And the winner is........

Hello, readers,
We are now home as of Tuesday afternoon, a day later than expected.
I was planning to write about our 3 days in Germany, but I guess I got lazy.
The highlights were probably the high speed train (260 km per hour) and a visit to a medieval university town called Tubingen. We were confused half the time since there were no English signs or instructions. ( Which bathroom should I go in, Herren or Damen ?) Tried Schnitzel and Spatzle and wonderful pastries. Loved the weather, no humidity.

So Derek picked us up in Toronto, and we were back to Reality, which included a lost suitcase and a large tree blown down in our back yard. But the cat was really happy to see us, and we were happy to sleep in our own bed.
My suitcase has since shown up, and I made the draw for the bag. And the winner is..... Cheryl! Congratulations, I will mail it to you tomorrow.

Thank you all for being readers of the blog. I enjoyed doing it, and it makes a great souvenir for us. It is fun to travel and see new things, but we all know that the best is to see the familiar faces of you, our favourite people, our family and friends.

That's it for now. And in case you were wondering, I made the right choice. I went in to Damen.

Singapore is a Fine City

Singapore is a Fine City.

No smoking - Fine $1000.
No urinating in lifts - Fine $500.
No feeding the birds - Fine $1000.
No eating and drinking on the subway - Fine $500.
No littering - Fine $1000.
Not flushing the toilet - Fine $150.
Possession of firecrackers - Caning
Possession of Drugs (20g.) - Death Sentence
Vandalism - Jail and Caning
No spitting - Fine $300.
No chewing gum - Fine $800.
No using mobile phones while driving - Fine $1000.
No flammable goods - Fine $5000.
No water wasting - Fine $1000.
No picking the flowers - Fine $500.

(Information gleaned from a souvenir Tshirt. Accuracy not guaranteed, but probably pretty close to being right.)

We managed to stay in Singapore for 2 weeks without getting any fines!

Goodbye Singapore!

Last day in Singapore -- our flight was in the evening. One of the things we wanted to do and hadn't done yet was view the city from a high vantage point. They have a Singapore Flyer, a ferris wheel type ride like the London Eye. But my guide book said that it was pricey and you could actually get a better (free) view from the 70th floor of a downtown hotel. So we went there, and the view was pretty cool. Here are a couple of samples.


This is a bird's eye view of St. Andrews Cathedral-- remember, I visited it way back on my first Saturday here.

It also would have been interesting to see the view from the top of this innovative new building.

Singapore has decided to let a casino into the country. The 3 towers are connected at the top with a huge SkyPark. According to the website it is opening soon.

And I can't leave without telling you about my shophouse obsession. They were built in the old days, just 4 to 6 metres wide, with a shop on the ground level and a place to live upstairs. A lot were torn down in the 60s and 70s, but now they are treasured and restored. Often painted in bright colours, I just found them really attractive, so I took pictures of them whenever I came across them. I thought some might be nice enough to frame when I got home. Here's a couple of samples.



So, it's time to leave Singapore.
Foods I wish I'd been brave enough to try:
durian, king of the fruits
fish head curry soup (spicy)
I should have taken more shophouse photos.
Goodbye Singapore.

Final Tour

Our time in Singapore is coming to an end. We did lots of things, but there are lots more things we could have done. Today I sent Jim off to the weekly chapel, sent my regrets, and played hooky to go on a final tour. This tour took us out of the downtown core to see other areas of the island -- I assumed to see the countryside. Guess what --there is no countryside! The entire island is built up and developed. I shouldn't have been surprised. It's one of the smallest countries in the world, no where near as big as Prince Edward Island, and it has 5 million people! For the last 50 years they have successfully increased the size of the island by doing land reclamation on 3 sides of the island. I think one of the hotels we stayed at was on reclaimed land. It boggles the mind.


The tour guide told us that 90% of people live in high rises.

I asked if there was any agriculture. She said only 2% of land is used for agriculture. I think there's an organic farmer somewhere on the island. So all that food we ate was brought from somewhere else. Every day there are 1000 ships out there in the harbour waiting their turn to unload their products. It's the world's busiest container port by tonnage. They also import people to fill blue collar jobs. Being the rich country on the block, people from neighbouring poorer countries come here to work. We met a young woman working in the hotel who was from the Philippines. She has a one year old son back home who she misses very much. She said she was doing it for him.

Many containers at the port

A major stop on our tour was the Changi Museum on the east coast. We were not allowed to take photos, but I think they have a good website if you are interested. This area was a prison for civilians and POWs during World War 2. Singapore fell to the Japanese in 1942 and they call it the three and a half years of darkness. It was a very bad time in their history, and I got the feeling that they never quite forgave the British for not being able to protect them from it. Prisoners constructed makeshift chapels and the museum features 5 Christian murals painted by a prisoner.

Just so this post won't be too depressing and negative, how about I end with a pretty picture. I think this is some variety of an orchid, which is the national flower of Singapore. Orchids are one thing that they do grow and export. (Maybe this isn't an orchid at all. I'm not much of a flower gardener.)

Singapore Giveaway...for Free!!

Andrea suggested that I spice up my blog by doing a free give away contest. So here it is, but first some background.

Singapore has its own fabric. It was designed for the staff of Singapore Airlines to wear, and even though we didn't fly on Singapore Airlines, I saw their stewardesses a few times in airports with their striking outfits. The fabric has a kind of Oriental look and comes in 4 colours. It is readily available here. So when I bought an outfit for Dorothee, I bought it in the red Singapore fabric. Isn't it cute?

Anyway, this is the giveaway item: a cute bag in the dark blue Singapore fabric. It is a good size, and coated with plastic for practical purposes. Could be useful for carrying anything, maybe a few grocery items from the store.



If you are interested in winning this bag, all you have to do is post a comment to this entry, and I will put your name into the draw. Then I will put the names in a hat, draw one out, and announce a winner. Come on now, I know you want it! If you have trouble posting a comment, just choose the Anonymous option and then say who you are. Good luck!

Chinatown Downpour

Oh, my purse feels so heavy. I think I'll take out the umbrella and leave it behind today. It's such a nice sunny day -- I won't need it. I think you can see where this story is headed.

Chinatown was my destination today and not that far from where we are staying. I took the subway only a couple of stops and came up on Pagoda Street. It is part of the Chinatown Street Market -- my guidebook calls it souvenir heaven. I am ashamed to say that I spent quite a bit of time on this street and couldn't resist buying a few items. I didn't take many pictures today. I was too busy browsing. I discovered that prices are not really firm, but I am not that good at bartering. And that the tailors are quite persistent and irritating, trying to entice you in for custom made clothes.


In Chinatown you come upon a lot of "Medical Halls". They appear to be shops selling all kinds of strange things that I can't identify, mostly sold in bulk. I think they are dried herbs and things used for medicinal purposes. I went in to one more modern medical Hall that is famous for its bottled Bird's Nest, a potion that will cure all. I would have bought some, but who knew bird's nests were so expensive.


This is a more typical open medical hall selling traditional Chinese medicines.

I tried bak kwa, a Chinese snack, and it was yummy. It is a sweet BBQ'd pork strip -- think Chinese beef jerky, only better. And I also tried another recommended treat, the egg tart. It was yummy, too--think butter tart, only with a sweet yellow filling. It was while I was eating the tart sitting at an outside table that I was surprised to find that it started to rain. Oh,oh!

Taxis are everywhere until it rains, then you can't find one. I had to find my way back to the subway stop, and it was quite a downpour. At one point a lady saw me looking bedraggled and spontaneously gave me a piece of cardboard to hold over my head. See, people are nice! (There will be no photo accompanying this part of the tale.)

Shoes Off...again...and again...

One of Jim's main interests in Singapore is to visit places of worship. Last week it was the Buddhist temple, so today we set out to visit a Hindu Temple called Sri Mariamman. It certainly stands out, with its ornate tower. And yes, you have to remove your shoes and leave them at the door. It's weird to see Jim walking around in public in his socks. He doesn't even do that at home.



The first thing Jim did was ask one of the bare chested Hindu priests if he could have his picture taken with him. He agreed.

While we were there, a bell started to toll, joined by a drum beat and a musical horn that I didn't recognize. It was 12:00 noon and time for the priests to complete a ceremony to the main deity, Sri Mariamman. We hurried around to see it. Jim got one photo before the camera batteries died. I hurried to a nearby shop to buy some more (had to stop to put on the sandals). When I got back, the compartment door was closed and the goddess had been put to sleep. But Jim got several great photos of other statues.

Notice the flower garlands that I saw earlier in the market.

As they leave, devotees ring one of the bells attached to the door, and their prayers will be answered. I thought the bells were very high, I doubt if I could reach them.


Just down the street was a quiet Mosque with a very friendly young guide who declined to have his photo taken. Of course, shoes off again! He gave us a mini tour and explained how Muslims pray 5 times a day and showed us the timetable for the year. It was almost time for the 3rd prayer of the day, but we weren't allowed to take photos of the people anyway. So we left, ate some Indian food for lunch and went back to the hotel to cool off in the pool. It was a cloudy day but still hot for us. We were the only ones in the big pool -- oh, those crazy Canadians.

Sunday Church

Last Sunday we didn't go to church, so this week we decided to visit Singapore's largest mega-church, called City Harvest Church. [On the web at http://www.chc.org.sg/eng/index.php]

They offer 4 English services on a weekend. I read that they have 700 cell group leaders. We went Sunday at 10:00 for a two and a half hour service. The service was in an Exposition Hall that seated thousands, I don't know how many were there, but a lot. Everyone was very friendly, but we must have stuck out for sure. I had a hard time seeing anyone that looked like they were over 30. It was cool to think that Singapore has a whole young generation of lively Christians. I liked the music, but didn't know any of the choruses. The special speaker was a lady from Florida, Robin Harfouche, who is a charismatic type. Her life story involves being healed from being paralyzed 25 years ago. I think I would have preferred hearing a Singaporean preacher.

Not a good picture, but you can get an idea of how big it was.

After, we took the subway to a Muslim area of the city to have lunch and visit a famous mosque. I know that's bit weird, Christian church and a mosque all in the same day. As we were wandering aimlessly and trying to find an AIR CONDITIONED place to eat, 3 friendly and helpful ladies said "Follow us, we are going that way". I have been amazed at how nice people have been here to us 2 strangers, patient when we don't understand and willing to explain how things work. It makes me feel positive about the human race.


After we ate, we walked down the pedestrian only street towards the impressive Sultan Mosque. Visitors can only go in the first part, and you have to take off your shoes outside. Let me just say that I don't feel all that comfortable leaving my new sandals outside on the sidewalk. Will they be there when I get back? But they were.


By this time it was after 4:00, threatening to rain, and we were hot and tired. Just before we left, I bought a tablecloth from this lady right in front of the mosque. I really love all of the fabrics here (more about that later).

Little India

On Saturday when Jim was in class all day, I decided to visit Little India. First time on the subway-- I felt proud of myself for figuring it out. I had read about Tekka Market and it was amazing. The guide book said there would be hacked-apart-while-you-wait meat and scaled -on-demand fish, and it was all true.

Chopping up the goat meat with a cleaver

Which part of the chicken would you like to buy--the feet?


I never knew there were so many kinds of fish!

I spent several hours wandering through Little India. I think I may have overdone it in the heat. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror at one point and my face was really red. I thought people must be staring at me. You know you're hot when you stop at stores in which you have no interest in the product just because they have air conditioning or a great fan. But I had fun, did a little shopping (an outfit for Dorothee, of course) and ate lunch at a South Indian vegetarian place. Came home hot, tired, and with a blister on my big toe. I felt like I had been to India and back all in one day.

Flower garlands for sale (real flowers). They are used in weddings, but more often to put on statues of deities as prayer offerings.

A busy vegetable stand - some even look familiar.

Sentosa Island

For Jim's day off we planned a special overnight outing to Sentosa Island. It's only about a 15 minute drive to get there. The island is half rain forest (with possible wildlife) and the other half is developed land with all kinds of touristy things (Universal Studios is just opening, and a casino.) It also has a strip of beaches on the other side. It was nice to get out of the city and see lots of vegetation and trees. The only wildlife I saw was a wandering peacock. Our room had an ocean view, looking out on the south China Sea, with lots of ships sitting out there. Singapore's port is its greatest natural resource and source of income.



We spent some time looking around, but the main touristy thing we did was go to a night show on the beach called Songs of the Sea. For less than the price of a movie you get to see a half hour extravaganza with lights, music, laser show, flame bursts, water jets, fireworks--you name it, it was there. After the show we walked along the beach road and found a cool place to eat called the Wave House. While you are eating you can look out the window and watch young hip people practising their surfing skills. We didn't try it. We missed the last bus and had to take a taxi back to the hotel.



The next morning we relaxed in the infinity pool. It was an adults only pool with only 10 lounge chairs, very quiet. It even felt cool there. The water looked like it was flowing right over the side into the trees. Then it was time to come back to the mainland. The island getaway was over, but it was fun.

Happy Birthday, Gloria!

Well readers of the blog...

As many as you know Gloria had a birthday the day after her sister Darlene. So, she got birthday wishes from me just after the clock turned midnight on the 16th.

Being here in Singapore was enough of a birthday present, Gloria told me. But being such a great husband, I made sure she got a really nice present she wanted when we were out exploring in Singapore earlier today. Today means Sunday May 16th here in Singapore, of course, and the presenting of the gift took place at lunch after we went to church.

We were at a Middle Eastern restaurant near Arab Street and had a buffet lunch. Gloria wondered if they had tabbouleh salad. I told one of the waitresses about her wish on her birthday and this nice Muslim waitress brought her a free salad, complements of the restaurant.

I know...generous husband.

Cheers,

Jim

Happy Birthday, Darlene!

Just wanted to send out birthday greetings to my dear sister, Darlene, who is celebrating a special milestone birthday today (May 15). I hear she is having lots of birthday cakes and stretching out the fun. So if you see her, wish her a happy birthday.

Dressed for Chapel

I guess Jim already told you that we went to the weekly chapel and he spoke at it. Here is a photo of us dressed for chapel and standing in front of one of our many hotels.


With a total stay here of 15 nights, we have been in 5 different hotels! Length of stay has varied from 1 night to 6 nights. We are getting pretty good at packing up and moving on. We should write hotel reviews. I think we have become a joke around the school. You've heard of "Where's Waldo?" Well, here it's" Where's Jim and Gloria now?" This last hotel (six whole days- bliss!) may be the best one yet, not because it's the fanciest, but because of the great location. It is just down the street from the school, and it has lots of things in the area that you can easily walk to. Some of the other ones were a bit isolated.

Tomorrow I will tell you what we did when Jim had his day off. (Some good photos, too).

Chinese Steamboat Dinner

Our second dinner invitation was from Peh Cheng, another Dean at the school. She took us out for a Chinese Steamboat experience. That means that we each had a bubbling hot pot of flavoured soup that we cooked our food in. It is very much like a fondue, but instead of cooking in oil you are cooking in the soup which you can scoop out and eat later on when it has all the yummy flavour of the things you cooked in it. She explained that in a Chinese family there would probably be just one large pot, but here we each had our own.

The meal was really fun, the best part being that she took care of ordering everything and then explained what it was. Believe me, I was literally taking notes. Here is a picture of some of the vegetables that she ordered for us. See if you can identify any of them before I tell you what they were. Clue: no peas or carrots in sight.


The meats she ordered were thin slices of beef and pork, and prawns. The vegetables and other things were:
lotus roots (crunchy like a water chestnut)
dumpling
fish ball
vegetable ball
salmon ball
bean thread (very thin transparent noodles)
small dragon puff
white radish (you cook it too- she said that the Chinese don't eat a lot of raw vegetables)
Chinese winter melon (it's a vegetable, not a fruit)
kelp (seaweed)
sweet potato noodles
There were a few different sauces to dip things into, and dessert was fried banana chips, some other kind of fried soft dough ball, and watermelon cubes. I tried everything and enjoyed it all!



After we dropped Jim off for his evening class, she took me shopping. We went to a famous store in Little India called Mustafa Centre. It is open 24 hours a day and sells everything. It is large and rambling over 4 levels, a bit like Honest Ed's. I thought for sure we would never find our way back out. I made a purchase--some red Oriental looking place mats with matching chopsticks. We saw a crazy amount of spices and some wonderful fabrics. People are very much in to getting clothes custom made here. Peh Cheng was wearing a lovely blouse and she told me that her long time tailor had made it for her for less than $20.00. She also told me that the retirement age here is 62. Peh Cheng studied and worked in the USA for several years but wanted to come back to her native Singapore. We got along well, maybe because she started out years ago as an elementary school teacher.

Late Wednesday night update

Hi everyone!

This is Jim writing for once. It is now Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. Gloria will be back on blog duty tomorrow.

I taught all three evenings this week and spoke in chapel on Wednesday noon. Tomorrow...that is Thursday, is a full day off. I do not teach again until Friday evening.

One of the only annoying parts of our trip is the time we have had to spend booking hotels. This evening Gloria worked on hotels for the rest of our stay and when I came back from class we finally got things settled. We are staying on an island hotel (still part of Singapore) Thursday night and then 6 remaining nights in a hotel down the street from the school.

We moved hotels on Monday + Gloria did laundry. Tuesday, however, we went to a famous Buddhist temple and had a fascinating supper meal with one of the profs from BGST. As well, after chapel Wednesday we joined the faculty and staff for lunch. One of the BGST students showed up for the meal, a business man named Christian. He paid for everyone's meal. I guess that makes him a real Christian!

Gloria will fill in the details on some of this stuff tomorrow + provide some great pictures.

Jim

(P.S. It is easy to post a comment now so keep Gloria happy!)

Visit to Buddhist Temple

On Tuesday morning we set out to visit the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum in nearby Chinatown. Buddhism is the largest religion in Singapore, with about 45% of the people. In comparison, Christians are only about 15%. Our hotel room has a Teaching of Buddha book, in Chinese and English, and a good old Gideon Holy Bible, in English only.

This temple is a new one, a flashy red and gold mega temple completed in 2007 at a cost of over 50 million dollars. To enter the temple, you have to be dressed modestly. If you are wearing a sleeveless top or shorts, you can borrow a shawl or scarf from the stack by the door to cover yourself. ( I didn't have to.)


When we arrived, there was a service in progress. A monk stood at the front and all of the people sat with books in front of them as everyone read (chanted) in unison. It was a dramatic main hall with lots of Buddha images everywhere.

(If you look closely, you can see the monk behind the podium in the bottom.)

The temple has 6 levels. We spent time in the bookstore/tea room/gift shop. It reminded me of an Oriental Chapters store. We visited the rooftop garden and saw the giant prayer wheel. Many of the doorways have a little barrier across the bottom that you have to step over. I read somewhere that this forces you to look down and automatically bow your head in reverence.

Shows part of the prayer wheel. Notice the little barrier across the doorway.

Finally, we went in to the Sacred Buddha Tooth Relic Chamber. which we cannot show you because photography is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. We had to remove our shoes before entering. We were there at the right time, when the curtain was raised, to see Asia's largest stupa, a rounded monument holding the relic. It is 2 metres tall, made of 420 kg. of pure gold, adorned with 201 rubies and surrounded by 35 statues of Buddha. It has a gold canopy over it and the floor is gold. I read that all of that gold was donated by devotees. Only the monks can go into that inner chamber.

That's it for this temple visit. Jim is interested in visiting other places of worship here, such as Hindu temples and Muslim mosques.

Saturday Night: Out on the Town

Remember those dinner invitations? The first one was for Saturday night with Andrew, a student in one of Jim's classes and also Chairman of the Board for the school. Arrangements were made that he and his family would pick us up at our hotel at 7:00 to go out to dinner at a restaurant. We decided to have a short nap so we would be refreshed for the evening. The next thing we heard was not the sound of the alarm clock, but the phone call from Andrew saying that he was here. You never saw 2 people scramble into their clothes so fast! No time to worry or fuss.

Andrew and his wife Jean are a lovely Chinese couple and their 2 children Joel, age 18 and Ruth, age 8 were also along for dinner. I was happy that all of their names were easy to remember. Andrew is a lawyer with his own law firm and obviously well off enough to own a very nice car that seats six and to take this visiting Canadian couple out to a nice restaurant. We ate at Suntec City Mall which is a huge complex built around a fountain called the Fountain of Wealth. It claims to be the world's largest fountain, but Jean seemed sceptical about that fact.

Fountain of Wealth

They had reservations at a nice restaurant where we had a 4 course meal. The conversation was interesting. They asked questions about Canada and were very curious about how maple syrup was made. Ruth had done a project on Canada last year. They wanted to know if we had any kind of national dress. All I could think of was the RCMP outfit. Later I thought that I should have said that our outfit was hat-coat-mittens-scarf-boots-snowpants. After dinner, Jean and the kids took me to another level of the complex where there was a large and very busy grocery store. We had mentioned that we wanted to buy some Diet Coke to replace the one Jim had taken from the minibar. (We would have been charged SGD 7.50 --don't ever touch the minibar!) Jean also helped me buy some tropical fruit. We got a pineapple from the Philippines, a mango from Thailand, and a dragon fruit from Vietnam. The ones I didn't get this time were the mangosteen, with juice that can permanently stain your skin and clothes, and the durian, a prickly looking fruit with a very strong smell. People really love it or hate it, but Jean said I couldn't buy it anyway. You are not allowed to take it into a hotel or on the subway because of the smell.

We ended the evening with a lovely drive around the city. You can see a lot on a personalized driving tour. The lights of the city were pretty - I haven't been out that much at night. As a token of appreciation I am going to give them some of the maple syrup that I brought to use as gifts.

Jean and the kids, Joel and Ruth (taken when we went to the grocery store)

History Lesson

Everywhere you go, you see the name Raffles so you begin to wonder-- who is this guy Raffles? Well, it seems he is the founding father of Singapore. Sir Stamford Raffles landed here in 1819, and working for the British East India Trading Company, he bought the land from the local rulers and set out to establish a British trading post. There is a nice statue of him at the mouth of the Singapore River where he supposedly landed.

So I set out to find the famous Raffles Hotel, which is said to be one of Singapore's grandest colonial treasures. It really is impressive, and although you can't go in the hotel unless you are a resident, you can visit the shops and restaurants in the hotel complex and the beautiful Raffles Courtyard. The bar here is famous for inventing the drink the Singapore Sling (didn't try it), nor did I come back for the Mother's Day Brunch that was advertised for SGD 208.00 per person. (That's $155.55 in Canadian currency).

Raffles Hotel

Courtyard at the Raffles Hotel

I continued to wander the colonial area and saw several other historic buildings, parks and memorials. You can't exactly hustle in this heat- you have to move slowly. Even the locals say it is extremely hot and humid right now. I sat in another courtyard and got refreshed with a cold drink (Jasmine Green Tea) and then continued on. I ended up at a beautiful church, St. Andrews Cathedral, an Anglican church built in 1861 by convict labour sent from India. It is the largest cathedral in Singapore and is said to have a vibrant Christian community. I saw a couple doing wedding photos on the front lawn, and heard a group of young adults singing choruses in a Saturday afternoon service. I was impressed with all of the services they offer and the many ministries they are involved in. One that caught my eye was classes for autistic children and plans to build a Centre for Autism.


I went into the church and sat by an open window to rest and try to catch some breeze. As I looked out the window and saw the sky getting darker and a storm rolling in, I remembered that the tour bus operator had told us that this church had been struck by lightning TWICE. I decided to leave. As the downpour started, I took out my umbrella and felt very smart for bringing it. Can you believe it's the same one I took to Scotland in 2007? Ready to try my first solo taxi experience here, I lined up in the taxi queue outside of a hotel and when my turn came, I got driven back to the hotel for SGD 4.60, or less than $3.50 Canadian. It was worth every penny. It was a pretty loud thunderstorm. They actually say "chance of thunderstorm" every day in the weather forecast, but this was the first one since we arrived.

Leaving comments

Jim here...it is now 8.35 a.m. Sunday morning. Happy Mother's Day to mothers reading here! Gloria still has jet lag so got up at 5 a.m. I have the gift of sleep so got up at 8 a.m.

Good news about leaving comments...I changed the blog so anyone can comment easily, without registering or signing in. So, now more of you can write a note and keep Gloria excited to write.

We have not figured out what we are doing today but it will involve a bit of tourist stuff. We might get to a church service but it depends on Gloria's jet lag.

That's it for now.

Jim

On the Move

I seem to have gotten about 2 days behind in my blog, so I am going to do a little fast forward here to catch up. Two days ago we moved to a new hotel. Before we left the first hotel, we went for a swim in the outdoor rooftop pool on the 24th floor. Yes, we remembered the sunscreen.

The purpose of moving is partly to save money. The one we are in now for Fri. Sat. and Sun. is a fancy convention centre hotel but cheap on the weekends as it is used more for business through the week. The good side about moving is that you get to live in a different area of the city. We have discovered a great food court near this new hotel called the Food Republic. It has a nice decor, decorated like a library with wallpaper that looks like shelves of old books. There is a big variety of food and reasonably priced. We don't really know what everything is but we both like ethnic food such as Chinese, Indian, etc. so we are willing to try new things. It is busy at lunch time so you have to share a table with other people. If you want a napkin, you have to buy it and cold drinks are sold at a separate booth. We seem to be having our main meal at lunch because Jim doesn't want to eat a big meal before going to class.

Food Republic

Anyway, back to the hotel issue. You will not believe this, but as of tomorrow, we are homeless. We have nothing booked for the next 10 days. The school was going to book our hotel, but we said to just give us the money allocated and we would take care of booking it our self. Easier said than done. We now realize that we need to move closer to the school, which is in the Chinatown area. Jim is using a taxi to get back and forth to class, and even though it is cheap compared to home, it still adds up over 2 weeks. He tried the subway on the first night, but it is too much walking and he took over an hour to get home. So a main goal today is to find a hotel in the perfect location.

Now, to answer the language question. There are 4 official languages in Singapore.


This photo shows them, from the top--English, Chinese (Mandarin), Malay and Tamil. Most people speak English here because it is the language of instruction in schools. Chinese is the largest population group, making up 75% of the people in Singapore. English TV shows have Chinese subtitles, and vice versa. After all, China is not all that far from here.

Teaching in Singapore

The chief blogger asked me to write a bit about my courses. I am teaching at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology (BGST). The first course is on World Religions while the second is on Confidence in the Bible. I am teaching most evenings + the two Saturdays (May 8 and 15). Today I taught all day on Confidence in the Bible while next Saturday is on the World Religions material.
The students are both male and female and range from their 20s through to adults in their late years. They come from quite a few different countries (Singapore, of course, but also Malaysia,
Indonesia, India, Greece). Most work during the day which explains night courses and weekend times.

This evening...Saturday...one of the school's board members took us out to dinner and then gave us a little tour of the city.

Singapore is a beautiful, clean, city...very impressive, especially at night.

Well, it is now getting close to midnite, so I will sign off for now. Don't forget to comment on the blog or send an email.

Love,

Jim

Middle of the Night Musings

It's 4:00 a.m. and I am wide awake. I think I discounted the jet lag issue a little too soon. I am trying to be very, very quiet because Jim needs a good night's sleep. He will be teaching all day tomorrow (Saturday) from 9:00 to 4:00 with an hour for lunch. I am going to get him to write a blog entry in the next day or two about his class.

So I will be on my own to be a tourist for the day. I'm dying to go to Little India but was advised that it's really busy on the weekends, so I'll save that for next week. Maybe I will walk around and explore the colonial core which is the original area where the British landed and set up shop in the early 1800s. I will take my little camera and try to get some good pictures. I think Jim knows how to add photos to the blog.

Jim has come home from class now with 2 dinner invitations for us, one tomorrow night and one next Tuesday. I have mixed feelings about it--I do want to meet local people and I'm sure they will be very interesting to talk to. On the other hand, I am usually anxious about meeting new people. I'm basically just a shy girl at heart! I brought one dress and one skirt with me, so I should be able to pull together something decent to wear.

I guess I will see the sun come up this morning. The hours of daylight are pretty well the same all year round because Singapore is only about 85 miles from the equator. The sun comes up around 7:00 and goes down around 7:00 at night, so a constant 12 hours of sun all year round.
There's no four seasons here, and no daylight savings time. The temperature doesn't change that much throughout the year either. No wonder everything is so lush and green.

Tour of the City

Well, now that we are here, we needed to get some Singapore dollars or SGD. The Singapore dollar is worth about 25% less than our Canadian dollar. So if you see an item marked $10.00 SGD, then you are only paying around $7.50 Canadian. It's like everything is on sale! There are lots of ATMs around. The bills come in 2, 5, 10 and 50 dollars, so it's strange to get 10s and 50s from a bank machine instead of 20s. All the bills are different sizes.

Jim also wanted to get us set up with cell phones here. He put in a lot of effort to get our cell phones from home unlocked before we came so they could be used here, mostly for local communication. We bought SIM cards at the 7 Eleven, so now his is working fine but he is having trouble getting mine set up. Yes, it is weird to travel nearly 10,000 miles away from home to the other side of the world and still see 7 Eleven stores, McDonalds, Toys R Us, etc.

On our first full day we decided to go on a tour to get an overview of the city. We went on a double decker bus with an open top. As they advertise "Be cool! Go topless on our tour!" There were 2 tour routes included in the price. The Heritage one took us in to neighbourhoods like Little India, Arab Street, Chinatown and the Colonial Core. These are all places that I definitely want to go back to and explore. Then Jim was getting anxious to go back to the hotel to get ready for his first class that evening, so he left after the first tour, and I stayed to do the second one. It was called the City Tour which did a big loop around the city. Each tour was about an hour. The city is very beautiful, modern and of course, clean. Did I mention that chewing gum is a prohibited item to be brought into the country? I loved the tours and did fine on my own even when I missed my stop to get off and had to find my way back to the hotel on foot. Be careful when crossing the street. Cars are on the opposite side of the road like in England.

Arrived in Singapore at last

So, another overnight flight, different airline but similar service. It was even longer ( 11 hours), but both of us slept better than the first night. All went well except for the 10 minutes or so that I panicked as I searched for my glasses. I had left them in the bathroom when I changed for bed. One interesting thing was that a famous person was also traveling in first class on this flight with a small entourage. It was Lech Walesa, a Solidarity leader and President of Poland in the 90's. Jim recognized him but I didn't. Being reserved Canadians, we didn't ask to take his picture like some other people did. I looked him up later on the internet and he's a pretty interesting person.

We were happy and thankful to God for safe travel when we finally arrived in Singapore after 4 different flights. As soon as we stepped off the plane, it hits you, "Oh yeah, we're in a tropical place, and it's HOT!" The temperature every day is in the 30's, and at night it "cools down" to 25 or 26 degrees.

We were met by Dr. Augustine Pagolu, one of the Deans of the school, originally from India. (School website: http://www.bgst.edu.sg/ ). It was nice to see a friendly face and very kind of him to come all the way out of town on the train to meet us. He doesn't own a car, and the average person here doesn't have a car. The government discourages people from buying cars by making it very expensive to own one. They don't want the city to be congested with traffic, so they have designed a very efficient public transportation system, as well as cheap taxis. So the 3 of us took a taxi to our hotel. Oh yes, at the airport which is very beautiful and modern I had my first experience with the "squatty potty". I later found out that if you check the stalls you may have a choice of bathroom options.

We are just staying for 2 nights at this hotel. It is on Orchard Road which is famous for shopping. I think I heard that it was a 6 km. stretch of hotels and malls. People say that the national pastimes of people in Singapore are shopping and eating. Sounds OK to me. But the shopping in this area is definitely too high end for a bargain hunter like me. You know it's out of your league when you see stores selling Rolex watches, Armani clothes and Manolo Blahnik shoes. I'm afraid to even go in these kinds of stores, and when I do, I never see any price tags. I guess if you have to ask the price then you can't afford it. I hope to find some more affordable trinkets to buy later on in the ethnic areas of the city.

I think we are doing quite well with the whole jet lag thing. Maybe it's worse on the way back. We are 12 hours ahead of Toronto time. It's weird to think that compared to you, we are in the future.

Living in the Airport

Have you seen the movie called The Terminal with Tom Hanks as the guy who is trapped in an airport and has to live there? That's what we have been doing -- for 2 days we haven't been outside of an airport or a plane. Luckily it hasn't been much of a hardship with those First Class perks. Our longest stopover was in Frankfurt, Germany, where we had to wait 6 or 7 hours for the overnight flight to Singapore.

The First Class Lounge offered all the comforts of home, including spa-like rooms to have a shower --I can't tell you how refreshing it was! One room even had a bathtub complete with a little yellow rubber duck. I really wanted to take that home for Dorothee. Maybe I will on the way back. They also offered private rooms where you could catch a nap, which we both did. You could either request a wake-up call, or take advantage of the huge digital clock on the wall of your room so you wouldn't sleep too long and miss your flight.

The Lounge had a large selection of magazines and newspapers, but only a limited number were in English. There was a TV of course, but we spent more time using the free internet to set up our blog and make the first entries. The time went by pretty quickly, and I didn't even mention the continuous buffet of free (fancy) food and drinks. We haven't had to buy anything to eat since we left home! Then it was time to board the 747 to Singapore, where the first class passengers were on the upper level. The journey continues.....

Safe and sound in Singapore

This is just a brief posting to say that we arrived in Singapore at 4 pm.
The dean of the school picked us up at the airport and brought us to our hotel.

Singapore is 12 hours later than Toronto time.

Gloria will write more later to lend some more colour.

Jim

Overnight on Swiss Air

Eight hours in the air --not as bad as it sounds when you are in First Class.
I must clarify that these first class seats cost thousands of dollars, but we got them with air miles.
So we got the fabulous perks I will describe and felt a bit like impostors, looking around at the other 6 people in first class and wondering how they got there. I was wishing that I had worn something better than a plain black Tshirt and my favourite jeans. Jim made friends with the guy on the other side of him, who was a Swiss diplomat.
As soon as you walk in, you see that each person gets a large amount of space, including an ottoman for your feet and a seat that will fold out flat into a bed for the night. Wow! We were served a dinner on a white tablecloth with so many courses that I lost track. It ended with a rich Swiss chocolate.
Then they gave us pyjamas and slippers for the night. My first thought was "Cool!". My second thought was "What are the chances of those things fitting me?" Jim put his on and went to sleep. I finished watching my movie, snuck into the bathroom and put mine on too. It struck me that it was a bit weird for all of us to be wearing the same black pj's, kind of like prison garb.
In the morning before we landed breakfast was served, but we were still full from the dinner so we just had juice.
So that was the highlight from Day One. Tune in for the next installment soon. I love the idea that I can share this great trip with all of you as it unfolds.

Jim teaching in Singapore

Gloria came up with the idea of doing a blog about our trip to Singapore. I am teaching two courses in Singapore at the Biblical Graduate School of Theology. The chairman of the board at BGST took a course with me at Tyndale last winter and he suggested I teach in Singapore. So, it got worked out over the last 10 months but it did not get finalized until recently.

So, we left on Monday afternoon May 3rd and we are now half way to Singapore. We are now in Frankfurt, Germany waiting for the evening overnight flight to Singapore.

Gloria will be doing most of the blogging and I will turn this over to her now.

I teach most evenings and two Saturdays between May 5th and May 19th.

Jim