29/8

We went to the Sentosa island, which is a small island located to the south of Singapore. It is a turist trap, but has has some redeeming values.

 

When we got to the island via the monorail, one of the first sights was that big combination of fish and lion (merlion). 

We started in Butterfly Kingdom , which is an enclosed area with a lot of butterflies. At the entrance was a museum of sorts, with various creepy-crawly specimens, mostly dead. But the live butterflies were very pretty. And there were not just butterflies, they had some big parrots as well.

After that we walked by the Nature Trail to the Aquarium. The nature trail was ok, but it was spiced up with dragon's bones and other stuff, probably very exiting for kids, but we could have done without.

The aquarium was ok, you went on a moving sidewalk at the bottom of the big tank, where they had the big fish, the top attraction being a dugong (which you of course all know is not a fish). Couldn't see much of it anyway.

We ended the trip by watching the dolphin show. They had a number of pink dolphins, of which two did the performance. That was quite good, but the loudspeakers were very loud.

 

26/8

Hi, today I had the chance of visiting another of the offices. Located on the 49th floor from where you have a spectacular view.

For lunch I went to the foodcourt in the basement, which was crowded as usual. I spotted a couple of interresting menu offerings, though I must admit that I skipped those.

Speaking of offerings, I have seen this small alter in use a couple of times. It stands under a roadbridge, perhaps because there it is protected from the elements.

Willy

25/08

Hi all,

we haven't had that much to write about for some days, so we didn't. But last weekend we went to Kuala Lumpur with some friends, so now we have something to tell.

KL, as they call it and so will we, is basically a big city. So big in fact, that getting to KL from the airport took one hour, and getting through KL to our hotel took one more. In a taxi. Our hotel was located almost next to the Petronas Towers. These are the defining landmark of KL. They are visible from almost everywhere else and to be honest, they really are that impressive. They stand there with that silvery shine and they don't look that tall, till you are next to them. We did not go up in them, as that would mean getting up very early in the morning to get a ticket.

Instead we did a bus tour around the city, which gave us a feeling for the area. One of the things we saw, was the guard in front of the Kings palace.

We had a Buddhist temple next door, which was nice looking and quiet. On the other side, facing our bedroom, was a big mosque. We noticed that at 05.55 when the muezzin called the fathfull to prayer.

Some of us - Willy didn't feel like it - went up in the KL tower, which basically is a broad needle going directly up for 400+ meters. The view was great, you could see KL and a lot of the sorroundïng areas.

The shopping mall by the Petronas Towers were identical to the ones we have here in SG. Same brands and same price.

What surprised us a bit was the number of women clad in chadors. And aften next to others in miniskirts or hotpants.  

We had some rain, but not too bad.

All in all a very good and interresting trip.

21/8

from Jane

This week has been rather quiet until now.  Tuesday, when I went to the local quilting store (again), I was invited to join the quilting group where there was meeting later that day. I accepted the invitation. It is a rather mixed group. Most of the women have been in Singapore for ages and they came from all over the world. I will certainly be back again next week.

Willy has taken tomorrow off as we are flying to Kuala Lumpur later in the day for a weekend trip, together with a colleague of his and the colleagues wife and kids.

16/08

Today we went to see Chinatown. We walked there, with a stop for coffe of course.

There are a lot of people, shops and stalls, where you can buy a lot of things, most of it turist junk, but probably also some genuine stuff. The shops are good, because they have aircondition. Certainly when we got more inside Chinatown, the shops tended to show items where we had no idea what was said on the label. Well, then there was this place where we felt quite at home, I hadn't expected to see an Imbiss here... They sold pretzels, schwartzbrot etc.

And the fruitsellers all sold durian - don't think we'll ever get used to that smell.

We went through Chinatown Complex, it was a very diferent kind of shoppingmall from the ones were are used to. Very, shall we say, local.

All in all it was a good experience where we got a feeling for the hustle and bustle in Chinatown.

 

After Chinatown we took the train to another part of town (west end of Orchard Road), where Jane had seen a large bookstore. We are quite impressed with the way the subway works. Fast, clean and efficient. But crowded.

 

The bookstore was in a shopping mall (surprise surprise) called Ngee Ann City. That was the opposite end of the scale compared to the chinese one. Clean and probably expensive, we just bought a couple of books.

12+13/08

12/8

Jane saw a buddhist sermon in the middle of the sidewalk. There were a number of tents, probably to protect the offerings from the sun and the insects. A monk was giving the sermon, some people kneeled in front of some tables and the monk stood to their side. Behind the people kneeling, there were large candles and incense burners. On the tables were large baskets with all sorts of food, some containing cooked fowl.   

 

We were supposed to meet, but a sudden rainstorm made Jane seek shelter from the rain, and abandon the meeting.

 

13/8

Jane thought that she was hallucinating - she saw a 'Die Post' car. Some later checking on the internet revealed that Swiss Post do indeed have a presence here - odd as it looked.

 

Tried to find a travel agency for our planned vacation in Australia, but no luck. Tried a website and got one call back from a travel agent. 

On our way back, we saw this interresting motorcycle outfit.

 

Back home we have the largest kitchen for miles, with state-of-the-art induction glass-ceramic technology - but look what we have to make do with here..  

 

The last picture is just a local street.

 

9/8-10/8

9/8 Highlights of the day..

We tried to book flight and hotel for a trip to Kuala Lumpur 22-24 August, but had a lot of problems with the internet connection. Even though the wifi connection was good, the internet dropped out all the time.

So instead we spent some time at the pool.

Afterwards we managed to book both flight and hotel. The Tiger  Air website said that we could get a ticket for S$0.09 each - but when taxes and additional costs were added, the end charge was S$266 for both tickets.

It was the national day of Singapore, with parades, airshow and fireworks. We were not that interrested in neither parades nor fireworks, but we did go down to the harbour to watch the airshow, together with a couple of colleagues and their spouses. That was great, you don't see something like that anywhere in Europe, it's considered too dangerous - which it probably is. The pictures are just two of the many that we took.

We had dinner as well at the quay. And afterwards we walked back to the hotel. Hard work, lot of other people had the same idea, so the sidewalks were packed. 

 

10/8 Hightlights of the day..

Willy was working, Jane went for a walk in the Arab quarter.

Late afternoon we went down to the pool for a bit of relaxation.

ps: we haven't seen our house pet again. 

8/8

The area where the office is, also has a large number of restaurants. There are McDonalds, BurgerKing, Kentucky Fried Chicken as well as more high-class ones, but who cares, when you can get a very decent meal, like the one shown, for less than CHF 4. Today I had fried fish with rice and black pepper sauce. Very tasty. But you don't get neither a knife, napkins nor salt and pepper. Instead you must dissect your food using a spoon, a fork and chopsticks. And don't expect much privacy either, there are a lot of people.

 

Jane tried to get in touch with AWA (American Womens Association), but their office was closed due to renovation. So now she is waiting for them to contact her.

 

We had a nice dip in the pool after I came back. Since it was Friday, I had a beer and Jane had a glass of freshly pressed pineapple juice by the pool.

 

Next to the pool there were at least one wedding party going on, the date (2008-08-08) considered to be lucky. Jane had seen several during the day, and the pool had been closed for private functions during the day.

 

thursday 7/8

We found this morning that we have a house pet. It is not very big.

Jane and I met for lunch, before she went to see the botanic garden, together with the wife of a colleague of mine. We had beef and rice, eaten with chopsticks - and we both managed just fine.

The center, where the office is, hosts the worlds largest fountain, or so they claim

getting there, and the first couple of days

The flight was uneventful, which is a very good thing for airline travel. We were in business class, which means a lot of space. The seats were partitioned from each other and could be converterd into small beds. Kinda weird feeling when the curtains were drawn when it was still early afternoon for us, but as preparation for Singapore it made sense. Even if we did not really sleep, at least we got some rest.

We arrived on schedule at 6 in the morning. We were met by the swiss head of the IT organisation, who gave us a quick tour of the hotel. Very nice swimmingpool. The appartment is on the 22nd floor. We were recommended that we did not go to sleep till nighttime, so we stayed up and took 2 bus tours around the city, and went through a couple of shopping malls. There are a lot of those.

In the afternoon we met again with the swiss head of IT and went out for a couple of beers. After that, we met with some of the colleagues and went for dinnner. Jane and I had spicy crabs, very nice.

We were back at the hotel just before midnight, very tired. Sunday we didn't do very much. We slept til 12.30 and then did some shopping in Carrefour. It stank of the durian fruit. The late afternoon was spent by and in the pool.

Sleeping was hard, we were still jet-lagged and the air-con is noisy, but without it, it quickly gets too hot.

 

Nothing much happened Monday to Wednesday. I started in the office, and we have walked around the area a bit. And of course used the swimmingpool.

Today Wednesday we finally got an internet connection, hence this blog entry

 

The pictures show the view from the appartment, part of the living room, the kitchen, and the two of us having spiced crabs.