Departure.

I'm sitting in the Singapore airport, having made it through a relatively stressful start to my trip. A 4+ hour delay out of SLC had me growing increasingly concerned about whether I'd make it to LAX on time (thanks again, Dad, for helping talk me off a ledge!) I was finally able to get there, but completely missed my day hotel reservation that would allow me to get some valuable shut eye and the even more valuable shower prior to my 17.5 hr flight across the Pacific Ocean. So, as is common when traveling, I had to call an audible.

What I thought was a moment of refreshing solitude in the only handicap stall, of what seemed to be a quiet terminal restroom at LAX, turned into a panic. I was in the middle of changing my clothes and watched in horror as the wheels of a walker strolled into the restroom. So I scrambled to vacate the handicap stall as quickly as possible while also making sure I was dressed enough. I didn't like having to do it at the airport, a handicap stall in a public restroom is not my choice of dressing room, but what must be done, must be done.

Finally, I was able to meet up with my friends at our assigned gate a few hours before departure and made some new friends in the process. We loaded up on snacks, sent our farewell texts to friends and family, and took off into the night for a 15 hour trip to Singapore (shortened, thanks to a strong jet stream). Shout out to Kenny for indulging in text conversations while I flew and also sent me the below screenshot of all the other flights that caught the same jet stream haha.

The Singapore airport is very cool, we weren't able to see the large waterfall that is the focus piece of the airport, but I did get to see floor cleaning robots and have a freshly squeezed cup of orange juice from a vending machine.

Carpet bot (sorry it's blurry):

Orange juice machine ($2.30 USD):

Next stop: Bangkok for a day and then one more short flight to Krabi/Ao Nang tomorrow (10/6) which is our home base for the trip.

Also, for what it's worth, Singapore Air is a fantastic airline. It's food is actually good, bathrooms are spacious and have small toiletry kits for economy, and the staff is some of the best ive ever seen on an aircraft. Highly recommended.