Days 2-3 16-17th April - Singapore to Switzerland

We are on our way!

Ive started writing this we are 12 hrs into the first leg and are flying past somewhere called Banjarmasin, en-route to Singapore and are currently flying at a groundspeed of 970km/h.  Its -55C outside 🥶 and we have travelled 7930km from Christchurch. 

Flight has been good, although I had a nasty vertigo attack as we levelled out at 30,000 feet earlier on. Took a while to recover but all good now, Graeme got me some ice to chew on🤢😊.

Singapore air staff are pretty good for the most part, especially the younger ones who are very sweet. I watched an unusual kind of movie called 'the room next door', starring Julieanne Moore and Tilda Swindon. Quite a heavy movie about a woman dying and her friend supporting her. Then I watched good old Narnia, of the lion of the witch and the wardrobe fame, an old favourite from childhood books. Graeme watched a movie called 'Lee' starring Kate Winslet, cos he likes her! And another one called 'the return' with Ralph Fiennes, which he said was slow. 

We were held up almost an hour circling in a holding pattern because there was torrential rain around Singapore and a lot of air congestion. Neither of us felt good as the pressure on your head when you are flying in circles, makes you feel really weird, but we landed into T2 at Changi airport no problems. We caught the sky train over to T3 which is where we will be flying out on our next leg to Zürich, so I had booked the T3 ambassador transit hotel for 6hrs, so we could have a shower and hopefully a bit of sleep.

Graeme had to take his boots off to go through security and felt something pop in the side of his knee when he bent over, so is limping now and it's really sore. I offered to put him on a luggage trolley and push him but he declined ha ha!

The transit hotel was next to the butterfly garden and the free movie theatre, but was tucked away and not that easy to find. That's why I always ask as a female & get directions lol! Got there no problem and the staff had our room ready – there are no windows so it's lovely and dark and they had the room very cool which was nice after the stuffy plane.

Definitely my best item I am bringing this trip  is my Temu usb plug-in travel fan – it's so good on the plane where there's no moving air and also in hotel rooms :-).

We had showers, didn't worry about the included food although it looked good as it comes from a food hall around the corner, but we just wanted to lie in a bed and rest. Beds were very hard but we didn't care! We got a couple of hours sleep which was good and then we bought a bandage for Graeme. Strapped it up, then up to the gate before boarding.

We are on a 777–300 ER for this leg of 13 hours. It is an older plane but actually feels better in someways as it's bigger. We both declined food because it was about 6:30 am New Zealand time so we had been in the go for 24 hrs and 1:30am Singapore time by then. Graeme got about 6 1/2hrs sleep and I got 3 1/2hrs and then we have just mooched around eating caramel popcorn at 39,000 feet – as you do! We really wanted to try a Singapore sling cocktail but given we still have a whole day ahead of us to stay up in Zürich on not much sleep, Graeme suggested maybe it wouldn't be a good idea at this time of the morning and he's right as we land mid morning :-). We are now flying past Tehran by the look of it on the map & over the Caspian Sea.

The last 6 hrs were pretty as the sun came up and then I watched a really excellent  quirky English movie called ‘About Time’ - a funny movie about a time traveller that had surprising twists.

Rest of the flight was fine except when I accidentally pulled my headphone jack out & the adaptor must have dropped down under the seat into the workings, both me & the flight attendants looked but couldnt see it. He did offer to get an engineer to come with the right tools to pull the seat up but didn't want him to have to wait after a long flight or us. Annoyed with myself though!

Off the flight & what a huge airport Zurich is! We had to get a skytrain to another terminal to get to immigration & then to the baggage pick up. Was a bit tricky to navigate it all as not quite clear, but we worked it out. You don't have to take bags through xray & there were no staff anywhere to ask if you had items to declare! Down into the train station underneath & lots more working things out & me asking locals to get in the direction we needed for the old city over the river. We decided to walk as we were told the tram was over the river too. It was wet & damp but nice to get out into the cool fresh air after the heat of inside. Finally found the hotel after a bit of to & fro, it was only 10 am so yesterdays check outs hadnt started yet. We were so tired at this point, but went for a walk to get our bearings - a pretty & grungy city, even in the wet. But it started to rain more & we had left our umbrellas in our suitcases at the hotel lock up - travel brains!  And the old town was pretty dead as nothing opens until 11 am.

We were just heading back as we were getting a bit sodden when the hotel rang & said our room was ready at 11:30am - yay! Got back had showers, the rooms are small in Zurich maybe 14m2 & this was cheap at around $400 a night !?#$! We set an alarm and lay down for a kip, took us both a while, then we were gone for 2 hrs! And that's with the windows open onto the street as there is no cooling in the room.

Up and out for a stroll again, it had dried up just grey, but things were coming to life. Really pretty streets & a relaxed atmosphere. Full of the top end luxury shops tho omg! We went for dinner at the Adler hotel restaurant, funnily enough it was where we were booked to stay in 2020 when covid stuck & everything was cancelled. Their prices had gone up a 1/3 since then, so didn't stay there, but still wanted to take Graeme to their restaurant as they do  the traditional Swiss cheese fondue. We had to mote-mote cheese ( think that's 4 cheeses) & chunks of bread to dip along with a couple of beers. Graeme's was a wheat beer that tasted like a blonde Guinness!! I had a Pilsner and then gray had pork sausage with gravy. Was nice enough, although both were a little underwhelming - maybe cos it's the tourist area? But it was ok - $178 though!

Walked back through the streets, they have lots of pedestrian streets here, but also trams - it was so like Melbourne. Stopped and got a big tray of strawberries, so nice & sweet & at $10 they were cheap. Carried them back, then time to rest our sore feet & heads before much needed bed!

Graeme crashed at 8pm but my neck was pretty sore by then, so took me until 10pm, but then we had the sleep of the travel weary- have done well being up for 2 days with only a few hours sleep- that's the tough bit done :) !