krisalis

Well, I’d like to say that my trip to Singapore was short and sweet, but it would be closer to the truth to say that it was short and jam-packed. Work kept me busy every day and most evenings, and every spare moment I did have was spent seeing friends and racing round the shops at breakneck speed like a woman possessed. I slept very well on the flight home, totally exhausted after such a hectic week of non-stop activity.

I was fortunate enought to be able to spend time with Andrea and Neil when I first arrived, since they were back in Singapore for the Lunar New Year holiday. I caught up with al for a quick coffee after work, and met Vanessa, Pansy, Lucian and his lovely wife Faith for dinner one evening at Olio Dome.

Shopping-wise, I didn’t do as well as on previous trips. This was partly because I didn’t have much time to shop, partly because the shops I did go to were all full of post-CNY sales crap, and possibly partly because I’m losing my touch after being away for a year now – I no longer know where the ‘good’ shops are.

This lack of knowledge about what’s hot and what’s not hit me pretty hard the one night I did try to go out on the town with Andrea and Neil. We started out with dinner in Holland V, and then tried our usual spots on Mohammed Sultan Road for a few post dinner drinks, only to be greeted with pubs and clubs lacking both atmosphere and clientele. From there, we went to the dire-but-usually-dependable Carnegie’s – to no avail. It too was an empty shell of a bar, loud but lonely without the raucous and debauched crowd. As a result, we ended up in some cheesy club on Clarke Quay, purely on the basis that they were offering free vodka for ladies. And even that wasn’t enough to compensate for the poor quality thudding sound system and equally bad DJ. Pah.

New-to-me Foodie Finds: - My Humble House I had an excellent, enjoyable, exquisite lunch here. A little expensive, but truly wonderful food in a beautiful setting. Delicious jasmine tea too. - YhingThai Typically, if I wanted Thai food in Singapore, I’d head to First Thai on Purvis Street. YhingThai is a more upmarket, air-conditioned version of First Thai, with prices to match. However, when entertaining suit-clad colleagues and customers, air conditioning is a necessity, so this was a great alternative. The food was gorgeous. I particularly enjoyed their fragrant tom yum soup, and their deeeeeelcious durian with sticky rice dessert. Yum.

Old Haunts Which Have Gone Decidedly Downhill: - Siem Reap What happened? I used to love this place. Now it’s so blah. I’m sad.

• Oaks Bar and Grill Meh. Not impressed. They took the Moreton bay bugs off the menu, which were my favourite dish previously. I felt like there was nothing special about Oaks this time around – it wasn’t necessarily bad, the food was ok and the service was tolerable, but it definitely wasn’t good either.

I arrived back late on Saturday evening. Husband-man and Rosiepup were waiting to greet my crumpled, jet-lagged self, and they whisked me home to a hot shower and clean pajamas. Whew.

A few photos from the Singapore visit are up over here.

• Fried kway teow
• Pohpiah
• Water cress soup
• Yu sheng x 2
• Chili kang kong
• Noodles
• Prawn bee hoon/mee soup
• Pizza (from Spizza)
• Ban mian
• Dumplings
• Nasi lemak
• Half boiled egg
• Kaya toast
• Pineapple tarts and all sorts of other CNY treats

I just hope I’m walking around enough to burn off all these goodies…

…and I found this extremely funny:

Signs You’ve Been In Singapore Too Long.

My personal favourites are the following, and I give bonus points to the ones marked with an asterix*:

You think there’s nothing wrong with putting chili sauce on everything you eat.

You can type an SMS on your phone as quickly as you would if you had a regular keyboard.

Your idea of a good night out consists of having dinner at a hawker centre, drinking beer, and then going to another hawker centre and eating again.

You accept that expressways here are cleaner than toilets rather than the other way around.

You think that corn and beans are dessert foods.

Most or all of these acronyms make sense to you: NUS; NTU; ERP; SDU; PAP; MRT; LKY; GCT; PRC; TIBS; SBS; SMS; JB; JBJ; AMK; AYE; PIE; ECP; ISD; ISA; 5 C’s; CPF; CHIJMES; SPG; CWO.

You think that $100,000 is a reasonable price for a Toyota Corolla and $1,000,000 is a reasonable price for a bungalow, but $5 for a plate of fried noodles is a barbarous outrage.

You wear winter clothes indoors and summer clothes outdoors.

Durian and belachan no longer stink to you.

In a country where people use smart cards for public transit, you have no problem with construction workers riding in the open backs of pickup trucks.

You’re not confused by a street naming system that locates streets like Clementi Road, Clementi Street, Clementi Crescent, Clementi Lane, Clementi Drive, Clementi Way, and Clementi Avenues 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 all within walking distance of each other.

You get irritated if you don’t see a sign telling you how long your wait is going to be for a bus, a train, or the expressway to take you where you want to go.

No matter what you’re doing at the moment, you’d rather be shopping.

You say “handphone”, not “cellphone” And you think there’s no such thing as a handphone that’s too thin.

[via]

Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that anyone can actually get anywhere via air travel.

Several of my recent airport experiences have been somewhat trying.

When Mark and I came back from London to Austin in September, Singapore Airlines had ticketed us on a United airlines air miles ticket. They put us on a flight between Denver and Austin for one leg that apparently did not exist, and never had existed. As such, when we tried to check our bags through to Austin, the system booted the airline rep out and would only check our bags as far as Denver.

‘It’ll be OK’, said our Heathrow check in agent, eager to move on to the next passenger in the long line snaking down the crowded terminal. ‘Just pick up your bags in Denver and recheck them in on the Austin flight. You’ve got plenty of time between flights’.

Fortunately, we stood our ground and requested our agent to look into the matter in more detail. Fortunately, she figured out that the Denver to Austin flight did not actually exist. Fortunately, after much heated discussion, we were able to get Singapore Airlines to agree they had made a mistake and allow a change to the tickets, which put us on another route back to Austin. Fortunately we had arrived at the airport 3 hours before our plane was due to leave, because we ended up using every spare minute and had to race like mad things to the gate to catch our plane home.

When I flew to Singapore for business back in October, I arrived at the airport in plenty of time to get my domestic flight out to California, where I would then hook up with a Singapore flight via Tokyo. Except that when I got to the airport, all the Tokyo flights had been cancelled due to a typhoon. I was rerouted through Hong Kong, which involved flying up to Chicago first, but got me in to Singapore at about the same time as my original flight plan. Flying to Asia from Austin via Chicago is brutal. The flight(s) were interminably long and completely full because everyone was in the same situation as me – avoiding Tokyo and being funneled through HK. By the time the rereouting and reissuing of tickets and itinerary was complete, I had less than 15mins to clear security and get to the gate. And of course the security line was unbelievably long. And of course my gate was all the way at the very end of the terminal. So I did what I had to do…I plunged into the thick of the security line, loudly professing my apologies in passing to anyone who cared to listen. I’m sure noone wanted to hear my excuses, but my approach seemed to work. I made it through security with about 8 mins to go, while the gate personnel repeatedly announced final boarding. I got to my gate, severely out of breath from running the length of the terminal with about 3 minutes to go, only to see a closed door and a blank departure screen. I wheezed out loud to no-one in particular “Arrrrrg! Where’s my plane gone?”.

‘You going to Chicago, Miss? Over here! We’re waiting for one more, and you’re it!’

I spun round, and ran toward the voice. In my confusion, I had gone to gate 11 instead of gate 10. I handed over my boarding card, got on the plane and just about fainted into my seat as the crew shut the door behind me.

So, with my past record of near misses, I was careful to get myself to DFW airport in plenty of time for my flight out to Singapore this time around.

I got to the airport two and a half hours before my plane was due to leave. My ticket said my flight was leaving from Terminal A, so that’s where I went to check in. All appeared to be going well. No typhoons in Tokyo, no imaginary flights preventing my bag from being checked all the way through to Singapore. And then the check in agent asked to see my passport. Which I was clutching in my hot little hands, prepared to hand over upon demand. So far so good. Then I hit a small stumbling block. I hadn’t realised that my passport is due to expire in August 2005. And I had not considered the small matter about Singapore requiring 6 months travel validity for foreigners entering the country. My heart skipped a few beats in light panic, but I managed to keep my face calm and my voice even.

‘It’s OK. I’m a Singaporean Permanent Resident. I enter Singapore on my PR card.’ Which is true. ‘Here’s my permanent resident’s card’, I said, flashing my blue IC.

She looked confused, so I pressed on. ‘It’s the equivalent of having a US greencard. I’m permitted to live and work in Singapore.’

I could see she was waivering. ‘It’s fine. Really.’

She relented and handed over my boarding passes. Whew.

I looked through all the documents to ensure everything was in order, and noticed that my plane was leaving from gate C8. In Terminal C.

‘Hey, this says gate C8′

‘Yeah. Just take the terminal bus round to C, and go through security there. The security line there is shorter.’

SHORTER, MY ASS!

The line at Terminal C was interminal. Seriously. It even made Heathrow’s Terminal 3 look benign. Fortunately, even after bussing between terminals, I still had almost an hour until my plane was due to leave to get through security. I waited patiently, and got through the checkpoint with 20 minutes to go until my flight was due to leave.

I went straight to my gate. But my plane was not there. Instead, there was a plane boarding for somewhere else entirely. I looked at my ticket. C8. I looked at the boarding plane. C8. Crap.

Panic rising, I searched for a screen showing departure information. The screen showed my flight leaving from gate A23. In Terminal A. In 10 minutes.

I was just about to lose it and have some sort of hyperventilating fit when I overheard people nearby cursing about their gate being changed. They were all on my flight. Someone in the group took charge, and I followed the herd.

We took the internal tram (which, for future reference, was 1000 times faster than the stupid external terminal bus that the check in woman told me to take), and got to our new gate, where mayhem was unfolding as disgruntled passengers tried to figure out what was going on from harrassed airline staff.

Naturally, our plane was delayed. Of course, I had a connection to make. Naturally, I was not impressed.

But I made in the end, and here I am in Singapore.

Traveling by plane is a tricky business.

Sign in one of the cafes at LA airport. Cheers!

I would have to leave town the weekend the Buffy singalong returns to Austin. sigh Although, at least this way I won’t have to spend the next two weeks trying to get the songs from swirling round my head, which is what happened when I watched ‘Once More With Feeling’ originally.

…and I’m still working…Sheesh.

So tiiiiiiiired.

But more or less ready for the Singapore trip. Now waiting for some stuff to print out and then I’m heading to bed.

My suitcase is sitting by the front door. I’ve undoubtedly packed too much stuff. I had a bit of a wardrobe crisis while I was searching for suitable Singapore style clothing. I’m very much in winter mode at the moment, and it felt decidedly odd to be digging out the summery skirts and shirts.

Much of my warmer weather clothing doesn’t look so great with my pasty winter skin and the newly red hair. Fortunately, I have a well dressed redheaded Mum, and was able to raid her wardrobe. I can’t wear her skirts or trousers, but most of her tops and some of her dresses fit me. I borrowed a great wrap around dress from Banana Republic, a couple of tops, and some black sandals.

OK. Printing done. Bed time. G’night.

• Went to The Continental Club with Mark and Jeff. We drank Shiner and listened to live country music. It was great!
• Had an ‘alien’ plate at Magnolia Cafe. Man, I love pancakes.
• Slept and slept and slept some more. I love sleeping.
• Walked the dogs.
• Went to Mel’s birthday party. There were fun people and lots of dogs and cheetos and cheesecake.
• Lounged about on the sofa watching back-to-back episodes of Friends, courtesy of Netflix.
• Slept some more.
• Went to church.
• Went to the mall with Mark so he could get his iPod fixed.
• Played with Rosie and Bonster and several of the neighbours dogs. As one of the neighbour’s kid’s said ‘All the dogs are having so much fun! Today is like dog heaven!’. Rosie and Bonnie both needed baths after their play dates, and slept very soundly last night.
• Cooked roast pork loin with apples and onion, and broccoli cheese.
• Baked banana bread.
• Vacuumed the house and did laundry.
• Puttered about on the ‘puter.
• Watched an episode of ‘Foyle’s War’

This time last year, I ‘celebrated’ Valentine’s day in Xiamen with Mark, Andrea and Neil. My 2004 February was much more exciting than my 2005 February.

However, that said, I am going to Singapore on Thursday for a week. And I am going to get to see Andrea and Neil, and hopefully al and Vanessa (Lucian too, if he’s available, although he seems to have much bigger fish to fry at the moment, what with a baby on the way and all), plus some old work and church friends. But unfortunately I’m visiting for work, and I’ll be in the office most of the time, and sadly, I don’t get to take Mark or Rosie with me (

Oh, and have you seen this? Zefrank wishes you a Happy Valentine’s Day. I like the part where he explains that a heart shape is used to identify toilets in Sweden, and that heart shaped chocolates aren’t something that’s popular there. Heh.