Singapore Tourists: "Sorry Miss, I can't fly you out of the States."

Hey all, I decided that I would like to blog about my winter break (I will try my best to make it as interesting as I can.) So, here it goes...

On our first day of the break, I felt like I wanted to shoot myself a couple of times. My sister and I got into our worst flight experience ever (well, at least for me, not sure about KL). In every airport we went through, there were some incidents that we had to go through. In Austin, we had to re-organize our baggage because it was over-weight. In Los Angeles, we almost miss our flight because I had a passport problem and they won't let me pass through. In Tokyo, we thought we were going to miss our flight to Singapore. In Singapore, we had to go back and forth the airport to solve my passport problem so I can go into the city.

I guess the part where I want to tell you all about was when we were in LAX. After we re-arranged our baggage in Austin, we thought that would be our last obstacle and the rest of our trip will go smoothly. However when we were on the counter to check in for our LAX-NRT and NRT-SIN flights, and the lady said, "Sorry Miss, I can't fly you out of the States because your passport is expiring in four months." My siblings and I are planning to stay in Singapore for a week to have a trip and it turns out that they said my passport have to be at least 6 months before expiration date to get into Singapore. Uh oh. KL and I froze for probably five seconds, trying to digest what we just heard.

Immediately we called our brother, "Big Bro", not knowing what to do.

So the airline that I flew with would not let me fly into Singapore because of my passport problem and they can not fly me to Indonesia because they do not fly to Indonesia and their partner carrier to Indonesia was fully booked on the day we get into Singapore (because I can't get into the city in Singapore, I have to leave Singapore right away even though I already have my tickets for next week). ". . ." Yeap, that was my reaction. And this was the part where I was going to shoot myself.

Long story short, five minutes before our boarding time to Tokyo, the lady told us that we were going to miss our flight and we would have to fly tomorrow (basically, buy new tickets). BUT, Big Bro to the rescue, he called us and told us that he got me a ticket Singapore - Jakarta for me nine hours after I got into Singapore (to show them I won't come into the city, so they'll let me go out of US). Thus, we ran into our gate and board into our plane right away.

During the whole time of our 18-hour flight, I was anxious worrying if I will be able to get into Singapore or not.

Once we got into Singapore, we went to the Duty Officer for Immigration. I told the Officer about my situation and I actually already have a ticket to go to Indonesia in a week. The Officer told me to show my itinerary. And this was the second time I was going to shoot myself. I did not have the itinerary with me. So, Big Bro who were already outside waiting to pick us up had to go back to the hotel to send us the info about our itinerary (it's 2:00 am Singapore time at this point). But luckily (or more like PRAISE THE LORD!), after we got the itinerary info, the Officer just let me go without asking me any question. *phew*

So at last, by 2:00 am, KL and I passed the Immigration and collected our baggage. As you can imagine, we were sleepy, dirty and hungry. And this is our first meal in Singapore...

Fillet-o-fish and Twister Fries from McDonald's.

We were so hungry that we had to get this before going to our hotel. Funny story: I thought Singaporeans call curly fries, "twisted fries". I was confused for a second until KL showed me it's actually "twister fries" which sounds so much better than "twisted fries".

Thus, we got into our hotel room safe and sound at 3:00 am. Thank You, Lord.