Come Away With Me...
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FRA - JFK:  The plane gently climbed. Below, I could distinguish roads and buildings, when suddenly there was a burst of fireworks, far far below. We must be over Malaysia by now, I thought. As I had 2 seats to myself, I made myself comfortable by putting my bag, amenity kits, pillows and blankets on the next chair. Supper arrived somewhat later than my expectations, so I could not sleep as yet, and watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory instead. Johnny Depp’s quite good; I never thought he could portray Willy Wonka with such gaiety and exuberance. My choice for the meal was chicken in white wine sauce with accompanying salad in vinegrette sauce. Cannot find the menu as of publish time, but here is a photo of it anyway. After the meal, I drifted into sleep, but woke up 2 hours later. We were about to land in Frankfurt. Below is all that I managed to take of Frankfurt’s financial district, bright light of red, yellow, blue, green and orange. Such a colourful sight even though it was about 5am. Then we landed.   At Terminal 2 were planes from Qantas, MAS, BA, AF, KLM. But we were headed to Terminal 1, the older, lousier terminal, used mainly by Lufthansa. With 2 hours on our hands, we went hunting for the transit area. Poor signage initially left us heading in the wrong direction, but eventually we managed to find the transit area, a small, miserable gathering of shops. Fraport was really an eye-opener. I never knew an airport could be so grey, so gloomy, so unwelcoming, and so dreary.   Did some planes spotting on the way:      As you can see, this terminal is also filled with planes from and to North America. Maybe that’s the reason why SQ has to use this terminal and let it’s passengers endure the crumbling hallways. Sigh, one day, hopefully, I’ll be able to use the United Red Carpet lounge when I transit here.  I do not know why, but as with some airports, the aerobridge had an advertisement for a bank. Pudong and Heathrow’s aerobridges seem to be sponsored by HSBC, Dubai’s by their local bank.The gate was now filled with passengers, a small number originating from Singapore. Like the flight from Singapore, passengers consisted mainly of Germans. There were just a few Singaporeans.   At this point, I realised that this portion of Terminal 1 newer gates. At least they put us SQ passengers up in a lounge more worthy of the airline.  I love the way the winglet of SQ is of similar colour to the tail of Lufthansa in this picture We boarded the aircraft, and after a brief taxi to the runway, we were off.    The galley proudly presents, your breakfast...  Herbed potato cubes, bacon, omelette rolled with spinach, yoghurt, muffin, a bread roll and fruits were my choice. SQ always delivers scrumptious meals on its flights even when it isn’t catered by SATS. As we flew near the tip of Greenland, those were what I supposed to be icebergs. I hope I was right. Meal 2 was pork and carrots and some German starchy strips of dunnowad. The pork was good, but not the dunnowad.  Watched Bewitched and War of the Worlds. And listened to music. Then I realised they were showing America's Sweethearts, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones!! I was more than happy to watch it, although we landed an hour into the movie and I had to stop.  Flew past Newark while descending. However due to busy air and ground traffic, we flew quite far out into the Atlantic, off the coast of Long Island, before finally landing at JFK.     The gates were empty except for a South African 340. In fact there wasn’t much traffic I perceived. Quiet morning at JFK T4, later as I found as we proceeded to the arrival hall. Took this picture, then the next moment I was greeted by a sign implying that photography was prohibited, so I could not photograph our beautiful SQ 744, which was parked at the gate nearest to the arrival hall. The arrival hall was the most efficient I’ve ever seen, in terms of getting arriving passengers into the various immigration counters. The arrival hall was also the most brightly lit and fuss-free I’ve encountered. On all my travels to at least a dozen airports, this was the only arrival hall that had a view of the tarmac. An impressive hall closely replicated in Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal (the one in the movie had more concrete, less glass), it allowed me to witness an SQ 747 MegaArk freighter land in the distance. After each of us had our fingerprints scanned and had our iris photographed, we cleared customs. The details of the baggage claim hall were elaborate, and together with the slightly dimmed lighting, created a warm atmosphere. Then we went to the passenger pick-up point, where our driver was awaiting us. I couldn’t resist this shot of the gorgeous arrival building. 
 With regards from Solar Sojourner at 6:00 PM
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