Hong Kong HQ

When you travel alone, you can't help but look around at the check in and pick people that you hope you are sitting next to. Or, in some cases, not sitting next to.

As you get closer to your seat row number, you eye off the possible empty seats and pray that yours isn't the one next to the lady with the baby or the guy that you could smell in the boarding gate.

For me, it always ends in disappointment. Despite getting and aisle seat, for the first leg of my journey, I was stuck next to a chair arm hogger with a cold. Not only was I jammed into one corner of my seat but all I could think about was catching some strange new foreign strain of the bird flu.

To cap it off, inclement weather meant that there was a large amount of turbulence, so the service of coffee was cancelled for safety reasons. And when the attendant forgot my croissant for breakfast I resided to the fact that it wasn't going to be the best trip I've had.

For those that have been to Singapore airport, you'll know that there are 4 terminals. One awesome 'all you could ever need' terminal, two 'comfy chairs and restaurants' terminals and one scummy 'you are standing for 3hrs' terminal. My 2nd flight left from the latter, aptly named the 'Budget' terminal, thanks to the cheaper airlines that depart from there.

The budget terminal itself baffles me. There are huge amounts of room but only a few seats for you to wait in. It's like the titanic of airport terminals- huge, but if everyone needed a place to sit and wait, most would be left stranded.

After 4hrs waiting around, I finally got to check in for my tiger airways flight to hong kong. 'budget' is a bit of an overstatement for these guys. Getting into one of their planes is like getting into someone's first car- 2nd hand, well used head rests and still smells like the previous owner. The only thing that consoles me is that when you look at the plane from the outside, the person in the 8th window doesn't realize that their face is looking directly out of where the tiger's arse is in the giant tiger airways logo.

After 4 more cramped hours, I finally landed in Hong Kong. Flying, above the clouds before landing made the weather look promising with the sun shining. Below the clouds was a different story though. Cold, wet and windy. Great.