Istanbul — Singapore Turkish Airlines TK208 Flight Report
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- San Franciso — Istanbul Turkish Airlines TK80 Flight Report
- Istanbul Layover at night
- Istanbul Layover in the morning
It was just an 22hr layover, but I already felt as if 5 days had passed. From Istanbul’s old town Sultanahmet, I took metro back to the airport with two outdoor transfers in between (I briefly saw the mall at Mecidiyekoy station, and the typical Turkish road sign I’ve seen many times on Geoguessr).
At Kağıthane station passengers had to transfer outside by walking across a busy road (this is only temporary before the M11 line is completed.)
Istanbul Airport has been the place in Turkey that I’ve visited the most. As a transit passenger I already got my boarding pass yesterday in San Francisco, so I headed straight to security and immigration. This should leave me plenty of time to spend in Istanbul Airport’s huge iGA Lounge, which I didn’t get to fully enjoy in January.
Turkish alphabet features both the normal “i” and the dotless “ı” (pronounced /ɯ/, as in Korean eu,) so the capital letter “i” still has the dot with it. Many Turkish signs incorporate the capital “i” with the dot, as in “iSTANBUL” and the “iGA lounge” here.
The “Yotel Air” is a layover hotel available to transiting passengers airside. Above this huge escalator were two lounges, the iGA lounge (available for priority pass) and the Skyteam lounge, and a small “Istanbul Airport Museums” that charged as many as 13 euros for poor visitors who wanted to taste a bit of Turkey’s history without going through immigration.
I‘m not sure why I took so few pictures in the lounge — most likely due to my disappointment. The lounge was one of the most spacious I’ve seen so far (even including a small store in it,) but the lack of sufficient food and staff was astonishing — the lounge didn’t even provide basic food like spaghetti to fill your belly. There’s a long line of people waiting for a reluctant staff to serve the most unappealing chicken I’ve seen, who refused to give you an extra piece of chicken even after your request (since the amount was so limited, they didn’t allow us to serve ourselves.) Another bay was supposed to have a chef cooking Turkish meatballs (kefte), but the chef was not available most of the time. Luckily I’ve got plenty of time in the lounge, and was able to get the freshly cooked kefte with rice at the end, which actually tasted pretty good. Others who were hurried to catch their flights may have had to leave the lounge starving.
The lounge had so much potential to become one of the best in the world. Just hire more staffs, provide more basic food (not asking for anything luxurious), and don’t have so many aisles of food empty without supply. How hard is that?
A statue of Mount Nemrut at the gate — the monument in central Turkey ranks very high on my travel bucket list; Another sign celebrating the 570th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul (Θά ‘ρθεις σαν αστραπή played automatically in my brain again upon seeing this.)
When I boarded my flight at the gate, the ground staff suddenly stopped me and reassigned my seat from 25A (window seat) to 19G (aisle seat). It was so unexpected that I didn’t even have a chance to ask for the reason.
“Maybe Erdogan’s opponent was on the flight escaping,” joked Wiew, upon hearing my complaints. To this day it’s still unclear to me why they swapped my seat. The guy sitting next to me seemed to be of Central Asia descent who selected Russian on his screen. He kept stretching his long arms during the flight, often hitting me with his elbow, which really made it hard for me to get any meaningful rest.
The Amenity kit on this flight was not as cool as the previous one. There must have been two meals on this 10hr flight, but for some reason I only took this one with lasagna (not bad).
I watched the movie “The King’s Man” (prequel to the other two Kingsman movies) on the flight. Apparently it’s a series that everyone agrees starting great but going downhill. Not knowing it was part of a series then, when I looked for related movies in the in-flight menu, I found the 2nd Kingsman movie “Kingsman: the Golden Circle” without realizing the two were related at all because the characters were all different and the settings were in completely different eras.
Changi airport, featuring this unique carpet, is a place that evoked memories. As a Taiwanese passport holder I was actually able to go through the automated immigration line as well (even though our flag was not listed there, probably for obvious reason).
Changi Airport is one of the few airports where the departure and arrival gates are in a shared area, so I went to a lounge to have breakfast and fill the immigration entry form. The staff first refused to let me in because I didn’t possess an intact boarding pass (the ground staff tears off everyone’s boarding pass in Istanbul Airport); to my surprise, he let me in when I showed him my boarding pass of the first leg (San Francisco to Istanbul.) The lounge didn’t boast a huge variety of food, but the beef curry rice was more than what I needed.
Every time I entered a country like Singapore, I made sure to lock all the zippers on my backpack, and check it thoroughly before going through immigration. The red text “death penalty for drug trafficking” they used to have on the immigration form was terrifying. It turned out Singapore no longer stamps passports. The automatic immigration line was as smooth as the entrance of a subway station.
I briefly walked around “The Jewel,” the shopping center at the airport (landside) opened after my previous visit.
The Jewel looked like a typical American shopping center with an outdoor tropical vibe and a mix of Asian and American restaurants (including the awful hamburger store known as Shake Shack.) Most interesting was the Pokemon Center Singapore. Represented by Lapras, this Pokemon Center was the first one opened outside Japan. (Later the same year another oversea Pokemon Center was opened in Taipei.)
Taking metro to Bugis and walking to my hotel in Singapore’s humidity and heat. Rows of colorful Sino-Portuguese buildings marked Singapore’s early era when those from Southern China first settled.
The hotel staff said I could only check in after an hour, so I continued to explore the area, walking by some questionable advertisements on my way to buy deodorant and insect repellent (no time to shower before the conference started at 3pm.)
Singapore’s hotel price was exorbitant (and rent price as well according to my friend.) Even the cheapest room cost around $80 per night, which didn’t even have a wall between the toilet and the bed.
