Moving to Singapore Part 2: The 40 hour trip

One nice thing about a lot of our furniture being moved out is that made room for staging suitcases. To pack for this trip we had to think about 1) what we'd need during our two weeks in quarantine 2) what we'd need at our serviced apartment before our air shipment showed up 3) what we didn't trust or couldn't put in the air or sea shipment. Things like alcohol and jewelry aren't allowed in the shipments. Normally I wouldn't put weights and resistance bands in my suitcase but we knew we'd use those during our quarantine. While I probably should have put more clothes in the shipment and instead brought the HEB pharmacy, we did our best. We made sure to bring water bottles and kid lunch boxes since we thought they'd be going to school as soon as we were out of quarantine. We also brought a few favorite kitchen things (popcorn popper, knives, dish brush), several pairs of shoes, important documents, the girls violin and piano music, several games, many bottles of sunscreen (we weren't supposed to put aerosols in the air shipment and I couldn't remember how many I'd bought for the sea shipment), a birthday party box, a few books for the kids to read, oatmeal, snacks, snacks and more snacks, hair products, etc etc. Clearly too much but I wasn't in a state of mind to downsize. 

Well, it started out in neatly organized piles. But when you gotta pack breakable stuff, things that leak, and odd shaped stuff it takes a lot of trial and error.

Almost done, and most of it fit!

And then I slit my wrist on a plate that shattered as I was washing it. It seemed deep. So fleshy. And bloody. Our friends the Hernandez's who were driving us to the airport were literally walking in the door as this happened.

Thank goodness we had planned to leave about an hour earlier than we needed to. We tried to go to urgent care, (while Travis and Matt loaded the vehicles) which of course was not going to be urgent enough for our needs, so Kelly, a FNP, took me to her house where she had sterilizing spray, Dermabond and Steri strips. Thankfully by this time it had stopped bleeding and we could see the cut was just in the top layer. I definitely needed stitches, but this was much faster and worked well. SO grateful for her expertise and care in our time of need! Because if we missed this flight... we would have had to wait WEEKS to fly out. Getting entry approval into Singapore is really difficult right now. This is why we couldn't fly out September 3rd as initially hoped, and once they secured Sept 13th we heard that the next available date was October 3rd. Clearly this would have made Travis' transition to his new job very challenging (maybe he would have had to go ahead and leave without me? Then I would have had to care for 3 kids with one hand. No, that wasn't going to work.) So despite slicing my wrist open onward we pressed.

So. Many. Bags. We maxed out our checked allotment (10), also checked 3 carseats, each person had a carry on (5) each person had a backpack (5) and Ellie and Travis were also carrying their violin and guitar. Thank goodness it's only an 1/8th scale violin.

It took us nearly an hour to check in, this was partly because of the 60+ pages of documents Singapore requires that the airline had to sort through, and partly because they were working hard to figure out how to seat us together. Initially we were spread apart across a large, completely packed business cabin. We're thankful that some nice people must have agreed to move for us!

Couldn't bend my wrist or pull a suitcase, and it hurt when anyone touched it, but it was still capable of holding a glass of wine in the lounge.

Really proud of all my little travelers. They did a great job of keeping track of all their own things. This was a much better way to travel than with baby carriers/strollers/car seats/diapers etc!!!

The first leg was to take off at ~6:15 pm and was scheduled to be about a 14 hour flight. Everything was right on schedule! With the exception of my wrist injury.

Ellie said "Wow!! it's like my own little house!"

The Q suites were SWEET. Those gold buttons are seat adjustments (including a light massage function!) the blanket was very soft and fleecy, and of course I needed that glass of champagne after our adventure getting to the airport. Max enjoyed endless orange juice. Unfortunately we couldn't sit in a 4-person suite on the first leg, but at least we were all reasonably close together.

Max slept great! He fell asleep at approximately 9:30 pm and didn't wake up until 6:00am (Texas time)

Ellie also had a good sleep. I think she was using her mask as an eye mask too. She said she woke up but she didn't tell me until we were all awake! Sweet girl.

A truly enjoyable way to travel. Battery operated candle and all!

We flew just a little south of where we used to live in Saudi! Was a very strange feeling to stop in the Middle East but know we wouldn't be staying.

Our layover in Doha was NINE HOURS. Was great to spread out in the business lounge.

The ubiquitous Middle Eastern "lemon mint" drink! Hadn't had one of these since 2018.

Being silly in the dining room at the lounge

Max and I took a few walks to see the big airplanes

They did in fact get tired of playing iPad for a few minutes.

Odd, but fun playground in the Doha airport. The kids of course don't remember playing here but they did, several times, between 2014-2017!

Off we go to the next plane!

Leg 2 was only an 8 hour flight--and we were able to get the 4 person suite! It was pretty slick how they folded the walls down. We let Lucy have her own seat behind us, she is a brooding pre-teen after all. I didn't sleep particularly well but it was as comfortable as a plane could be. The breakfast pancakes were delicious and I'm still thinking about how good they were.

Q Suite

Ellie getting her beauty rest. She did a much better job than me of sleeping with her mask on! 

Once we landed in Singapore, the customs process was straight forward (though it took awhile), then we followed the signs to take a PCR test (Lucy was deliriously tired and this didn't go well for her, but we all survived). After that was baggage claim, where we weren't allowed to flag down any assistance like we normally would for this many bags. I think Ellie was actually the one who pushed a baggage cart through the rest of the airport since I still didn't feel like I could use my wrist. Poor Travis then had to load all the bags onto the bus, and off we went. 

Check out the next post about our two weeks in quarantine!