My goto lounge at Singapore Changi Terminal 2 is the SATS Premier Lounge. Sats is an operator of gateway and catering services and lounges fits nicely in their business operation. Overall I'm pretty impressed, especially in relation to catering. The lounge is located to the left of immigration and up an escalator, opposite the DBS Treasures Lounge.

Most of the time seating has been fairly available, but there are obviously some times when larger long haul international flights leave and the lounge fills up with guests. The food options usually include a laksa or noodles, curry, a couple of vegetarian options and a small array of salads. There is also a pastry / bread area which is a nice addition. There are two automatic (great quality) coffee machines offering everything from latte's to mocha's, wine and beer (Sapporo and Tiger).

As the lounge is internal, there isn't a fantastic view onto the bustling apron, but you can look out and down onto the terminal below and even further outside to catch a glimpse of a catering truck or the baggage team. It's clean, quiet and comfy. What more do I need.

If you are interested in getting access, I use my Citibank Prestige Credit Card which gives Unlimited Priority Pass  access for the primary cardholder and 1 guest. Although the annual fee is S$500+ the welcome bonus of free miles or a free iPad can significantly cover that, so you can count the benefits of lounge access as a freebie.

LifeMiles are running one of their semi-regular bonus miles campaign for those that have an immediate trip in mind. If you purchase miles between the 11th and 27th of February you will be eligible for a bonus as per their tier structure. There are some caveats, I believe the account has to be open for a week before you can purchase.

Last year the user interface of LifeMiles was completely overhauled and searching is nowhere near as fun (or as easy as it used to be), but flights are still available to book. As usual, I wouldn't stockpile them up, but if you have an immediate use, such as my Singapore to New York example of EVA Air Business Class for 78,000 points per person, it's a great way to fly.

For 2 people one way, this trip would cost you US$2,475 + US$155 = US$2,630 or S$3,645

Currently my favourite lounge at Singapore's Changi Airport and definitely my favourite in Terminal 1, is the DNATA lounge. It is located just after going through immigration, turn right and head up the escalators, it is now located next to the Qantas new First Class Lounge. It is super spacious and 4/5 times we have visited has been really quite empty. A few key features;

1. Large lounge with plenty of seating
2. Buffet area with drinks at one end and stand alone bar at the other
3. Coffee and mixed drinks have are a bit more prominent.
4. Wifi is fast and unlimited (isn't it always now?)
5. Power sockets are everywhere
6. Small screens display relevant departure information for guests of the lounge
7. Located right at the start of the walkway for lots of gates
8. Access with Priority Pass or Lounge Key

If you are interested in getting access, I use my Citibank Prestige Credit Card which gives Priority Pass unlimited access for the primary cardholder and 1 guest. Although the annual fee is S$500+ the free welcome bonus of free miles or a free iPad can significantly cover that, so you can count the benefits of lounge access as a freebie.

Travel Insurance can be an overwhelmingly complex comparison of words and numbers, but over the years things have got progressively simpler. There is the age old saying or "If you can't afford travel insurance, you can't afford to travel". For most travellers, the worst that will happen is a minor cold, a lost bag or a delayed flight and without insurance it's pretty easy to cover that yourself. But then there are the horror stories of a significant accident and repatriation back to your home country. Thankfully, literally every travel insurance policy will include a decent amount of emergency medical coverage and without being an insurance broker, anything is better than nothing. Over the past few years and more recently few months, there are a few goto plans I can recommend.

#1 at the moment for those living in Asia, is the Grab app and their S$1 (usual price $2.50) per day ASEAN region coverage underwritten by Chubb. It is the easiest insurance to purchase, no need to fill in your personal details, just dates and country of travel. A one day return trip is S$1, a 5 day trip is, you guessed it S$5. Check out their official website here, note that the premium is currently on sale.

My #2 goto, which could go back to #1 after the Grab promotion is FWD insurance. A very easy, straightforward coverage that has $1,000 laptop coverage and a beautiful user interface to be able to.

My #3, is a relative newcomer, DirectAsia Travel Insurance. If you are looking for coverage that covers rental vehicle excess up to S$1500, then I would have a look at this one first. Our car rental in Austria had an excess of €900 (S$1,362), so this was perfect.

I thought I would share my favourite ATM / Debit card for travelling these days. The TransferWise Debit card is super simple to use and a super bright colour, so difficult to lose as well. Each month you get $350 of fee free withdrawals. All fee's and charges are very transparent and even pushed to you on your mobile device if you have their app installed (highly recommended). After using it for 3 weeks in Austria and Germany and 1 week in Cambodia, I'm super happy with it. I have been a TransferWise user for many years as their initial product was just to help send money overseas, but this gives access to cheaper foreign currency than ever. Here are a few key points;

1. Fee free, or significantly reduced fee's for overseas usage
2. Really easy to use and view web application and mobile application
3. Push notification for transactions, telling you amount spent and amount left and any reason that a transaction was declined, i.e. incorrect pin
4. Fee's are displayed in app for each transaction
5. Card management to change pin or freeze the card is 1 click away

To use, simply sign up to TransferWise, apply for the debit card and add some money. I find the easiest way is to use PayNow with the TransferWise website. We have got into a bit of a routine that all our overseas expenses go on here and we split them 50:50. At the start of a trip we do some simple maths and both PayNow the same amount, i.e. $300 each  onto the card.

After a gruelling 2 months at work, it was time for a long anticipated break away from the organised chaos of Singapore. That's probably a bit of an exaggeration actually, as we went to Bintan Lagoon Resort for an action packed weekend of golf a few weeks ago, but any excuse for a weekend away is a great one!

We had heard that Sidemen was like Ubud 10 years ago and as we have been to Bali several times in the past few years and once to Ubud (staying in our first pool villa for my birthday), Sidemen sounded like a great place to checkout, plus we had a sneaky plan to check it out as a wedding destination that would suit both people from Singapore and Australia, not to mention the more distant guests from Europe and the Caribbean.

Sidemen is about a 1 1/2hr ride by car and with Grab will cost you around S$25. Once out of the city, the scenery starts to get pretty interesting and as we started to gain some altitude, the vivid green colours from the rice fields and mountains really started to make me feel home. There are quite a number of accommodation options catering for everyone from the budget conscious backpacker to a luxurious honeymoon at Wapa Di Ume Sidemen. We opted to stay at Sawah Indah Villa, in a pretty luxurious private wooden villa for around S$70 per night.

As for what to do... here's our quick list....

1. A self guided walk through the village ricefields
2. A cocktail by your resort pool
3. Dinner at Cepik Villa

And that's it. It's easy to get it. It's beautiful. It is peace and quiet.

After 3.5 years in Singapore, I was yet to play a full round of golf here. The heat, no clubs and the crazy prices kind of always spoilt that avenue of fun. After a sweltering 9 holes at Champions, smack in the centre of the island a few months ago, and another practice session at the driving range a couple of weeks ago, with some borrowed clubs, I was ready!
I had little to do with the whole package process (thanks Gary!) but it ended up including return ferry right to the resort, 2 rounds of 18 holes, 1 nights accommodation, 2 lunches, 1 buffet dinner, 2 buffet breakfasts at just over S$250pp. The only real exclusions were alcoholic drinks, as always and dinners.

Day 1 - Saturday Morning 7am - The Jack Nicklaus Sea View Golf course

Oh, I hate early mornings! But we were up at the crack of dawn (well, my crack of dawn) and quickly threw a few changes of clothes in a backpack, a scramble to find some respectable collared shirts (unfortunately the same ones I wear to work almost everyday) and a few heat wave essentials. Living in the east of Singapore has its perks when it comes to going to National Stadium, Changi Airport or Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal. Conveniently today was the ferry terminal. 20 minutes and a S$15 GoJek to the ferry terminal later we arrived into a sea of people. I had never seen it like this, our previous 8 journeys to Bintan had always left on Friday night, which always seemed busy, but not like this, so note to self, if you want it a bit less mental and a slightly longer break away, leave on Friday night. A quick check of 7-Eleven revealed nothing enticing. The ticket collection process was painless, as was bag-drop and customs. I was whisked through a new eye-retina scanner and into the waiting area. Some jostled boarding encounters later and our team of 6 (3 couples) posited ourselves slightly towards the back on the side, ready for a quick getaway at the other end. The 1hr 15min crossing was easy as. I love staring out the window at all the container ships (apparently 2000 at any one time) and watching the comings and goings of the crew and fuel bunkers.

It was our first time arriving into Bintan Lagoon Resorts own private ferry terminal, what a difference! It is super easy going to the other ferry terminals and being collected by their coaches, but the aura around the passengers on arrival was so different, everyone had already arrived in 'paradise' and was in a relaxed state. There was no hustle and bustle to get to the end of the jetty first.

As part of our golf package (thanks again Gary!) we were escorted in a fast transit zone, our passports were collected from us, and that was that. Nothing further, no checks, no scans, nothing. I feel they treat the resort like a bubble and we were in a secure bubble with no way out (not really true, but practically, yes). We made our own way on foot to reception to see about our rooms, said goodbye to our loved ones and headed to the pro shop about 200m from reception.

Golf check-in was also painless, we missed a large group ahead of us which probably helped, grabbed our golf carts, met our female caddies (yes, each cart gets a caddy) and drove to the driving range for a quick warm up session. I had rented standard golf clubs for about S$20 a day and hit 25 of the worst balls of my life. Consistently every shot was atrocious. I was miserable, destroyed, gutted...this was going to be a slow, painful day. Our first round would be at The Jack Nicklaus Sea View Golf course, starting on the back 9. This was in an effort to avoid the previously mentioned group ahead of us. Our flight of 4 progressed around, seemingly improving as we moved on. We stopped for lunch at the club house and met our significant others for a refuel and rehydrate session, did I mention it was absolutely sweltering hot. The course was expansive and the signature holes with Sea View were heaps of fun. As we approached the final few holes, we were exhausted, battered and bruised. A good day out.

Post-golfing involved a quick pool session with some celebratory beers...someone won, doesn't need to be named and who is counting anyway! A frantic shower and then it was time for the Rugby World Cup. A heart breaking typhoon meant we would miss out on our signature game of the weekend, France v England, but luckily as we were with our Irish friends, the Ireland v Samoa game was still on. It was expectedly a white wash, 47 - 5 to Ireland, but a good game to watch in the resorts small pub. On to our all inclusive, underwhelming buffet dinner that doesn't need to be mentioned and ending up in the games room for a bit of darts, where after a few beers, we were all performing fantastically.

Back in the room, I crashed hard. I was done for the day.

Day 2 - Sunday Morning 8am - Ian Baker-Finch Woodlands Golf course

We woke to the joyous sound of our neighbourly guests yelling (maybe communicating normally), right outside our door. The hallways are like echo chambers and their piercing screeches reverberated back and forth, I'm sure spoiling a relaxing Sunday morning for all. Luckily they were receptive to our hints that it was a bit much for this time of the day and they took it elsewhere.

Breakfast was on! I was so excited to scour the spread and find bread and butter pudding. It had been on my mind all weekend, something tripped it off in my mind and I was hooked. I remember having it on a Royal Carribean Cruise buffet and it blew me away and I had similar expectations. Unfortunately after several trips around the stations, it was nowhere to be seen. I was 💔! Never mind, I stocked up on hashbrowns, scrambled eggs and some other delicious desert and was ready for Day 2 of the golfing weekend.

Today we played the resorts other course, the Ian Baker-Finch Woodlands Golf course. This one is more inland and a bit more remote from the resort, as in once you start, you don't really come near the resort till you are on the 18th fairway. This meant that we skipped lunch and went straight through. It was a wonderful challenging course as well, with twists and turns on every hole. I lost a lot of balls on that one, in fact, 3 off one tee, which is a record for me and there was no opportunity to fill up water bottles along the way. Our caddies had brought along with us an esky with some small bottles of water, without that, we would have been really stuck. 5 hours later we made it back to the club house for our usual 1 of 2 choice lunch, fried rice or fried noodles (both were yummy) and sooner or later we were on our way to the resort ferry terminal for our trip back home.

The journey back was uneventful. Getting on was a bit of a different story. As usual, someone spooked the entire crowd and everyone lurched forward to gain prime position in front of the terminal doors. Upon opening, the flood of people running down the jetty was almost comical, if you can't beat them, join them I say, so with elbows out I jumped in and tried to secure the best spot on the boat I could. All of this is pointless and reminds me of the days on low cost carriers with no assigned seating.

All in all a great weekend.

My 12 day holiday had begun. It was a super last minute decision to choose where to go, it being monsoon season in most of South East Asia. We ended up picking the Island of Negros, a little bit South West of Bohol. We transited through Manila on Philippine Airlines, from the International terminal to Domestic, which has got to be without a doubt, the worst international airport. Word of warning, food options are terrible, there is no where to sit, it's crowded still do the old school boarding announcements which means you are on edge, trying to listen to every unintelligible word. The transit process is a bit messy, we ended up outside the terminal with a taxi driver telling us the only way to get

Dumaguette

Being a qualified diver for more than 10 years, I have only just hit 70 dives, with almost 50 of those being done in the past year, since Cannelle joined the ranks as an Open Water Diver. I was keen to rack up some experience and make up for lost time and Cannelle was keen to keep her new found qualification fresh in her mind. With that mindset we organised a weekend package with Dive In Bintan, including land transfers, accommodation and 2 days scuba diving.  The only exclusion was the ferry, which I booked with Klook.

After extensive research across blogs, Facebook and Google Maps, it was impossible to find quality information on a) whether it really was possible to dive in Bintan and b) what the dives would be like. Most of the un-constructive comments out there end up a little like this; yes, you can dive, but why would you, you should go to <insert exotic South Eastern Asia diving destination here>. As it turns out, we were pleasantly surprised with the level of organisation and the quality of the diving.

Day 0 - Friday Night - Ferry to Tanjung Pinang Ferry Terminal on Bintan

We have now made the trip from Singapore to Bintan 8 times, however it was our first time to Tanjung Pinang, which can be thought of as the main city on the island. It's a fairly painless journey, aside from a bit of jostling with the crowds that you can expect on any method of transportation in Asia. As we had booked a package deal, we were warmly greeted on arrival by a driver to take us our short 15min journey to the Aston Tanjung Pinang Hotel. As we stepped into the lobby a staff member from Dive in Bintan greeted us, he was to be our driver for the weekend. He let us check in and get our key and then we had a quick chat about the movements for the weekend and what time he would be collecting us in the morning.

The hotel is a typical business hotel anywhere in the world, clean, friendly staff and all the modern amenities you could come to expect, rates are around S$70 a night for 2 people including breakfast. We had a view from the pool which satisfied me. Hot water and a comfortable bed are really all I need these days, everything else I am prepared for.

Day 1 - Saturday Diving

Breakfast was buffet style, but not so Western, there were a couple of other local expats obviously living out of the hotel (I think working at the local Airport) and we enjoyed our mixed noodles and coffees in peace and then were whisked away with our driver to the east of the island, about a 1.5 hour drive. The drive itself is pleasant enough, you aren't sitting in traffic and the scenery of Bintan, while not exciting is certainly different to Singapore.

The dive shop is located on the main road running around the island, so you can't miss it and it has a rustic atmosphere that makes you connect with nature. Our first impression was off the gear on the racks, which looked immaculate and therefore brand new, as it turns out, it was 5 years old, but they really took great care of it.

Literally across the road and down 200m is the jetty where their boat is. It's a speedboat that could seat 8-10 divers. Today was just the 2 of us, plus our dive master, the owner, her son and 2 other staff, so 7 in total. As is usual in Asia, we didn't have to do much and we made it out to our dive sites to do 2 before lunch, then lunch on the boat at the jetty (we went back to the jetty as a storm was approaching and we had to get ready to hide), then we headed back out to a similar area to do our final afternoon dive. The dives were all quite similar, so I won't comment too much. Overall, we had super low expectations, but were surprised and impressed. I'd say the majority of the diving was 7-10m visibility and a couple of areas dropped to 3m, but only for a few minutes, until we were out of that particular area. In terms of what we saw, well it was enough to keep us satisfied, lots of fish and a few other creepy crawlies.

After all was said and done, we walked back to the dive shop, had a shower and drove back to the hotel, for a well earned rest. We had grand plans of visiting the town and eating somewhere special, but as is to be expected we were exhausted. We did manage a bit of a wander, but settled for dinner in the hotel and an early night with a bit of Netflix.

Day 2 - Sunday Diving and back to Singapore

Eat. Sleep. Dive. Repeat. Breakfast, drive back to the shop, suit up, boat. 2 dives, lunch and then back to base to get the afternoon ferry home. For our surface interval we were dropped off on a little uninhabited island took some time exploring and making friends with the crabs. As we weren't in a mad rush to get the ferry our driver took us to one of the many blue lakes on Bintan, these aren't super exciting, but they are the remnants of various mining operations in Bintan the minerals left over cause the water to turn a bright blue colour, you can't swim and are advised to avoid touching it, but it is a pleasant diversion for 15 minutes on the way to and from somewhere else.

The ferry back, by now is routine and a quick flash of a passport is about as complicated as it gets, one little trick to note, is there is a terminal fee payable as you leave, it isn't much, but it is annoying. I would think this is always payable regardless of how you bought the ticket, but do check, just in case.