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.