{"id":1271,"date":"2007-10-08T19:57:00","date_gmt":"2007-10-08T23:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/10\/08\/monday-eveing-passage-to-india\/"},"modified":"2007-10-08T19:57:00","modified_gmt":"2007-10-08T23:57:00","slug":"monday-eveing-passage-to-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/10\/08\/monday-eveing-passage-to-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Monday eveing – passage to India"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hmmm\u2026 looks like I can’t get wireless to work here at Singapore<\/st1:placename> Airport<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>. I’ll just type this in in the hope that I can get it uploaded later.   <\/span>We’re sitting here waiting for our trip to Bangalore<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> after a really wonderful and relaxing day looking around Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> with our friends and hosts Lucy and Lip. Lucy and I worked together closely in the late 90s..   <\/span>At that point she and Lip lived in Fishkill<\/st1:city> NY<\/st1:state><\/st1:place>.. They moved out to the west coast several years back then both retired and moved back home to Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>. They both came to the airport last night and picked us up around 1 AM<\/st1:time>.. We drove back to their place after a quick stop at a 7\/11 for interesting snacks . Here are some pictures from last night <\/p>\n

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On the plane into Tokyo<\/st1:place><\/st1:city><\/o:p><\/p>\n

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They served us Ben and Jerry’s !<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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The plane was packed<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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Here’s proof we were in Japan<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>  <\/span>(at least the transit lounge at Narita)<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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There’s a SamStone there now !<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Filing out our landing cards.. Welcome to Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> !<\/p>\n

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Left a SamStone on the plane<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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The wonderful Singapore Air staff<\/o:p><\/p>\n


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The beautiful Singapore Airport<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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Very western.. but not all is the same<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Meeting up with Lucy and Lip (and Ronald) <\/p>\n

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Right hand drive cars !<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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he makings of our feast from the local 7-11<\/p>\n

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No shoes in Singaporean houses<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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Lucy and Lip  <\/span>have a wonderful apartment on the 20th<\/sup> floor of a very nice building close to the airport ,  <\/span>The building has some great views of the city <\/p>\n

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The view from the apartment at night<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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and shares a very cool pool and recreation center,   <\/span>Best of all it had nice beds for us.. We all fell asleep at 2:30<\/st1:time> and woke up just before 9am<\/st1:time> <\/p>\n

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The view from the apartment by day <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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

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Ok.. we’re now on the plane to Bangalore<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.. 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<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>\u2026<\/p>\n

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OK.. where was I about. our day ?   <\/span>Oh yeah.. We ate a light breakfast then packed up then we got in the car that Lucy Li p are  <\/span>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  <\/span>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  <\/span>about $100K Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> .. 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.  <\/span>The system’s  <\/span>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<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>  <\/span>packs about 4 million people into the same amount of land as Dutchess<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placetype> NY<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>\u2026 where they used to live.    <\/span><\/p>\n

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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  <\/span>most folks live in high rise buildings like our hosts.. that seems to leave lots of space for greenery.<\/p>\n

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We drove to the symphony\/arts center that the locals call ‘the durian’.. because it looks like that evil smelling fruit..   <\/span><\/p>\n

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Here’s a \u201areal’ durian cut into a face<\/p>\n

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We ate some.. pretty strange !  <\/span>like rotten custard yum !<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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We took a walk around there and saw the Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> river and the trademark mer-lion sculpture.. <\/p>\n

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  <\/span><\/span>Singapore<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> means ‘land of the lions’  <\/span>because the first guy here thought he saw a lion.. but there have never been lions here\u2026  <\/span>Funny.. but hey, the  <\/span>indigenous inhabitants of the Americas<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> were dubbed ‘Indians’ because of an explorers  <\/span>mistake as well. <\/p>\n

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The famous Raffles hotel <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Around the arts center <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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The site of c new casino<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Downtown<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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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.. <\/p>\n

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Every thing in the mall had color changing lights<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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

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The show was sponsored by Croc’s .. so one kid made a Croc <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Another mysterious piece of art<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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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  <\/span>(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\u2026<\/p>\n

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We saw Buddhist monks everywhere we went today..<\/p>\n

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 <\/span><\/span>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..  <\/span><\/p>\n

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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  <\/span>and the  <\/span>place was pretty empty as we walked around. It was really beautiful.. <\/p>\n

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Visiting students<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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Diane and Gabe in the mist house<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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We left a SamStone in the garden<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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As we walked we caught up with Lip and Lucy..  <\/span>They told us about how much they enjoy their lives as retirees.. both retired early.. in their 50s and now spend their time  <\/span>with relatives, traveling, visiting national parks and volunteering. They told us about  <\/span>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  <\/span>score well on tests tend to get less help and fewer services. Their work helps some of these kids keep up..  <\/span><\/p>\n

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Here’s the school they do their volunteering in <\/o:p><\/p>\n

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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..   <\/span>It’s always fun playing ‘who do you know’  <\/span>Lip and Lucy are wonderful people. We’re so glad that we were able to hang out with them. <\/p>\n

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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  <\/span>end of Ramadan feast everywhere.  <\/span>Here’s a cool Mosque we saw<\/p>\n

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 <\/span><\/span>We stopped in a  <\/span>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. <\/p>\n

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The place had gotten written up in the paper.<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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Yum .. a cold coconut oda<\/o:p><\/span><\/p>\n

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It was about 4PM<\/st1:time> at that point.. Diane,  <\/span>Gabe and I borrowed  <\/span>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’)  <\/span>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 !.. <\/p>\n

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The pool was covered with signs of what you couldn’t do\u2026 which is the Singaporean way.. The wonderful cleanliness and order they have in their society is a result of many, many rules\u2026”sign-sign, ever where a sign\u2026”    <\/span>they even make fun of themselves about it .. They had shirts talking about Sign-apore..   <\/span>It’s a ‘fine city’ J<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

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Around 5:30<\/st1:time> we went up to the apartment,<\/p>\n

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 <\/span><\/span>ate our Lak-sa <\/p>\n

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and headed off for the short drive to the airport.  <\/span>We said a fond good bye to Lip and Lucy <\/p>\n

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

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OK.. I’m going to finish here.. We land in Bangalore<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> in less than an hour.. and I’m almost out of batteries..   <\/span>First impressions of there tomorrow. <\/p>\n

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Goodnigt folks from as far from home as we can get on this planet\u2026   <\/span>G’nite  <\/span>Sam<\/p>\n

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-DGJ<\/o:p><\/p>\n

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    Hmmm\u2026 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 … Continue reading Monday eveing – passage to India<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1271\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}