Boarding Gate 101

I have high expectations of Singapore Airlines, which I flew in during a business trip to Singapore. The airline is, after all, rated five-star by Skytrax, which conducts surveys and rates the best airlines, staff, food and inflight entertainment in the airline industry. The reputation of the airline is also high among friends and acquaintances who've flown in the airline. But is Singapore Airlines really that cracked up to be?  This is my review of the two flights I've flown.  The Boeing 777-200 at the Changi Airport Booking, Fare and Schedule This was a business trip so my tickets were booked through my company. I flew in Economy class, and my roundtrip fare from Manila to Singapore cost around $450; I was kind of surprised by it as I thought it would be more expensive than that.  Tickets can be booked online through the airline's website, if you need to do it yourself. I would guess that this would be a rather painless exercise. Singapore Airlines fly...

In terms of how it would scale in the adrenaline rush meter, I'd say indoor skydiving is between  flying in an ultralight aircraft  and  cliff diving . It's one of the things that I wanted to do in Singapore, and I was able to finally do it during my business trip there.  The sport is to be done in a facility called iFly Singapore,  whose motto is similar to that of Chef Gusteau of  Ratatouille  - anyone can fly. It's a challenge that I don't like to pass up, is it?   It's a bird, it's a plane, it's.... iFly is located in the resort island of Sentosa, which already counts Resorts World, Universal Studios, three artificial beaches, and of course, flowboarding, among its attractions. I visited the island on several occasions, but this was the only time I got the chance to try this. I invited my officemate, Darlene, to accompany me, and after having lunch at a bar in Siloso Beach, we set out for the iFly facility. The i...

It wasn't the most impressive of beaches - the sand is not as white or powdery as Boracay 's, or as picturesque as Banol beach of Coron  or even Langkawi . At best it's at par with the beaches of Batangas, only cleaner. But a beach is a beach, and I like to visit one if there's one nearby. So it's a no-brainer for us to include beach bumming during the trip to Kota Kinabalu. We picked one just across the city, at an island called Pulau Manukan. At the dock The day trip started early morning at the Jesselton port (Jesselton was the old name of Kota Kinabalu) where we boarded a small launch that will take us to the island. The boat - quite zippy compared to the motorized  bancas that we're used to in the Philippines - made a detour at another island to bring some passengers there before docking at a small jetty that juts out from the beach of Pulau Manukan.  The jetty, as seen from the beach We alighted from the boat and went straight to the beac...