Singapore
As comfortable as the Ritz-Carlton Millenia Singapore is, without the Marina Bay view from my room, checking out wasn't too sad an occasion this time around. Instead, ended up at the airport early enough to do one more food outing-- checking out the local specialties at McDonald's. With the morning departure of United flight 2 (UA 2) unfortunately precluding the lunch menu, the breakfast special of the Belgian waffle combo with scrambled egg, hash brown, and chicken sausage patty had to do. As predicted, it was pretty disappointing, especially knowing that they still made the "Belgian" waffle on a flat grill (yes, the bottom was flat), and the chicken sausage patty was, well, meh.
With my upgrade to Polaris (business class) clearing for the return trip as well, went for one of the recently-updated special meals this time. The Hindu non-vegetarian meal (isn't that just Indian food?) appetizers were okay, but the chicken biryani main course was pretty solid. N24979 was the Boeing 787-9 for the return, and with the updated electrochromatic windows that get very dark, it was quite a nice rice for the return. The flight back was made further welcoming by presence of several familiar faces-- Purser David and FA Girish are familiar faces on the San Francisco to Singapore route, and it turns out the pilots, including Captain Luke Eulitt, were the same ones who had operated UA 1 on the way over two nights ago.
The pre-arrival special meal was a carb-heavy thing, not bad, but was nice to have some time at the Polaris Lounge at SFO to get a bit more protein for breakfast on arrival. Yes, it was a bit sad to not get congee from the regular pre-arrival meal, but all in the name of science?
Final flight of the trip was greeted much like the second-to-last landing was, beautiful weather over San Francisco, lovely views of both the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, the city of San Francisco, and the Golden Gate Bridge, before turning south for Los Angeles International Airport and a smooth landing at LAX.