Because of bureaucracy in Jakarta the way to get a work visa isn't through an embassy. Instead you have to fly to Singapore and give your passport to some bloke in Mc Donalds who gives it back four hours later with a visa inside. My DOS needed his visa done at the same time as me so we set off at 3am on Friday morning. The school booked the tickets with the cheapest airline possible. They are also notorious for being the worst airline in the world. They hold the record for most engines blown upon landing because of inexperienced pilots landing too fast. One of the girls at work has a boyfriend who works for Lion Air and he said they had a pilot working there who was fired in New Zealand for drinking on the job. When talking to the boyfriend at a works dinner, he told me proudly how it took him only two years to train. 'My literature degree took longer than that' I thought 'and I still don't get Jane Austin.' I asked him if you still needed 20/20 vision and he laughed and said he needed glasses nearly as thick as the bottom of the beer he was holding. He then pulled them out and put them on.
'Wow, you have green eyes?' he asked, before walking into a table. 
'Not really.' I said. Then his girlfriend came along and told him to stop drinking because he didn't want another incident at work. I hoped to myself that I would never have him as a pilot. This was a hope I would come to sorely regret. I would gladly have had him or the pilot who was fired for drinking over who I had on Saturday.
I was very glad to have the DOS with me the morning we left because I don't function without sleep. I miss-spelled my name on the departure card and kept drifting off while I was walking around. I might as well have been reading 'Pride and Prejudice.' I had no idea what was going on but it was making me more sleepy with every minute. When we got on the plane I plugged my ears and put a blindfold on. There was no safety announcement and no bullshit. The pilot whopped that plane into gear and made for the runway. I ignored normal take off protocol and reclined my seat. Then I started dreaming about a City that doesn't smell like shit all the time. My peace was short lived.

As the plane wound up for the take off and rammed us all back into our seats there was a big clunk a group of women screamed near the front of the plane. The plane wound down. One of the doors had fallen off.
'Standard Lion Air take off.' I joked.
'I'm glad we aren't sitting there,' said my DOS 'We'd be holding the door on for the next one!' We laughed with another white person who overheard us. Then the pilot came over the speakers to reassure us all about the 'rejected launch' and each of our smiles was wiped. I looked over at my DOS and he had gone very pale. Everyone on board was suddenly frozen as the cabin crew exchanged nervous glances. The babies stopped crying. By the time the announcement was finished you could have heard a pin drop on the carpet. People didn't need to understand English to get the message. It was a woman's voice coming through the speakers. The pilot was a woman.
Understandably a few poor bastards couldn't take it anymore and made a dash to get off. It was no use. Our fate was sealed. It would have delayed the plane so much to let them off that the passengers who were crazy enough/ needed to get to Singapore so badly they would risk there lives gave them such stares that the shame was too much for them to bear. This was particularly true with Asian culture as it is.  We waited for the door repair and the paper work then set off again. Of course nobody could get any sleep after finding out about the pilot so we were forced to endure a flight where everyone jumped out of their seat at the faintest hint of turbulence. Thank God we made it.

Changi airport in Singapore is incredible. It has a free cinema, free water, free phone calls, a snooze lounge and many other wonderful features. After we dropped off our passports with the most stressed man to walk the earth,  we took a walk through the city. There were hardly any cars on the roads because apparently there is a kind of lottery to get driving licenses. Every road, pavement and toilet seemed cleaner than most tables in Jakarta. We wandered around a huge market place and I bought a fridge magnet for my nan and an 'I love Singapore,' t-shirt. When we got our passports back we went straight back to the airport and tried to get some sleep in the snooze lounge before the return flight. We were both still a bit shaken from the flight over.