Bolish Web of the Odd: From Okinawa to Signapore

A lot has gone on since my last post. In two weeks, I've flown about 7000 miles. After a week in Okinawa, I left for Singapore on 21 Jan. I learned that China Air is definitely not my favorite airline. When I checked in at the airport in Okinawa, they told me that my bags could only weigh a total of 20 kg (45 lbs). This limit wasn't per piece, it was a total. After going around and around, I finally convinced a supervisor to allow my checked bags. She said because I was continuing on to the US I could use the US limits of 20 kg per piece. Next, they wanted me to check my computer bag because it weighed more than 7 kg. Apparently the limit is about 15 lbs per item for each carry-on. I tried to empty the heavy stuff out but even empty, it was 9 kg. Again, I had to get the supervisor to sign off that it was okay to take my bags on the plane. At this point, I'm expecting to get on a rickety plane with a bunch of goats and chickens. As it turned out, the plane was a fairly new Boeing 757. I got to Tai Pei and had a couple of hours to wander the airport. I didn't have any Chinese money and there wasn't a cash machine or money exchange to be found so I couldn't even buy a soda, which cost 30 tai dollars. I finally got on the next plane which turned out to be a brand new Airbus 330. The entertainment system had about 60 movies and 300 CD choices. It turned out to be a nice flight...The food (an unidentifiable substance labeled “chikin”) was horrible, but the flight was nice. I was able to watch a couple of movies and stretch out... the plane itself was only about 1/4 full, so they shouldn’t have had any issue with the weight of my bags.

Anyway, once I reached Singapore, I checked back into the Hilton. I then met up with Trey and Neetu who had been in Singapore for 3 weeks. We walked over to the Hard Rock Café, which was right next to the hotel, and got some food. The CHICKEN sandwich I had was much better than whatever they gave me on the flight. I spent the week in Singapore helping out wherever I could. We had a meeting at the end of the week that we had to prepare for. Outside of work, I managed to get some shopping done and took a day to visit Sentosa.

On Sunday (22 Jan), Neetu, Trey, and I took a trip to Sentosa. We learned that Sentosa is basically a tourist trap on a tropical island just south of the Singapore main island. We took the cable car into Sentosa. The cable cars are about 200 feet off the ground. To get to them, you take an elevator to the 15th floor of a building. The picture below is just as we were coming out of the building… the tower in the distance is at least 200 feet tall. Not for ANYONE afraid of heights!! Once we arrived on the island, we took a tour over to the aquarium (known as Underwater World.) They have a collection of crabs from all around the world. It’s pretty neat. The picture below is of a Giant Japanese Spider Crab. They get to be about 7 feet across… I’m sure they taste good with some butter! For lunch, we ate some Ben & Jerry’s ice cream on the beach near the aquarium, then hopped back on the tour bus. It took us over to a place called Cinerama. They described it as a motion ride like from Universal Studios or Disneyland. It turns out to be a rather less interesting, bumpy, vomit inducing experience. We decided that part of the tour was a waste of money for sure. After our near motion sickness ride, we walked around and took some pictures of the orchids and sites. At one point, Trey noticed that there were some monkeys in one of the trees. As I was taking a picture of the mama and the baby, Trey noticed that the papa and another mama were working on another baby. It was definitely like something you’d see on the discovery channel!!

After our eventful day in Sentosa, Neetu and I dragged Trey to one of our favorite Indian restaurants (Mumtaz Muhal). If you ever make it to Singapore, I recommend finding this place. It is in the Far East Plaza off of Scott’s Road… it is on the top floor. They have the best cauliflower I’ve ever eaten. This says a lot since I can’t stand cauliflower. Something about a pale version of broccoli never appealed to me. Anyway, Trey agreed that all of the food was great (he’d never actually had Indian food). The fact that the food was good helped and I’m sure the Kingfisher Strong beer he drank helped.

The last day in Singapore was spent trying to figure out what to do with all of our time. Neetu left on Friday and Trey and I were scheduled to leave Sunday at 1:00a. We spent part of Saturday morning doing some last minute shopping and then checked out of the hotel at about 4:00p. We had 9 hours to kill before our flight left. We managed to hang around the Hilton lounge for a few hours, then headed out to get some dinner. We went all the way over to Boat Quay just to find out that everything had closed at about 6:00p. We wandered around for a while, then headed back to the Hard Rock Café (next to Hilton) and got dinner. We left for the airport around 10:30p so that we could get there and spend over an hour in the lounge watching soccer. We finally boarded the plane after midnight and headed for Rome.

My rating of Singapore is a 9.5. The city is clean, orderly, and everyone is friendly (it’s illegal not to be!) The humidity makes it a little sticky (like DC in the summer) but the weather is generally agreeable. The original description still seems to apply (it’s like New York if it were built on a tropical island by Walk Disney). I highly recommend a few restaurants if you make it there:

Indian food: Mumtaz Muhal
Seafood: Jumbo’s at Clark Quay
and my favorite… Terror Club (where we had to eat lunch almost every day!