presented him with a 250ml Coke. And the last straw came when the air stewardess forcefully retracted his back rest to normal position in preparation for landing, while Paul was still in Dreamland. So that ended Paul's fate with Qantas. Or at least until after he took the return trip.

Sitting on the right of Paul is Daniel. He too suffered the grouchy back rest problem, but his vision was more glued to the aisle seat to the right of him. Fascinated by a cute eight-month little baby girl properly tucked away in a pull-down baby crib, he continued to perform funny but silly faces to keep the baby entertained. Somehow the baby tended to lose interest in our Daniel too easily. Maybe the baby's father has a greater charm. Either that or Daniel has not cultivated the fatherly charm yet.

The baby who captured Daniel's attention

Sitting on the left of Paul is Andrew. Having a natural passion for shopping, Andrew slipped into his mode, happily flipping through the duty free shopping booklet first among other in-flight reading materials. A cute and adorable koala bear soft toy caught his attention, and his Tiger Airways credit card reacted in resounding eagerness to be swiped (double reward points for overseas spending). He asked around for opinions, and was met with a silence from Paul (which can be taken as a 'buy' for Andrew) and a non-committal "oh-not-so-cute" response from Daniel. The second response completely killed his urge of buying (our fourth dude John was not sitting near the rest, but more of this later). Disappointed, Andrew burrowed his sorrows by fixating his gaze at the scene offered by his window seat, which was still showing the night scene of Changi Airport. It was unfortunate that the night flight we took offered only pockets of gazing opportunities, once during take off and another when landing. Even so, all of us were mesmerised by the enchanting Melbourne nightscape when the plane was approaching the runway: a blanket of yellow lights sprawling a wide area, coupled with platoons of vehicles zipping through roads at wee hours in the morning, it appeared to us as a bustling city that never sleeps.

And finally, John. Always distinguished in any crowd due to his sheer height (a magnet for objects of decapitation), John also faced the same fate of being distinguished apart by being assigned a separate seat away from the rest of the dudes due to rigid seat assignment system. Already lamenting that the flight was not going to be pleasant when he detected unceasing loud baby wailing at the boarding gate, John was even more petrified to discover that he was assigned a seat that sandwiched him between family members. Already facing the uneasiness of being "in-the-way" of their cheerful exchanges, John's tolerance level was finally breached when he was asked by one of the family members to exchange seats with him. Being such a gentleman, John refused to display any sign of his unhappiness and instead quietly slipped to an empty seat further down the aisle. There, he tucked himself comfortably away and enjoyed a repeat telecast of one of his favourite movies -- Borat. Little did he know that two hours later, his neighbour on his right window seat asked him to shift one seat inwards as his daughter "couldn't sleep" and would "turn grouchy". So much for the feelings of our tall dude.

And that was how we spent the 7 hours flight.

ps: in-flight dinner was chicken or braised beef, followed by an ice-cream bar. Snacks comprises frozen banana and apple in two separate servings.