Brisbane to Singapore

Good-bye Australia! Just caught my last glimpse of Australia as we cross the coastline near Darwin. Won't be seeing Oz for a while. Been flying for about 4 hours, which means we're halfway from Brisbane to Singapore on our 8 hour flight of about 6000 km.

Australia is a biiiiiiig country! We left overcast Brisbane and made our way above the clouds. Clouds cleared and we flew over Longreach, missed Mt Isa, flew over Katherine and passed to the south of Darwin. There are some awesome land formations over western Queensland and Northern Territory. Rivers, hills, mountain ranges, rock formations, and you can see how the water and floods have sculptured the landscape of Australia's centre. It was quite I sight for me since I haven't seen a lot of real inland Australia. We'll be heading over parts of Indonesia and Malaysia before reaching Singapore.

Well, after having mostly flown budget domestic flights, I have to say I was impressed with Singapore Airlines! The first difference I noticed was that the plane is about 50% larger (more seats, larger wings, longer to take off). There was relaxing music when rather than pop/rock, which was a nice change. More leg room after moving the blanket and pillow supplied. Meals included, plus afternoon tea, refreshments and complementary drinks (which I found out after asking how much an orange juice was!)

They gave us a hot towel to freshen up before the flight, then toothbrush and paste later. You can watch TV and listen to radio of all sorts (movies, documentaires, travel videos, news and everything in between). Play games, learn a language through their interactive programs, read news/weather and find info about cities right round the world. Also can watch a map and track the plane flight telling you that we are crusing at about 11km above sea level at about 850 km/h and temperature of -50 degrees C outside! As an aside, you can also make phone calls (if you want to pay 10cents per second!)

I'm practising my hiragana and katakana (Japanese), trying to interpret some of the info booklets in the plane. If I can learn all the characters before I get to Japan on Friday, I'll be pleased. I've got some already learnt from when I learnt some Japanese in primary school.

Plenty of things to do up here in the plane. The staff are well presented, nice and friendly. For now, I'll write a few emails, practice my Japanese (eat some dinner when it comes out), and relax!