Singapore (Changi) Airport - A way to spend a day... really!

On the way back home from our trip to Bali, we had a 10 hour layover at Changi Airport.  This was not ideal.  John tried to change our tickets or even change it to a 34 hour layover, so we could explore Singapore a bit, but it didn't work out.

John felt confident that we had plenty to do at the airport, so we wouldn't even try to venture out into the city, as that could have been more trouble than it was worth since: 1. we're traveling with a two year old (and five year old), 2. we were semi-dressed in Winter attire 3. we didn't really know where would be best to spend our time in the city.

(Note: Our friends, also traveling with small children, did venture out of the airport, and found it easy to hop in a taxi and head to the zoo for the day.  Win-Win!)

John Lemley is usually right, and after hearing about how great the Singapore airport was, I decided that this was the way to go.

We quickly realized that our stroller was checked all the way through Osaka, so we grabbed a cart and headed on our way.  There are strollers you can borrow, but between the cart and the Ergo, we were fine.

We had lunch at O'Leary's Sports Bar and Grill.  The food was good and the kids were great.

Free Angry Bird with purchase!

We then went to a play area (there is one on each terminal) and the kids ran around for a half hour.  We lost Maximo twice to find him with another boy, shoeless in the scoping out the legos in the toy store across the hallway.

We found the sunflower garden.

We did art shadings.

And checked out the fish at the koi pond:

We watched part of a movie (Open Season 2).

We had Subway for dinner and watched the airplanes.

We then went to the butterfly garden, but it was already dark and we only saw one butterfly.

The shopping in the airport was AMAZING - anything from Designer duds to toys to books (IN ENGLISH) and everything in between.  We didn't do much shopping.

Lola with the Harrod's Bear

We packed swim suits for the kids to go swimming in the pool at the airport, but we never made it there.

It was easy to get between terminals.  The airport also offers free city tours that pick-up and drop off at the terminals.  I'm not sure how that works with immigration/customs, but it's available.

I'm kind of hoping we get stuck there again another day.  It was the easiest 24-hour travel day we've ever had.  Changi Airport was great, and then our flight back to Osaka was less than half full, so we all got to sprawl out on the four-across rows to sleep.