Between Worlds: What Changi Airport Taught Me About Stillness, Transit, and the Illusion of Arrival
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Between Worlds
What Changi Airport Taught Me About Stillness, Transit, and the Illusion of Arrival
There’s something unsettling about how perfect Changi is.
The waterfall, for one — not a metaphorical one, but the actual Rain Vortex in the middle of Jewel. It’s serene, surreal, engineered beauty. You stand beneath it, bags still under your eyes from the last flight, and suddenly you’re not quite in an airport anymore. You’re somewhere else — but not home, not away. Not yet arrived, but no longer where you began.
That in-between space — I felt it more at Changi than almost anywhere else.
It’s not just the quiet efficiency. It’s how softly the place moves. Security is calm. Toilets are scented. Lighting is always gentle. You’re guided more than managed. Even the chaos of transit feels... orchestrated.
And maybe that’s what stayed with me most:
Changi is a space designed to make waiting feel like not waiting.
To ease you through the discomfort of pause.
To convince you that being nowhere is a kind of luxury.
But being between things — between places, roles, thoughts — has always been uneasy for me. I like momentum. I like knowing what’s next. And yet, at Changi, I found myself sitting still longer than usual. Watching people. Breathing slower. Thinking differently.
It made me realise: I don’t give myself much space between the steps.
Not in work. Not in travel. Not even in thought.
We’re taught to move forward. To land. To arrive.
But sometimes the pause is where the truth is.
At Changi, with nowhere to be but the next gate, I wasn’t in a rush. And maybe that was the point.
“Sometimes, the real destination is the space where nothing is expected of you.”
A Note from Me
This post is part of my Reflections in Transit series — quiet stories from the spaces we usually rush through, but rarely stop to feel.
I write between homes — the UK, Slovakia, and the Philippines — and between roles: as a global buyer, creative brand builder, and someone still learning to slow down.
Anahaw was born in one of those in-between spaces — a way to honour home, presence, and small everyday rituals through design, comfort, and story.