Our flight out of Narita Airport in Tokyo was set to depart at 8am so we had made the decision to travel from Kamakura to Narita Airport the day before. We stayed at Hotel Nikko Narita, which had a free shuttle to the airport and we were relieved to find that there was a train that ran directly from Kamakura Train Station to Narita Airport. It was only a 2 hours journey but the trains would have been running early enought for us to get to the airport in time for a 8am flight. I would highly recommended staying overnight near the any airport before an early flight to save the stress of waking up early and potentially running late to the airport.
Hotel Nikko Narita was a great option, we found the staff to be extremely helpful and the room was spacious and comfortable, we had three double beds in the one room but it was still quite big. The only downside was the food at the restaurant and cafe was rather expensive and not great quality.
We flew with Scoot Airlines which is a budget airline affiliated with Sinagpore Airlines and it was a fairly uneventful. There was mild turbulence throughout the whole flight, so the seat belt signs where on pretty much the whole flight and the lights were dimmed even though it was a day time flight, which was kind of odd. Seeing as it was a budget airline, there was no food service or inflight entertainment but the girls were happy enough with the downloaded movies and shows on the iPad.
Singapore’s Changi Airport is one of the most remarkable airports ever! The central ‘Jewel’, the huge indoor waterfall is amazing, it feels like a futurist temple, like something you would see in a movie like Avatar. The interior walls around the waterfall resembled rocks with foliage growing over it, like an overgrown stone temple, but then the little monorail like airport train zooms past - it’s very surreal. And then, outside the Jewel area is 4 or 5 storeys of shops and restaurants. If you ever have a long stopover in Sinagpore, but not long enough to leave the airport, you’ll have plenty to do in the airport.
Actually, once we arrived, we decided to organise a taxi / airport transfer rather than navigate public transport. We were able to easily find a service desk that could book us a taxi and also provide us with Singapore based SIM cards. We’re glad we did organise a taxi because by the time we left the airport, we were driving through a torrential downpour. The taxi driver was really cool about it though, Singapore gets a lot of tropical style rainstorms.
We had booked accommodation in Chinatown, which seemed to be an affordable but central area. It was really lively and vibrant, with lots of markets and restaurants amongst the historic buildings. There were some beautiful street murals throughout alleys and smaller streets of Chinatown, which I loved finding and photographing.
We chose to stay at the Cube Family Boutique Capsule Hotel on Smith Street. We knew it was going to be a small room but, yeah, we were surprised at just how small the room was. It was designed for families and had a double sized bunk beds, and a single sized bunk bed. The bunks were built like small little capsule / cubby houses and there was also a small bathroom in the room and a well designed cupboard space but all up we estimated that the room was about 12 square meters in total! The kids had a great time though. Hallie had the top double bunk while Braino and I were in the lower one. Farley and Hallie had the single bunks and they were honestly like little cubby holes. Did I also mention there wasn’t any windows! This actually worked out in our favour as the darkness meant the girls slept well, although Braino found that the noise from other guests in the corridor kept him up. Not surprising as the bed was right next to the door, he was able to open the door and stick his head out while still laying in bed.
Overall, it was an experience, we managed ok, considered we only really slept there; we were out all day on both days we were in Singapore. Would I recommend it to another family of 5? Well it depends on how much patience you can muster when confined to a small space with your family and how much you value privacy and only maybe if you’re relatively small. Haha! So no, I wouldn’t recommend it Haha!
