Where am I again?

I'm in Singapore.  See, the thing is that I've always wanted to go to Asia, and then I found a pretty incredible deal to get over here while surfing flights and frequent flyer websites.  Strangely enough, even cheaper than just flying to Tokyo or Hong Kong, both of which I am flying through this week.  Cheaper than going to Europe.  In fact, cheaper (by several hundred dollars) than flying to Newark, NJ from Nashville.

So, I asked Dru if she wanted to go, but she was completely uninterested.  So then I asked what she thought about just me going, and I got an answer where she said "I don't have a problem with that" but the unspoken language (which boys can't hear, obviously), was pretty much "are you out of your mind?"  So I got my tickets.  Besides, Dru left me at home alone this year already, going to a frozen yoga retreat in the Smokies.  Basically the same thing, right?

Singapore, Day 0 (Travel)

Part A of this little saga is the journey from East Nashville to my hotel in Singapore.  I won't beat it to death, but let me point out that it is a LONG way...right about 10,000 miles and 29 hours.  I left for the airport a little before 6 AM on Saturday morning, for a flight to Chicago.  After sitting in O'Hare for a few hours, I got on a plane to Tokyo.  On a side note, it was my first time on a 747 probably since I was about 5 years old.  Big jets get me hot, and there is not much bigger than a 747 (okay, the A380, but I'll get to that).  So, ORD to NRT is scheduled at 13 hours in the air, and we used all of that.  Funny thing is, that is a heck of a long flight, but I wasn't even 2/3 of the way there yet.  I got off the flight and got on another plane for seven more hours.  Yikes!  At the end of the day, I had left home at 6 AM on October 31, and arrived in Singapore around 1 AM on November 2.

Singapore, Day 1

I was understandably bushed today, after a long journey and a short night of sleep.  I got up at 7:30 AM, showered and unpacked, and had a look at the guidebook.  The plan was basically to take it easy, see the city, etc.  I mapped out a route down Orchard road, which is probably the shopping mecca of this part of the world, and then over into Little India.  Little India was really neat.  While Singapore as a whole is very much "build it bigger, more steel, more glass", Little India consisted entirely of 2-3 story buildings that looked like they had been there for 50 years.  Every foot of street level space is shops, restaurants, and markets.  I did nothing but walk up and down the alleys for about 2 hours, soaking it in.

Finally I settled in at a place for lunch, serving Indian food, obviously.  I had chicken biryani, which was spicy and good.  Turns out that utensils are not par for the course, as everyone around me was just digging in with their fingers.  When in Rome....  Interestingly enough, napkins are also not standard, which left me with some greasy hands after lunch.  At this point, I decided to stumble on home, probably about a 2.5 mile walk.

Singapore is just one and a half degrees north of the equator, and I had heard about the heat, but I wasn't concerned.  Looking at the weather, the high was going to be mid to upper 80s, with humidity around 60%.  Ha! I said...I'm from Nashville, where we have 95 degree days with 95% humidity...mid 80s is a cakewalk!  Well, I set off on my trek, with my jeans and shoes.  After lunch, I needed a siesta, becase it was getting HOT!  The temperature may have not been through the roof, but that tropical sun was beating down.  I think the combination of the long plane ride followed by the heat got me pretty dehydrated and overheated, because I was litteraly stumbling down the hall by the time I got back to the hotel.  I drank about a gallon of water and went to bed.

After a nap and a cooling rainstorm, I hit the streets again, to find Chinatown and dinner.  Chinatown, interestingly, was not especially Chinese.  It was not like going to Chinatown in Boston or San Fransisco, where you have sudden culture shock walking in.  Singapore is extremely diverse, full of transplants from Malaysia, India, Japan, China, Britain, and many other places.  Hence, there are Chinese businesses all over the city, rather than being concentrated in one neighborhood.  The same is true of all those cultures...Chinatown is home to a number of very British-looking law firms, plus the Singapore office of Williams-Sonoma.  (Note that I have not seen a WS store, just the office.)

Dinner was at a hawker center, which I will write up in another post.  Suffice it to say that it was delicious and cheap.  Future posts will also include shopping mania and a strange observation on businesses here.  Sorry that there isn't much for pictures, but I am saving them for future posts.  With that, it is 9:15 PM here and 7:15 AM at home, so I think I'm tired.