My sister flew off today, and quite a number of interesting events occurred en route to the airport and before we sent her off.

First was a strange and totally unexplainable disappearance that I shall simply term as The Mystery of the Missing Tissue Packet. I was sniffing on the way to the taxi, so my mum gave me her tissue packet (ok, it wasn't just a tissue packet, it was a tissue packet in one of those fancy tissue holders that both my mum and I happened to like very much) which I held until I boarded. So it was with us till we boarded. I remember the last time I saw it I was holding it up for my mother, and suddenly it was gone and both of us were wondering what on earth happened to it. We spent about three quarters of the journey searching: first my bag, then her bag, my jacket pockets, my bag again, her bag again, my sister's bag, my father's pockets, the taxi (below the seats, at the sides, under our butts and every cranny we could think of), my bag again, my mother's bag again, the taxi again. And when we got off, we searched the taxi one more time.

AND THERE WAS NO HINT OF A TISSUE PACKET! We were completely mystified by this--finally we concluded that it must have dropped into some deep crevice in the cab that we somehow had not noticed. I'm going to try to find another of those fancy tissue holders later in west mall to replace what we lost, and take this incident to be one of those unexplainable things that happen occasionally in our lives.

After my sister checked in we went to have breakfast in burger king. After queuing up for about twenty minutes we made our orders for three breakfast meals, with two teas and one coffee. The person at the counter asked a few times to confirm our order and we waited very patiently as he slowly (I repeat--slowly) keyed in numerous things into the keypad. Aften waiting for yet another ten minutes we discovered that they had gotten two-thirds of our order wrong (two different meals with two coffees and one tea) and it was the fault of the stupid cashier. Deciding finally not to kick up a fuss, I went back and opened the little paper box, only to find that my bacon--supposed to be nice and succulent in the advertisement was instead a rather reduced brown crisp. Anyway again we did not complain, so my family took turns to polish up the bacon, eating it like potato chips.

So it was time for my sister to enter the departure hall. Due to enhanced security checks only those with passports could walk through the check-in counter, so my the four of us took a long leisurely stroll to one end, where we figured would be open. Unfortunately upon arrival we found that end blocked off as well, and we had to take another long, leisurely stroll back to the opposite end, where we could finally pass. But that was ok, no complaints, because we had to exercise away some of the crispy bacon.

On impulse I bought this lovely interior design magazine (it was more like a soft cover book because it didn't have the customary advertisements) for this rather exorbitant price of $15.90. I discovered that it seems to be a Singaporean custom to have television sets in the living room, for many of the foreign house designs I looked through had only sofas and coffee tables in that area. I also realised that the soap dispensers in Changi Airport are automated--I was looking for something to press when liquid just came out in my hand. Cool, right?

On our way back on the MRT we managed to find seats halfway through our journey, so I promptly fell asleep. Sometime earlier in the distant past I told my mother that I had this automated internal mechanism like most poor students did, that would wake me up at appropiate times in public transport, except when I was very tired. Apparently she didn't believe me and was waiting to see what I would do when we reached the right stop. What happened was that I slept soundly all the way till the lady's voice said "Jurong East Interchange", where I woke up, put on my spectacles and prepared to get off. My mother believed me henceforth.