Singapore

It all started with a question popped on the first of November:

Wanna go to Singapore to watch a concert?

After the initial shock, questions, much flailing from me, and fanboying from the one who asked, concert tickets were indeed bought. Mind you, the event was slated for November 22 and November 23.

What happened next was a flurry of activities that needed to be done: passport applications, plane tickets, hostel reservations, leave applications and asking people for travel advisories. And soon enough, we were ready to go.

November 21, to Singapore

It was the first opportunity to fly out of the country for the both of us, so everything was new to us — From check in, through immigration, and plane boarding (where we needed to take the shuttle to get to the plane). We were lucky enough to get plane tickets at budget price that didn’t sacrifice too much. Though, it meant no meals for the duration of the trip, which was okay since it was only a three-hour trip. But hey! We got window seats! And we had the row all to ourselves!

The Changi Airport was fascinating. It was huge and overwhelming, but thankfully not confusing. From there, not knowing any better yet, we took a cab to the hostel. We had a hard time talking to the cab driver since I couldn’t understand his heavy Chinese accent. Thank goodness I had the number of the hostel with me and he called them up to confirm the location.

One Florence Close, the hostel we stayed in, was very homey. And free internet access is always a good point in my book. Also, it was a smart move to reserve a Twin bedroom as it was more spacious than the doubles. We got to have a closet, a big dresser and a desk too! It’s like a dorm room! This is the room we got, and the host laid out a futon bed on the floor (where the rug is) but still spacious enough. It was also home to the biggest domesticated cats I’ve seen: Romeo (pictured above) and Pepper. They were sooo cute! And the funny thing was, almost all the guests in the hostel during that weekend were Pinoys!

Dinner was another thing to deal with, actually eating and finding food was our biggest ordeal during the stay. Because of my condition, I was not allowed to eat anything with fish or chicken. And I have a hard time chewing and I’m not really good with spicy foods. And lo, am at a place where most food are either with fish, chicken or spicy. And not familiar with foods at the hawker center near our hostel, we resorted to stocking up on instant noodles (which were expensive by the way) and buying pasta on our first night.

November 22, AFA day 1

We met up with Sugoi teammate, Flori who was staying there for the month, at the LRT station. She would be accompanying us on our first day.

The first thing I noticed when we got going was no one was stationed at entrances of establishments to check your bags. It was… liberating! Ha ha. Jojo kept on commenting that now he understood why foreigners are annoyed when they come here and get their bags checked in malls, MRT/LRT stations, and everywehere else.

Anyway, we first went to the Suntec Convention Center via a series of underpasses, that didn’t feel like underpasses at all. We got our passes for the Anime Festival Asia and got in.

Taking a look around, it felt like I was at a convention back in Manila. The atmosphere, the kind of crowd, and the booths. The only difference? The well-organised chaos.

We took off around lunchtime to find some place to eat. Which got us around Esplanade but found out that Glutton’s Bay only opens for dinner, so we had to make do and go to Thai Express, which isn’t so bad.

We then wanted to go to Orchard Road and check out Kinokuniya for possible art book finds. Well we did find art books, but having no extra budget for such left us wanting. But the selections were definitely worth checking out.

We went back to Suntec to catch Ichirou Mizuki’s performance. And what a performance! Hearing familiar music from your childhood by the one who originally sung them gave me goosebumps.

November 23, AFA Day 2

This time we woke up late since we were only looking for the night’s performance of May’n, the reason behind the craziness that is the Singapore trip. And we mostly now know our way around so it was easy enough. And getting up late meant less eating since we only had to eat lunch.

Whole day was spent at the convention taking cosplay pictures, Jojo looking for toys to take home, and more taking cosplay pictures. And oh, there was the Aniki encore too and he presented prizes to the cosplay winners as well.

We grabbed dinner first before going back for the May’n concert and thank goodness Rotch’s company saved us seats in the VIP section. And I must say the performance was fun, I highly enjoyed it even if I didn’t know who she was. Which made me listen to her songs and finish watching Macross Frontier afterwards, ha!

November 24, Going Home

It was time to go home, and this time we took the LRT to go to Changi Airport. We didn’t have a lot of bags to carry, and this was the cheapest and easiest way to go to our destination. Especially since the train stops at the airport itself. Otherwise, it was uneventful (aside for taking some pictures with the koi at the airport fish pond). But there was a nice couple in the plane that gave me a sandwich since we were not given meals by the flight attendants. I think they managed to bring a sandwich from one of the terminal’s stores.

It was definitely a trip to remember, and really look forward to going back again if opportinity strikes. This time I have to save just for that. Haha.