Singapore, Asian financial capital, a very hot and humid place – very clean. It has a wide variety of languages and cultures – if you’re an English speaker you’ll be fine. If you enjoy Asian food and people, this is a good place. If the idea of being lost in the Far East scares you, this is a good place to start. Think of it as Asia-lite.

Think of it as the wet, Asian and more authentic version of Dubai. This is a place of connections, you can come from anywhere, meet with anyone and do business or shopping in safety. When you’re done, you move on to your next destination.

The Singapore airport, Changi, is a destination in itself. If you ever have the good fortune of finding yourself there for a connecting flight, you’ll run out of time before you run out of things to do.

It had a really festive atmosphere. We had a Frozen II park for kids, Christmas carols playing all night (actually, it turns out one can get an overdose of Mariah Carey on Christmas. She outdid George Michael this Christmas. The layover was on Christmas Eve which was a peak of activity, enthusiasm and a general calling to all that stockings must be filled, no matter what part of the world find yourself on or which part you’re heading to.

We can verify:
Good food ranging from takeaways, coffee shops to finer dining ✅
Meeting areas ✅
Loads of electrical charging points ✅
Shopping ✅
Rest areas ✅
Movies ✅
Swimming pool ✅
Hotels ✅
Butterfly park ✅
and the jewel 💎
What is the jewel you ask?

Think of a massive entertainment park in a HUGE shopping complex. It only has indoor walking trails, the tallest indoor waterfall, Nike’s top signature concept store for Asia, sky trains running through the indoor park, hotel, check in facilities (not that the airport is far away mind you) go read it up on the net… it’s ridiculous. Only Singapore could pull this off. Again, you’ll run out of time before you’ve even partly explored this new destination.

So accordingly we ran out of time and made our way to the Singapore Airlines Amsterdam gate for a midnight flight to the Far West (of Europe).