Singapore Air Lines

Friday my wife and I flew business class on Singapore Airlines to South Korea. My wife said it was the most amazing flying experience she has ever had going anywhere. I was pretty impressed too. We had heard that flying Singapore was the best experience other friends have had going to Asia if you are going somewhere that Singapore Airlines flies to.

The Business class seats(I had a window seat) folds down actually into a bed, you have over 200 (possibly 300 to 600) different movies in English, Korean, Japanese and others to choose from along with at least 100 or more music channels if that is what you want. Flying from San Francisco takes about 12 hours time and I believe coming back to San Francisco takes about 1 hour less because you are going the same direction as the jet stream between 30,000 and 39,000 feet in altitude. At our flying altitude it was about 50 below zero Fahrenheit out.

All the movies start at once when you take off so you can then rewind them to where you want to start watching them (beginning, middle end) whatever you want. I had a little trouble when oxygen vented into the breathing areas and so solved this problem by covering my face with my hand and prewarming the air coming into my nose and mouth like when I'm at altitude skiing or hiking in the snow. All airlines at oxygen to the air you breathe or else everyone would pass out during the flight if it was over 1 or 2 hours from lack of oxygen. So, oxygen tanks are venting into the breathing systems all the time. I've had this problem on other flights on various airlines so I know what to do for myself. Other people might not notice this depending upon where they are sitting on the airliner and where oxygen vents in the strongest when it does.

Also, if a plane flies over 40,000 feet the fuselage usually will rupture somewhere between 40,000 feet and above like the Maylasia flight likely did from what they saw it do on the radar.

So, anyway we landed in South Korea at about 2am California time and proceeded to immigration. There is one card you have to fill out along with presenting your passport to immigration. Then there is another form later on you have to fill out to tell them you are not bringing any produce or other things like that into South Korea.

We went to the Yongin Folk Village which in it's own way is a South Korean version of Williamsburg in Virginia in that it show traditional ways people did things in South Korea hundreds of years ago. There engineering ideas and survival ideas really fascinated me.

For example, they fermented beans in order to survive the long winters to have enough food to eat among other things along with making rice cakes and stuff like that (winters are about 4 months long) and because of this traditionally a child's one year birthday party is a really big deal because most kids used to die before their first birthday because of the cold if it was over 100 years ago.

If you are headed for South Korea and leave in the afternoon if you stay awake until about 6 am California time then it is easier to adjust to South Korean Time which is about 16 hours ahead of us in the states.

For example, right now it is Sunday at about 1:26 am in the morning but in South Korea it is Sunday at 5:26 pm at night so I will likely stay up until 9 or 10 pm which will be around 6 am California time and then sleep for 8 hours or so. Coming from California is relatively easy to adjust but going back to California to California time is always pretty rough in the adjustment I have found both for myself and American Friends who have also done it.

If you have never been to South Korea if you are staying in a Hotel it is usually okay but if it says motel these are usually "Love hotels" where people have love trysts. So, if you are bringing your family you want to be staying in a hotel and not a "love hotel" which usually are called "Motels".

Anyway, I agree with my wife that flying Singapore airlines on a 777 in business class was the most pleasant experience either of us have ever had while flying 12 hours to someplace like South Korea, France, Amsterdam or England. If you are flying east towards Europe we found we liked KLM Airlines the best in regard to service also.

However, if you are flying east or west you now need chipped ATM or Credit Cards. However, if you get chipped cards you also now need sheaths for each of your cards so you don't have them scanned by people with scanners as you walk by. The sheaths have aluminum filings in them to through off the scanners. You also need a sheath for your passport too to throw off the scanners so that information isn't scooped up too.