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I was about to fly halfway across the world and back in business class on my own dime, but first, it was time to repent for my sin and pay penance. After suffering through that oh-so-annoying hourlong wait between finishing all my pre-trip preparations and the point when it actually makes sense to leave for the airport, I counted to ten, bolted the door and lugged myself and my rollboard through the tropical afternoon down to the nearest subway (MRT) station. I can get to the airport by taxi in under 20 minutes, but doing it this way involves a transfer at City Hall, another at Tanah Merah and a third onto a bus from Changi T2 to the Budget Terminal. (The upside is that it costs $1.50 instead of $15.) The rush hour was just starting and there were no seats to be had on the train, but I didn’t particularly mind — there was plenty of sitting around ahead.

Almost precisely an hour later the third and final train pulled into T2’s MRT station. Newly added signage showed the way toward the Budget Terminal shuttle buses, through a bewildering warren of underground passageways leading past, among other things, a frosted-glass door signed “SIA Cabin Crew Control Centre”. Alas, any reveries of obedience training for SQ girls gone wild, involving spanking pert behinds wrapped in kebayas, soon evaporated when I emerged into the harsh flourescent light of the underground T2 bus terminal. One of the bus bays had a few signs with random colorful swirls, a sign stating that shuttle buses run every 10 minutes, and a bent length of steel pipe to balance your butt on (a task I’d imagine even well-controlled SQ stewardesses would find a challenge). After I’d inhaled my recommended daily allowance of exhaust, the bus eventually rolled up and I boarded, the only passenger aside from an Indian uncle toting a cup of teh tarik on a plastic strap.

The bus pulled up to a squat building painted creamy yellow and violet (I think Changi could use an Interior Design Control Centre) and I savored my first visit to the Budget Terminal, only opened in April 2006. Check-in queues were slim and my thumbprint-equipped Access Card eased me through immigration. Inside, the terminal bore a remarkable resemblance to a suburban Toys’R’Us: it’s a giant warehouse with an aluminum roof, lots of brightly colored gewgaws for sale and gobs of signboards from the Angry Fruit Salad school of design. But the duty-free shop had the prerequisite bottle of Singapore Sling premix, Genki Sushi sold me a bowl of noodles for $3.80 and there was seating to spare.

The Budgeteers had one clever if evil trick up their sleeve: to prevent kiasu Singaporeans from camping out, gates were not announced in advance. Instead, 30 minutes before departure the flight monitor just silently switched to “Boarding” and the gate number appeared, precipitating a good-natured stampede towards it. But a Tiger guy with spiky blond hair was standing guard and proceeded to divide all entrants into two queues: one for families, one for the rest. The system worked smoothly and half an hour later we were ready to go.

I don’t particularly like Tiger as far as Singapore’s LCCs go, but I seem to end up flying them quite a bit anyway — they fly to all sorts of interesting places and regularly offer the cheapest fares. The major problem for me is the seat pitch, which is bad by any standard, and I can’t really imagine sitting on one of these birds for over three hours. Today the load was 60%-ish, so I had a free seat next to me, and as the plane accelerated towards takeoff and the little pigtailed girl in the seat in front of me squealed with excitement I smiled and thought to myself: “BAM — on the road again!”