sin singapore

Singapore

So what do you want to know? Everything? Well alright then. So Singapore was the exercise site for PE this year. I was very excited to go, especially because of the amount of miles we were going to get. The pacific is a giant beast. My flight was from Tucson, LA, Hong Kong, Singapore. That’s a 1 hour flight, followed by a 14.5 hour flight, followed by a three hour flight. For those of you who haven’t flown that long before, here’s a quick snapshot. Sleep for 6 hours, watch 5 or 6 movies, eat 2 or 3 times, and you still aren’t there. But when you do land its nice, because flying into Hong Kong bay is really beautiful at sunrise.

So let’s pickup with our journey already in progress.

Tuesday

Leave America

Thursday

What happened to Wednesday, well you lose it, it just goes away. Cross the International Date Line, and viola, just skip to the day ahead. Ah man. So we landed in Singapore around noon and got through customs pretty slowly. It was a long line and they were not that efficient. Picked up our luggage, met our driver, and then we had a 45 minute bus ride out to our rooms. We were staying in this Navy TDY hotel. There were 3 bedrooms with a common kitchen, living room, dining room. It was alright. They had tv and internet so what else could you ask for. If any of you remember one of my posts in regards to AFN and servicemen, well AFN is the armed forces network, its tv for people who are overseas. Its great and all, but there are no commercials; I guess they don’t want to commercialize everything in the military so all of the breaks in between shows and movies are military public service announcements. Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad, they even sometimes make fun of themselves and offer the chance to make them better with viewer input. A little viewer interaction never hurt anyone I suppose. So after we got settled in, we went and picked up a few groceries, came back, had some dinner, I watched a movie, tried my darndest to stay awake until 10. It almost worked. Then I went to bed. Our coworkers got in really late that night, they disturbed my slumber, but I fell asleep pretty easily.

Friday

Woke up without much jet lag, high five body, and we went to work. The work site was near the airport. It was in this super controlled area, we needed 10,000 tons of paperwork to get in. It didn’t seem like it was that secure of a place or why we would need that much security, but oh well. We did our thing and got back to our place in the afternoon. We had dinner that night at the terror club. Sounds scary huh, well it wasn’t okay, Im tough, I can handle it. Actually it named after a sunken ship called the HMS terror. I guess we were staying at what used to be a British naval base or at least it had British soldiers at some point. It was pretty good, I don’t remember what I had that night, but I didn’t care for it I don’t think. The food there was super hot, stove hot, so your mouth was always getting burnt with every bite.

Saturday

Our bosses had to go to work. Sucks to be them. So the other guy and I went around scurrying around the country. Its small enough that you could actually scurry. First things first, how do we get down there. Okay take this bus or this bus and then get on the train and go downtown. And more first things first, find the hard rock café. Done and done. Downtown Singapore is like a shopper’s paradise. There is a great deal of fancy shops like Prada, Gucci, Coach, LV, and Old Navy. Of course we avoided all of that because we are dudes. We went to a tourism shop and found out what we could do in the area. After that we went and got some lunch. I had duck, oh em gee, duck is so tasty and cheap in Singapore. Its so oh em gee, that I had seconds, yeah that could. And actually not that big of a meal, so eating two wasn’t like I was a huge pig, just a small pig. After that we were back on our tourism mission. Next stop, Raffles hotel, I wanted to get a Singapore Sling. A Singapore Sling is the national cocktail of Singapore, maybe not really, but it was invented there, its super tasty, and super expensive. Singapore has a high sin tax on alcohol and tobacco. So this awesome drink, which was like bubble gum and gin, was about $30, ugh fml. Nevertheless, it was delicious, and you get to eat peanuts and throw the shells on the floor. That is my favorite thing to do with peanuts. Next we were off to the toy museum. Where we promptly got 20% off our tickets because we had hotel key cards. The museum was too much fun, they had toys from all continents and all eras. There were some things from the 19^th century, but mostly it was the 20^th century. 1910s, 20s, 30s, 40s and so on. English, American, Australian, Japanese, and even the Dutch. Youll see pictures next week, but of course, my favorite toy section were the racially insensitive black toys. With giant red lips, white teeth with big smiles, and of course watermelon. Toys like the Alabama Coon and The Five Nigger boys. Amazing what was allowed, marketed, and sold in those days. I know that that shouldn’t be my favorite, but I was so shocked I couldn’t look away. After that we took a break, we had walked all over the damn city. Since everything I wanted to do was done with for the day I let the other guy choose some things, see what a nice fellow I am. He wanted to go to the Singapore Flyer. Its like the London Eye, but bigger. You don’t know what the London Eye is either, it s big giant Ferris wheel. You can see everything from the top. Really cool and you get some great history about Singapore and the geography. The youth Olympics were also going on this day. The youth Olympics are like the real Olympics except they are for young kids. They said 14-18. I thought that some of the regular Olympians fall into this category but I guess not all. So the place was packed, every where you went down there the trains were full, the busses were full, sidewalks were blocked off. They have this big new casino that was overlooking the opening ceremonies. We werent high roller enough to get into the place, so we just went back to the food court. That’s where I got my duck the first time, the food courts there aren’t like ours. There is no fast food, its just mom and pops shops, so the food is super delicious and good food you. Or at least less bad for you. Had some fresh squeezed juice and then I think I had some more duck. Got back on the train and went home. Not a bad Saturday

Sunday

The bosses didn’t have to work this day, but then they did, so the dude and I went back out. This time to China Town. China Town there is really cool, lots of shops, lots of food vendors, and then we found this really really big temple. Super pretty, super immaculate, it rivaled the ones I saw in Japan. We took lots of pictures, and just walked around the place. In the square bordering the temple, the people were out and about playing games, there was even some line dancing, they were pretty good too. Then we went to get the elusive chili crab. Everyone was saying when you get there get a chili crab. Well I had this behemoth 1.2 kg crab. Covered it hot chili. Not beans and meat chili, but like chile peppers. It was really good and not to spicy. I ate the whole thing up too. Got a bib, destroyed it, got some napkins, destroyed it, there was a lot of destruction going on. The area we were in is like restaurant, bar and club central, so there was lots of picture taking going and some ice cream. Gotta have ice cream after a meal, else how would you know the meal is over. So we got back a little earlier than the night before. But all and all it was fantastic because I never get to be a tourist, so I really made the most of it.

Monday

Oh yeah, we did come here to do some work. So I guess I can talk about that for a little bit. Monday we had an orientation the entire morning so we really didn’t get to any of the planned work. As a matter of fact we didn’t get to any of the afternoon stuff either. So we lost a whole day, because everyone was in training or something….or something.

Tuesday

It was back to work and we actually conducted some test, I trained up my four Singapore data collectors pretty quick. But due to network difficulties we couldn’t do anything until the afternoon, that and of course they had to be in training. So we knocked out like 14 tests in the afternoon, I don’t know if that’s any kind of record, but it sure seemed like one.

Wednesday

More of the same, we didn’t do anything until the afternoon because of technical difficulties, manning shortages…and training. “Did we come here to test or not” You shutup tester, we’ll let you know when you can do stuff. Okay, Ill just be hanging out in Singapore if you need me. So in the afternoon we did the remaining tests. Knocked out 33 tests in 6 hours that was supposed to take 2.5 days. Can I get a what what.

Thursday

Let me give you a brief synopsis of what goes on at PE. We don’t really work, its more about human interoperability. We eat 5 times a day. We ate breakfast at the hotel. Then we had a pre-lunch, a lunch, and a post lunch, all catered and all delicious. We had everything; Indonesian, Indian, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese. It was all good and I didn’t gain a pound. Ahhh justice, suck it.

Friday

This was our last day for the week. And we were really tired of Oriental Asian food. Sorry James. We were in serious need of red meat. So I told all of the guys about the downtown place where we had our Chili crab. It was called Clarke Quay, pronounced Clark Key, betcha didn’t know that. So we went to this Australian Steak House. And it was super good, I mean really super duper good. I had a 300 gram sirloin with green beans and a few beers. Its tough trying to do conversion in your head from oz. to g., but I got it figured out I suppose. 2.2 lb. per kg, so 1.1 lb is roughly 500 grams, so 300 grams is like 10 oz. I guess. Not exactly American size portions, but I don’t really eat like an American anymore. I just eat often. And then the boss picked up the tab, like a true gangsta. This was my contractor boss, the government boss felt like he had been shown up. So then that dude bought ice cream, and Jacob wee wee weed all the way home. These two guys are exactly fit, make more money than we do, and so, are inclined to take the taxi whenever possible. We on the other hand make less money and like to save money by taking the subway and what not. So I was trying to tell them that taking the subway was quicker and they were super hesitant. Well because we were on one of the really late trains, it actually stopped and went out of business the stop before ours. So I got a lot of ugly looks from these guys. Luckily we did a when in rome and just waited on the platform like everyone else, caught the train one more stop and got of there. Then we were going to take the bus home but we found one of our Filipino friends and he showed us a shortcut through the projects. Yeah we walked through the projects, its not so bad. The Singapore projects are not like the American projects, you don’t get shot, or mugged, or raped. They said Singapore is fine city, that’s because you will get fined for any and everything. So there is virtually no crime, litter, or graffiti; so it really wasn’t that bad walking through the projects at night. They are pretty big so the only thing you really have to worry about is getting lost.

Saturday

We didn’t get lost, as you can see Im writing about a new day. This was our cultural tour day, it was sponsored by the Singapore government. First we went out to a British Bunker. This was the command post for them during WWII. Its also where they decided to surrender to the Japanese. It was a pretty cool facility. One of the stipulations of the surrender to the Japanese was that they take all the resources, but don’t do anything to the people. So we then went to the WWII prison museum highlighting the abuses and atrocities of the Japanese to the enslaved Singaporeans, British, Australians, and whoever else was on that island at the time. I don’t think it was similar to Nazi concentration camps, it was definitely hard labor though, super sucky. Im glad I live when I live. Next we were off to get some lunch. The national dish of Singapore is chicken and rice, pronounced chicken rice. Its fucking delicious, its this half boiled fried chicken with really good rice. Rice for you people who have never been to Asia is way better, way tastier, and I bet way healthier. I don’t eat rice, well I don’t eat white rice in America; Rice a Roni is fucking delicious, but I eat as much rice in Asia as I can. And we had lots of other Asian foods, tofu which sucks, but lots of noodles, and chickens, prawns, even had some pig liver. It taste a lot like beef liver, so if you like that, then come on and get you some. The meal was really good, I could have ate and ate and ate and ate and eat and eat and eat. Then we headed off to Little India and China Town, both lots of fun cuz I love me some minorities. Mhhhmmmhhmm…minorities. We walked around and got some culture from our tour guide, he let us roam around and shop and do whatever else we felt like. Then we were off once again to our last stop, the Marina Barge. It was this place where they blocked the river from going to the sea in order to stave off floods and shit. It was a pretty elaborate system. I would have enjoyed it any other time, but it had been a long day of touring and I was just tired to say the least. So I kind of blitzed through the expose and what not. We went to the top of the building and everyone and their mother was flying a kite. It was very turn of the century London, at least what I would manage you would do when you don’t have electricity and shit. So I took some pictures and then I skipped along singing lets go fly a kite, up where the air is clear…. a la mary poppins. Since it was one of my coworkers last night he decided he wanted to go out with a bang and not got to be early because he had to get up ass early. So when we got home we were really jonesin for some America. We broke down and had some McDonalds. It was so good. A lot of times overseas McDonalds are regionalized and don’t taste like home. They do this to feed the needs of most of the customers. But I guess Singapore really wants to be like America, this was spot on. So we did this and then we went on a night safari. It was mostly a night zoo but still pretty cool. All the animals that sleep all day are obviously up and awake all night partying. So we got to check them all out, it was very cool. Very active, we saw elephants, wolves, bears, lions, tigers, leopards, bats, flying squirrels, deer, birds, and everything else that is nocturnal. We did that, caught a fire show. A bunch of native dudes who were swilling kerosene I think, were blowing the spit into flames. Very cool. Ive seen that before but its always just fun to see flame throwers and shit a la Dhalsim from Street Fighter. So we got back home, hung out for a little while, that dude packed and then I never saw him again.

Sunday

Woke up and wasn’t sure what to do. Slept in late because we didn’t go to bed until almost 3. So I had breakfast and was just chillin on the internet. Someway or another I got to talking about Hard Rock, said I got the one in town, and then I would hit up the other one in the airport on the way out. Well my boss was asking about Sentosa. What the hell is Sentosa. It’s a resorty island off of Singapore. Bitch please I know all about HRC there isn’t one I don’t know about. Well Shiiiiiit. There is, my bad, well that’s what Im going to do. Well can we go with you, yeah sure, are you sure, either you come or you don’t, but Im still going out there with or without you. Its like pulling teeth sometimes. So we got onto the bus and then the train, which they were opposed to. Public transportation, ‘sta loco. Well its cheap, easy, and efficient. So we got to downtown and they were okay. But then we walked about 5 minutes to a food court and they were not happy. They were both sweating. But then they saw the worlds greatest food court, every Asian cuisine was represented. I had duck and noodles. Man duck is so fucking good. They had Korean, they were happy. Then we hailed a cab and headed out to the island of Sentosa. They had a Hard Rock Café and a Hard Rock Hotel. Oh yeah double visits and multiple pins. They had a big nice new casino there. A Universal Studios, super pretty and new and bourgy. We had quite a few beers at the Hard Rock Café, had a really cool bartender. I picked up the tab, but the bosses picked up the tip which is nice because I hate tipping. After we got done there we headed back to Clarke Quay and had some decent tapas. I had chorizo sausage and garlic bread. It was so good almost Peyton’s Chorizo go. We got some ice cream and then headed back to house. Good Sunday

Monday-Wednesday

Just worked a little bit. All of our tests were done. Got all our pre-lunch, lunch, and post lunch everyday. Mostly just worked on cleaning up tests and writing reports. After work just chilled, went to the gym, watched movies on AFN.

Thursday

Our bus broke down on the way to work. We had to walk about a mile, but I welcomed the exercise. My boss didn’t, he waited for the van to come pick him up with AC. When we go there he was already eating pre lunch. What a wanker. Well Thursday was another pretty chill day. Since I was out on the main floor I heard the announcement we were coming into work late…which means I get to sleep in late.

Friday

My boss wakes me up at normal time, hey aint you coming to work. What we aren’t leaving until 9, WHAT, yeah they announced it, WELL I DIDN’T HEAR IT, doesn’t mean it isn’t true, WELL IM GOING TO GO ASK, stand down go back to sleep, yeah whats up. So I got up and they were both smiling at me rather wily. Yeah the young guy knew something you didn’t. Left early that day and we just chilled. Packed our stuff, went to the gym, and then went to get some dinner. I think that night I just watched a movie and finally packed up. I was not looking forward to tomorrows flight because we had to get up so early.

Saturday

Hello 3 am how are you doing, you can go straight to hell. We got on a bus about 4 and headed out to the airport which was about a on hour drive from the base. We got to the airport about 5. We weren’t leaving until 8. We couldn’t even check in. So we just hung out at the JAL counter, staring at the ladies. Eventually they got the jist and they let us check in. I tried to work an upgrade, but no such luck. Luckily there was no one next to me because JAL has the smallest, THE SMALLEST, seats of any airline. I guess because Japanese people are the smallest humans on the planet. So even with spreading my legs it was still uncomfortable. After we took off, the pilot came on to tell us that around hour 3 or 4 we would be going through a typhoon. Why in the world would you tell us that? You are just going to make the people anxious or nervous. Not me, because I have flown through lots of terrible turbulence in my life. Its more conducive to sleep if you ask me. Sure enough hour 3 the plane started vibrating pretty hard. The movie selection was okay, the food was okay, I was actually tired of noodles, so I didn’t eat. The green tea, however, was the best thing I had ever tasted. It was so good. We got to Narita finally and only had about an hour layover. But Narita is setup pretty well. So we got to our gate and got onto a nice fancy 777 business class. Whew thank goodness for Executive Platinum status. I dont know if I mentioned this before, but in order to say money my company bought tickets from Singapore to Frankfurt via Tokyo and Chicago. I went the long way over both oceans to get to Europe. So I had a 7 hour flight, followed by a 11 hour flight, followed by an 8 hour flight, followed by a 1 hour flight, followed by a 1 hour drive. Crazy insane or insane crazy? The flight to Chicago was uneventful, ate some good food, and I think slept for about 4 hours. Not too shabby. Landed in Chicago, got to deal with the greatest TSA agents we have in the world at O’hare International and TO BE CONTINUED……….

Same misadventure station, same misadventure channel,

Jacob