Chad’s Blog

I’m on my way to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to start my next posting. I’ve been waiting for this day for quite a while with a mix of anticipation and regret, but Singapore Air decided that I’d have to wait one more day. It’s never a good sign when stepping off a plane someone is calling passengers on your connecting flight in a different direction than the rest of the crowd. It’s even worse when they lead you to a desk. I didn’t have enough time to make my connecting fight so they kindly offered to put me on the next available flight – tomorrow. I’m of the opinion that in the time I spent arguing with them I could have made the flight.

I’ve spent the past two hours getting Jak into the airport quarantine and getting myself into the transit hotel. I felt bad for Jak. All he wanted to do was get out of his cage, and I’m sure the only thing on his mind was, “must pee.” I hope the quarantine has makes a litter box available, otherwise I’m going to have one pissed off smelly cat.

Despite the inconvenience, being stuck in Changi airport in Singapore isn’t a bad experience. I don’t know of any other airport that serves free beer with a live band to celebrate Oktoberfest in June. I’ll stop writing now that the “Bavarian Dance” has started.

There’s something slightly, “WWII gone awry” about a bunch of Asians in lederhosen.

I’m also putting the fastest internet I’ve had in months to use by updating the blog and downloading a host of other stuff.

Singapore’s ports are some of the busiest in the world.  The percentage of the world’s goods that pass through must be incredible.  I wanted to go see for myself.  I’ll fully admit that this is a guy type fascination with big machines and nothing more.

We took the cable car across to Sentosa island.  The view was pretty cool.

I don’t think we’ve taken a photo in something like this since the last time my family traveled to Disney World.  This just confirms the validity of my description of Singapore as ‘Disneylandish.’  I think I’m going to create a Wikipedia entry for the word and credit myself.  I could also add ‘Disneylandishness’ as the noun form and ‘Disneylandy’ as the adverb, although I’m not sure how to use the later in a sentence.

We took a trip out to the Night Safari. This was a trial run for the jungle adventure that was to come. Mom even handled the bat chamber with admirable calm.

The animals were beautiful. It was so nice to see them in habitats that seemed natural, even if they weren’t as large as they should have been. As you can imagine, taking decent photos of them was very difficult in close to complete darkness.

When we arrived, there was some kind of ceremony going on. Maybe my time in Asia is getting to me because I’m starting to like the super rich colours.

Maybe I could set up my very own shrine with one of these Buddhas.

I keep seeing old Vespas everywhere, and they’re cheap. Too bad I don’t trust myself enough to ever drive one and feel safe. This despite the fact that I hop on the back of one to ride through the crazy Jakarta traffic on a regular basis.

It was such a pleasure to eat fresh food without worrying about its bacteria and parasite content.  I filled my taco salad craving a couple of times in Clarke Quay.  The only word I can use to describe this area is Disneylandish.

We took a boat cruise from Clarke Quay down to the port to see the city at night. Singapore’s mascot up until 1997 was a Merlion.  This strange fish-lion creature is still throughout the city, and is a trademark of the city.  Disney couldn’t have done better himself.

A visit to the home of the Singapore Sling was a mandatory stop as far as I was concerned.

I think Mom enjoyed a little taste of the colonial lifestyle in the process.

Despite the overpriced drinks and clear tourist marketing, the Raffles Hotel was a spectacular piece of colonial architecture. The Brits, even an outcast like Raffles, really seemed to have it together when it came to building cities. Compared to what the Dutch left in Jakarta, Singapore has some great architecture.

In Malay and Bahasa Indonesia the letter ‘c’ is pronounced like ‘ch’ in English.  Thus…

I had been looking forward to wandering Singapore’s little India since I passed through a few months ago. On my first two trips to Singapore, I did next to nothing besides work or play Ultimate. This time around, I planned on eating. What better way to start than in Little India.

It was the beginning of Diwali and decorations were everywhere.

In true Asian fashion, bright colours seem to be found anywhere.

Admittedly, he’s not Indian and the photo wasn’t taken in Little India, but he certainly seems like a colourful character to me.

I flew into Singapore on the eve of Idul Fitri and arrived an hour before my parents. Free internet access passed the time quickly. I managed to get to their gate just in time to see them stepping off the plane.

It felt completely normal to be walking around an airport with my parents, which is good considering we were destined to spend a lot of time in airports. It didn’t seem at all like I hadn’t seen them in over a year. It’s amazing how easily we can slip in and out of our roles in different relationships.