Day 10 - heading back to NZ

Today we had to head to the airport around 12.30.  After breakfast we had a swim in the pools, then we headed back to our rooms for final re-packing of our things back into our suitcases.  

We also went for a final walk around nearby, and had the opportunity to record some of our thoughts about the trip.

Once we got back to the hotel we gathered our bags, and checked out, then got into the bus to head to the airport.  As we were heading to the airport I tried to make as many photos as possible of the areas we were driving through, some of these are below.

We arrived at the airport and said bye to Fredz, and made our way into the terminal. We checked in and dropped our bags without any major issues, and made our way through customs and towards the gate. We stopped for some Burger King (I used to work at Burger King for a long time, and when travelling previously I would always attempt to stop in at a BK in each country, so was kinda cool to to continue that tradition here in the Phillipines).

We boarded the plane and went to our seats - the flight to Singapore was around 3hrs 45 mins., and we didn’t have wifi… I couldn’t find anything interesting to watch, so I spent a lot of time just thinking about the trip, and also watched the animated movie “Migration”. We were also served lunch.

When we got to Singapore we made our way to immigration, as we wanted to go see the waterfall at the Jewel. Exiting through immigration was easy as we had already completed the transit visa before, so we just had to scan our passports, and scan our thumbprint, and then we were out of the airport!

When we were all through we rushed off to the Jewel, following the signs to get there. We were able to find it quite easily, and realised we had plenty of time to spare. We looked around the waterfall, and took lots of photos… It was quite impressive to see - a lot of time and effort must have gone into making this!

I wanted to visit an Apple Store while we were there, but it was a challenge to work out where it was, and I was worried about making us miss the flight 🤣, so in the end decided it was too hard to do, and we headed back via a walkway to the terminal we needed to be at for our departing flight to NZ.

Going through customs to get back into the airport was a breeze, so we had an hour + to chill before we had to go to the gate. We sat around and chatted, and I went off to the Lego store to get Nathan something, then came back to the group.

We boarded our flight back to NZ - it was nice to be seated with two others from our group, although we didn’t chat much as I slept most of the way home. Once we were airborne we were served dinner… After dinner I put my headphones on and tried to sleep… I think I managed to get quite a bit of sleep even though it was broken. When I woke up and stayed awake we had 2-3 hours to go to NZ, so I found a movie to watch. We were also served breakfast when we were approx 1 hour from Auckland.

Once we landed I had to declare some stuff (some of the necklaces were made from shells etc, and I also had dried mango with me), so I had to go to a person and chat about what I had with me, and was then sent to a scanner before I could exit the airport. Christine was at the gate waiting for me, it was great to see her again.

We made our way from the airport back home - on the way we stopped at Wendys cos I was hungry 🍔

When we got home after saying hi to Nathan, and Christine’s mum & Dad, I proceeded to unpack my suitcases, and got started on my washing - I only had one day at home before we were heading off to the Wairarapa to visit family. I also had a nap at some point for an hour or so before dinner.

It was good to be sleeping on our own bed again, even if it was only for 2 nights!