Hmmm… looks like I can’t get wireless to work here at Singapore Airport. I’ll just type this in in the hope that I can get it uploaded later.   We’re sitting here waiting for our trip to Bangalore after a really wonderful and relaxing day looking around Singapore with our friends and hosts Lucy and Lip. Lucy and I worked together closely in the late 90s..   At that point she and Lip lived in Fishkill NY.. They moved out to the west coast several years back then both retired and moved back home to Singapore. They both came to the airport last night and picked us up around 1 AM.. We drove back to their place after a quick stop at a 7/11 for interesting snacks . Here are some pictures from last night

 

On the plane into Tokyo

 

 

They served us Ben and Jerry’s !

 

 

The plane was packed

 

 

Here’s proof we were in Japan  (at least the transit lounge at Narita)

 

 

There’s a SamStone there now !

 

Filing out our landing cards.. Welcome to Singapore !

 

 

Left a SamStone on the plane

 

 

The wonderful Singapore Air staff

 

The beautiful Singapore Airport

 

Very western.. but not all is the same

 

 

 

Meeting up with Lucy and Lip (and Ronald)

 

 

Right hand drive cars !

 

 

he makings of our feast from the local 7-11

 

 

 

 

 

No shoes in Singaporean houses

 

 

 

Lucy and Lip  have a wonderful apartment on the 20^th floor of a very nice building close to the airport ,  The building has some great views of the city

 

 

The view from the apartment at night

 

 

 

 

and shares a very cool pool and recreation center,   Best of all it had nice beds for us.. We all fell asleep at 2:30 and woke up just before 9am

 

The view from the apartment by day

 

 

 

Perfect thing for jetlag. We woke up feeling very refreshed.. that said.. I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open at this point ..

 

Ok.. we’re now on the plane to Bangalore.. it’s only a four hour trip. I’m watching the flight attendants running around trying to sort out everyone’s special meals. Looks like many folks on this flight are vegetarians.. nearly all of them look as though they’re from India…

 

OK.. where was I about. our day ?   Oh yeah.. We ate a light breakfast then packed up then we got in the car that Lucy Li p are  car-sitting for a relative. They don’t own a car here.. and don’t need one. The public transport here is really good.. and car’s are phenomenally expensive.. The Gov’t taxes them nearly 50% of their value  as a way of paying for road use.. and keeping the number of cars down. They told us that with the tax a nice minivan would go for  about $100K Singapore .. which is about $70K US. In addition to taxing cars, there’s a cool road taxing system that charges folks for being on certain roads at certain times of the day. Everyone has a little wireless box on their windshields. You insert a cash card into the box and the tools are automatically deducted. If you don’t have one on and you enter the zone it’s an automatic $70US fine.  The system’s  used to control congestion during peak hours.. And they need it.. the whole country sits on this island and is the size of a city.. Lip told us that Singapore  packs about 4 million people into the same amount of land as Dutchess County NY… where they used to live.    

 

Even so.. the place never felt uncomfortably crowded. The whole town is clean and well manicured.. tons of trees and flowers. As you can imagine.. land prices are exorbitant so  most folks live in high rise buildings like our hosts.. that seems to leave lots of space for greenery.

 

We drove to the symphony/arts center that the locals call ‘the durian’.. because it looks like that evil smelling fruit..  

 

 

 

Here’s a ‚real’ durian cut into a face

 

 

We ate some.. pretty strange !  like rotten custard yum !

 

 

 

We took a walk around there and saw the Singapore river and the trademark mer-lion sculpture..

 

 

  Singapore means ‘land of the lions’  because the first guy here thought he saw a lion.. but there have never been lions here…  Funny.. but hey, the  indigenous inhabitants of the Americas were dubbed ‘Indians’ because of an explorers  mistake as well.

 

The famous Raffles hotel

 

 

Around the arts center

 

 

 

The site of c new casino

 

Downtown

 

 

 

 

We walked around inside the arts center and the shopping mall attached to it. It was full of upscale shops.. we could have been anywhere on the planet..

 

 

 

 

 

 

Every thing in the mall had color changing lights

 

 

 

 

 

That’s one thing that’s so remarkable here..  Everything is written in English.. everyone we met spoke perfect English.. The stores and brands were familiar.. it’s an extremely Western  place.. even though most folks here are of Chinese, Tamil or Malaysian backgrounds. It’s a really amazing melting pot.  We saw a cool art exhibit made by kids..  you can see the ethnic blending in their names.

 

 

 

 

The show was sponsored by Croc’s .. so one kid made a Croc

 

Another mysterious piece of art

 

 

After some window-shopping we went to a very upscale food court filled with Singaporean food stalls.. It looked and smelled delicious. Lucy and Lip helped us locate some really amazing local specialties.. I had a spicy noodle dish with fish and vegetables  (I’m not doing the vegan thing on this trip.. too hard) . Gabe had a chicken and pork barbeque-y thing.. and Diane had sour-gourds on rice.. All were yummy…

 

 

We saw Buddhist monks everywhere we went today..

 

 

 

 

 

 For desert Lip got two local Malayan dishes. One was iced coconut with black beans and a special type of sugar.. the other was shaved ice with black beans, corn. Palm seeds and I can’t remember what else.. They were unlike anything I’d ever eaten and were cold and delicious.. 

 

 

From there we drove to the Botanical gardens and walked through there to see their orchid garden.. It rained briefly as we drove over .. so the air was cool  and the  place was pretty empty as we walked around. It was really beautiful..

 

 

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Visiting students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diane and Gabe in the mist house

 

 

 

We left a SamStone in the garden

 

 

As we walked we caught up with Lip and Lucy..  They told us about how much they enjoy their lives as retirees.. both retired early.. in their 50s and now spend their time  with relatives, traveling, visiting national parks and volunteering. They told us about  the school that they volunteered in. They help run an after school program for kids who need extra help. The school system here is really competitive.. everyone can go.. but the kids who don’t  score well on tests tend to get less help and fewer services. Their work helps some of these kids keep up.. 

 

Here’s the school they do their volunteering in

 

 

I’d never met Lip face-to-face before.. he used to work for IBM in Somers. It turns out that we have many mutual friends..   It’s always fun playing ‘who do you know’  Lip and Lucy are wonderful people. We’re so glad that we were able to hang out with them.

 

After the Gardens we drove through some commercial sections of town.. We passed by a beautiful Malayan market place surrounded by Halal restaurants. They are all observing Ramadan now which is almost over. You could see signs for the  end of Ramadan feast everywhere.  Here’s a cool Mosque we saw

 

 

 We stopped in a  Chinese neighborhood to pick up a late lunch snack. We bought Lak-sa from Lip’s favorite place and took it back to their apartment.

 

 

The place had gotten written up in the paper.

 

Yum .. a cold coconut oda

 

 

It was about 4PM at that point.. Diane,  Gabe and I borrowed  swim suits and marched down for the pool. Gabe and I went in and goofed off in the pool for an hour or so.(‘Marco’ ‘Polo’)  It felt really good to be in the water.. we had this huge pool with tunnels, fountains, bridges and waterfalls almost to ourselves. One cool thing they had was an underwater speaker that played music from a local radio station underwater !..

 

 

The pool was covered with signs of what you couldn’t do… which is the Singaporean way.. The wonderful cleanliness and order they have in their society is a result of many, many rules…”sign-sign, ever where a sign…”    they even make fun of themselves about it .. They had shirts talking about Sign-apore..   It’s a ‘fine city’ J

 

 

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Around 5:30 we went up to the apartment,

 

 

 ate our Lak-sa

 

 

and headed off for the short drive to the airport.  We said a fond good bye to Lip and Lucy

 

 

 

and wandered off in search of our plane.. What a great day it was.. it was so much better than it could have been  hanging out in the airport with an 18 hour layover.

 

OK.. I’m going to finish here.. We land in Bangalore in less than an hour.. and I’m almost out of batteries..   First impressions of there tomorrow.

 

Goodnigt folks from as far from home as we can get on this planet…   G’nite  Sam

 

-DGJ