Changi T4

 I took a quick trip to Hong Kong this weekend, and I flew out of the new terminal in the Changi airport (Terminal 4, not to be confused with Jewel, the new fancy shopping mall that they've just opened near the airport).  The new terminal was amazing!  The check-in process was all automated, including passport control, but there was a very helpful Cathay Pacific staff member there to help.  The terminal has cool art, tons of neat little seating areas, including the arched chairs, little clusters of chairs around televisions showing different movies (with a sound pole nearby so that people in the seats could hear, but it wasn't blasting to everyone), and of course, lots of places to charge electronic devices. 

One of the food court areas is designed to look like traditional Singaporean buildings, and not only that, but they have a fun digital "silent movie" about a matchmaker that plays on the "buildings" every so often. 

Even the toilets are smiling (see the last picture)!

The boarding process was also amazingly smooth -- they again have it automated so you just have to scan your boarding pass.  It was a huge plane -- I was in row 68 and there were more rows behind me -- and the boarding process happened super-fast.  Very impressive!

There were protests in Hong Kong on Wednesday that involved violence, primarily from the police. (The citizens were protesting against a bill that would allow extradition to China, which they feared would allow for persecution of political activists.)  One in six Hong Kong citizens were in the streets protesting.

I considered cancelling my trip, but then Thursday seemed more calm and the next protest was not scheduled until Sunday, when I was heading back here to Singapore. I checked the State Department website (and the Canadian equivalent) and they did not have a travel warning, and the part of town I was staying in was a completely different area (all the way across the harbor) from the protest area.  So, I decided to take the chance and go. (I did register with the U.S. embassy just in case, which I usually don't bother to do!)  In any case, it was all completely fine for travel and I'm safely back in Singapore (although of course the question of the extradition bill is not fully resolved yet -- the leader has postponed consideration of the bill but not agreed to withdraw it entirely, and the protests that began on Sunday are continuing today).