Day-03: Singapore - Quite The City

Day-03: Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Beginning Location: Airborne South of Vietnam

Final Location: Singapore

As the new day began, we were approaching the 105^th East Meridian south of Vietnam at 35K feet, just over 550 miles northeast of Singapore. We had filled out our entry forms for Singapore immigration and customs so we were as ready as could be for the arrival.

The Airport Terminal Garden

The arrival was on time at 0130 local (1230 ET US Monday). In less than 30 minutes from the time the doors opened and we deplaned, we were through immigration and customs with all of our bags in hand. Our hotel driver was waiting and by 0300 we were checked into the Singapore Hilton.

Notice the Opened Bag?

I suppose some would immediately drop into bed and leave everything until later but we opened bags and did a few email things but not for long.

We had noticed that our bags had been tampered with when we collected them at the airport but just assumed it was TSA inspections. When opening one of the bags we were surprised to find 10 or so kid's cards, farewell cards given by teachers and friends to a child moving from Tulsa, Oklahoma to somewhere in the Far East, very bizarre. Two of the teachers had provided the child their addresses and email contact info, so with bits of info the effort began to get the cards to the rightful owner, a small child headed for China. We'll see how the story plays out over the next few days.

As for the tampering with bags, it now seems that somehow, in transferring our baggage to the Chicago to Hong Kong flight, our bags were opened. Perhaps the cards fell out of the child's bag and the baggage handlers just randomly picked our bags as a new home for the cards. Weird, just glad it was only cards.

It's 0400, surely the time for sleep.

Sooner than should be, it was 0800 and we were awake. After showers and dressing we headed down to breakfast. The hotel restaurant offered what might be the most varied and large breakfast buffet and fry grill I've ever seen. There were stations for foods of many cultures including English, Indian, Chinese, Thai, French, and American. There were recognizable foods, there were things not meant to be eaten; to get the flavor of Singapore I went for a multi-ethnic breakfast including French Toast, American Bacon, a Danish Pastry, Swiss Cheese, Genoa Salami, Mandarin Orange Juice, Belgian Chocolate, etc. Okay, so it didn't include curry or puddled eggs or unrecognizable meat or porridge,  but this is only the first day.

Oh, did I mention that the frame for my glasses broke this morning? Well yes it did, a frame break on my new 3-week old glasses, well at least the lenses were 3-weeks old; to save a few bucks I had the optician reuse my old frames, frames identical to another set that had broken in the exact same spot a few months ago. The hotel concierge told me of a nearby optical shop that may be able to repair the glasses but recognizing we'll be underway for Thailand in two days, time was of the essence. So with my 5-year old standby glasses on I found the optical shop and good fortune prevailed, they had the same brand frames so installation of new frames would be relatively simple and likely finished later today.

After returning to our room, it was now about 1000, Sheila was overcome with the urge to sleep and sleep she did for a couple of hours. I spent the time doing what I always do, web surfing, reading, blogging and keeping up with a little bit of work.

With the arrival of afternoon, we had our touring shoes on, our maps and apps aligned, our phone cameras charged and were ready to begin our trek through downtown Singapore to see and experience first-hand the sights and smells of this great Southeast Asia city; and trek we did, right down to the lobby, where we boarded a cab for a ride to our first destination the Singapore Flyer. The "Flyer" rises about 540 feet into the Singapore sky offering great views of the city, the harbor and surrounding area. Riding in an air conditioned gondola was a pleasant experience especially in that the gondola maintains a level attitude, never swinging as on a ferris wheel, throughout the entire 360 degree rotation of the wheel.

                                                 

By now we were beset with thirst and were beginning to worry about Malaria. We began walking back toward the town center, passing the Singapore Formula One track, host to the only nighttime F1 event, the Singapore War Memorial Park and a number of gardens; there are so many gardens and buildings with tropical plants throughout the city.

We were fortunate to come upon none other than the Raffles Hotel, yes the Raffles, home of The Long Bar, the supposed birthplace of the Singapore Sling. In one stop, all of our problems were solved, our thirst was quenched by Singapore Slings and a Tiger Draft beer. As for the Malaria I downed a very smooth Gin & Tonic, problem solved, bring on the mosquitoes.

The Long Bar - Raffles Hotel

One For Thirst
One For Malaria 

RECIPE FOR THE LONG BAR'S SINGAPORE SLING

30 ml Gin

15 ml Heering Cherry Brandy

120 ml Pineapple Juice

15 ml Lime Juice

7.5 ml Cointreau

7.5 ml Dom Benedictine

10 ml Grenadine

A Dash of Angostura Bitters

Garnish with a Pineapple Slice and a Cherry                     

Very Small Peanuts, Nubs Not Hubs

Peanuts are served at The Long Bar, some of the smallest peanuts I've seen; suppose if you had a mind to, you could get a half dozen of these little critters inside the shell of a good sized Virginia Hub.





My last visit to The Long Bar had been in 1975, a mere 38 years ago; in 1989 it was moved from it's off-lobby location to a more tourist oriented portion of the property; still a pretty cool place to visit. After the drinks and the nostalgia, it was time for a cab ride to the hotel.


Good news for me, the optician came through and my new lenses are now matched with new frames. The new frames were less costly than the same frames in Kitty Hawk; so far that's the only thing I've found to be less costly.

Burrata Mozzarella

After a brief respite we headed to the rooftop restaurant in the hotel, Il Cielo. The 24th floor restaurant, smallish in size, offered a good view of the cityscape at night. Our dinner choices were a mozzarella and porcini mushroom pizza and smoked pork loin. Perhaps most interesting was the Burrata Mozzarella, prepared table-side and served with heirloom tomatoes. Dinner was excellent, a fine closeout for our first day.

By 2200 my day was over, sleep came quickly.