The plane touched down at 5:00 AM and rolled up to the gate at Terminal 3 at 5:05 AM. Changi was quiet, and I was through immigration and customs and inside a taxi by 5:15. By 5:30, I’d reached home and by 6 AM I was showered and in bed.

At 11 AM, my alarm clock rang, and I ran off for an hour of errands and came back just in time to see Z climbing out of a taxi with her rollaboard. Tomorrow was her birthday, and I’d booked award flights to Bali for us in economy… or so she thought.

– Let’s go to the airport a little early — they’ve got champagne in the lounge.
– Really? They didn’t have any last time.
– Ah, but this is a different lounge, in T3…
– Great, let’s go!

We hailed a cab to the airport and stepped inside the departures hall of T3, where I fiddled a bit with one of the self-service machines before realizing that its poor little brain couldn’t handle checking both of us in at the same time. Off to the desk then, where the clerk first told me we’d have to go to T2 but changed his mind after I glared at him, and then I passed Z her boarding card with a flourish.

– Ta-dah! Happy birthday.
– Huh? Err, gee, thanks.
– Um, look at it more carefully…
– Huh? What’s wrong?
– This. <points at “Business Class” text>
– Kyaaaaaaa!

And into T3’s arrival hall, where I was impressed by the high ceiling and Z was impressed by the outlets of Brewerkz and the Fullerton Hotel’s Post Bar. Signage to the SilverKris lounge was a little lacking, but we eventually found it, turned left towards the Business side, and, well, damn. It was my first time here as well, and it’s posh, it’s huge, and it’s great: finally a SQ flagship lounge that can compete with the likes of BKK, NRT and ICN. Unlike the single row of food over at the KrisFlyer Gold lounge, the SilverKris lounge has an entire room (hall?) devoted to soups, salads, Western and Asian entrees and, of course, a bottle of Charles Heidsieck’s finest on ice. Z was so taken with the miniature bottles of balsamico and olive oil dressing that she borrowed one to take home, but as we had a full-fledged Business Class meal on the plane coming up, we limited our calorie intake to a healthy selection of rabbit food. The one little touch I missed from the T2 SilverKris lounge was the dedicated bar complete with bartender, but hey, pouring our own glasses of champagne wasn’t too big a deal.

All too soon it was time to head out and across to Terminal 2 by Skytrain, and once paradisiacal T2 now looked small, cramped and scruffy in comparison. Poor Z was feeling distinctly nervous by now: it was her first time in Business Class, and while in the lounge everybody else was businesslike and serious, dressed in power suits or conservative dresses, I was in a T-shirt and she in a tank-top and sarong wraparound. To the gate, through security and the boarding scrum, and then the lovely feeling of turning left into Door A…