Last night while riding the tram back to the hostel, I got a text message that my flight to Singapore on Jetstar was cancelled (it turned out that yesterday's flight was also cancelled). They offered to rebook me for free onto a Jetstar flight the next day and pay A$100 for a hotel, or I could get a full refund. Because I didn't really have much left I wanted to do in Melbourne, and I wanted to have more time to spend in Singapore, I decided to take the refund and booked a last minute flight to Singapore on Scoot, a low-cost subsidiary of Singapore Airlines, which only cost about A$100 more than my original flight, which seemed reasonable considering this was a last minute purchase. The Scoot flight departs a couple hours earlier than the Jetstar flight, so I would have to leave for the airport around 10am, so I didn't have much time in the morning.

When I got dinner with Wai Chung a few days ago we made plans to meet for breakfast at 7am near the hospital where he works. I woke up early and took the tram there to meet him, but due to service changes and delays I didn't get there until almost 7:30, so we barely had any time to hang out before we had to walk down the street to the hospital. Before I said goodbye, Wai Chung suggested I walk through Fawkner Park, located across the street from the hospital, before heading back to the city. I bid him farewell (hopefully we will get to see each other again soon!) and went for a nice walk through Fawkner Park before taking the train back to the city.

I returned to my hostel and grabbed all my stuff, then walked down the street to Southern Cross Station and caught the SkyBus to Tullamarine Airport. Even though Scoot is a low-cost carrier, all international flights depart from T2 at Tullamarine Airport. There was a really long line to check-in, then a much shorter line labeled web check-in and bag drop, so I checked in on my phone while I was standing there and went to the front of the web check-in line, saving myself probably an hour of waiting.

I went through security and exit immigration and went in search of lunch. I was still craving a chicken parm since being unable to get one last night, so I went to a restaurant in the airport that was serving it. It was just okay, I'm sure the restaurant Wai Chung had recommended would have been better.

After eating I went to check out the Etihad Lounge briefly, which is available to Priority Pass members. The lounge was pretty empty so there was plenty of available seating, and there were decent views of the apron, but the windows had a blue tint which made it difficult to take good photos.

I exited the lounge and headed to my gate, and when I looked out the window I was very surprise to see a plane fully decorated in Pokemon livery. It turns out that my flight today would be on Scoot's Pikachu Jet, which I was unaware of. Scoot created the Pikachu Jet at the end of 2022 to try and drive more traffic to/from Japan and Taiwan to help with their Covid recovery. I instantly became very excited for what would be in store on this flight.

When it was time to board, the gate agent announced that we would be boarding first Zone 4, then Zone 3, and then finish with Zone 2. Of course this is because they want to board from back to front and zone numbers were assigned from front to back, but I thought it was very amusing. Boarding took a little bit longer than usual because lots of people were stopping frequently to take photos (myself included). Upon boarding, I noticed Flying Pikachu on the headrest covers, and stickers with Pikachu and Shaymin on all the overhead bins. They also were playing the Kanto Route 4 theme over the intercom, which I found very amusing, until I realized it was only a ~2 minute loop and they played it non-stop during the entire boarding process. Before take-off the flight attendants went through the typical routine of introductions where they introduced the flight attendants as "scooties" who had lots of "scootitude" which I thought was cute but a little cringey.

Shortly after take-off they came around to serve food, which they called "Scoot Cafe." Since Scoot is a low-cost carrier, the meals aren't free, but they were pretty reasonably priced, so I opted to order a Ginger Teriyaki Chicken with Rice and Iced Lemon Tea. I paid and they told me my food would be served in about 20-minutes, as I assume they are only warming up food that passengers are ordering, which makes sense.

After a few hours, they started playing the Kanto Route 4 theme over the entire plane on loop again, and after listening to that and going slightly insane for half an hour, the flight attendants emerged all wearing Pokemon costumes and parading down the aisles, dancing to the music. It was pretty amusing. They then invited any younger kids who wanted to come and take photos with them still in costume.

We landed at Changi Airport on-time and I went through immigration and got my bags fairly quickly, then headed to the MRT station to take the train to Chinatown, where the hostel I would be staying at is located. For some reason I have 2 Singapore MRT travel cards, so I didn't need to worry about buying a new card or a ticket, but it turns out that you can also just use contactless payments or Apple Pay on the MRT now.

I checked in quickly and headed to Lau Pa Sat Hawker Centre, which becomes the home of Satay Street at night. It had been a while since I was eating satay in Bali, and I had forgotten how expensive the satay in Singapore is (especially compared to in Indonesia). Since I had last been to Singapore they have completely remodeled Lau Pa Sat and the Satay Street, and it looks beautiful, but is missing some of the grimy charm it used to have. I went to Stall 7&8 and was surprised that they now have a buzzer system to alert customers when their food is ready. The satay was really good, but spicier than I remembered.

After eating, I headed briefly to the Marina Bay Sands, which is the huge iconic casino/hotel in Downtown Singapore. In addition to having an enormous infinity pool on the roof, it is also home to the world's largest atrium casino in the basement, but you have to be 21 to enter (I was 19 the last time I was in Singapore), and I was very curious to see what it is like, so I took a brief detour to check it out. It was cool but there weren't really any games that I wanted to play, and most tables were really expensive, so I didn't stay very long.