Opening the Circle Line MRT

Can a train have “new car smell”?

The first day after the official opening, I took an exploratory ride on the Circle Line train. This is the newest train line in Singapore’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, owned by Singapore’s Land Transport Authority. Not only are the cars and seats all shiny and new, but it has the same new smell that you get from fresh paint, vinyl, and rubber compounds.

Currently, the Circle Line doesn’t go anywhere, so the stations and trains were not very crowded. There are only a few stations open, and the rest of the 29 stations aren’t scheduled to open any time soon. All the Circle Line currently offers is a shortcut between two existing train lines: it connects the imaginatively named North-East line (the “Red” line on the MRT map) to the North-South line (the “Purple” line on the MRT map).

This short-cut is actually kind of nice, because it allows you to cut across town without having to go all the way into the central business district where the Red and Purple lines cross each other. If you want to cut across town, this is helpful. We live on the Purple line, just one stop away from the Serangoon interchange that connects with the Circle Line. So this shortcut gives us easy access over to the Red line and all the stations along the Red line.



For you train buffs, the rolling stock consists of Alstom Metropolis C830 trains running in three-car formation. The three-car length trains are half the size of the other MRT lines. I thought the short length might be just temporary while they finish construction of all 29 stations and grow the number of daily passengers. But the train stations are only long enough to accommodate three cars, so they really don’t have the option to expand the trains.

Looking out the front window is my favorite part of the Circle Line. Unlike the other MRT lines in Singapore, the first and last cars on the Circle Line have forward and backward looking windows, so you can see where you’re going and where you’re coming from. None of the other three lines allow you so see anywhere but sideways.

Here is the two-minute ride from one station to the next:

Get Your Geek On!

I knew my plans were set when I saw the ad for the Gaming and Electronics Fair coming to Singapore this weekend. Deanna was stuck in statistics class all day, so I was free to fully get my geek on.



The Suntec Convention Center has 6 floors of exhibition and convention halls. The gaming fair was on the 6th floor. For any convention-planning readers who might value these things, it is the largest column-free meeting area in Asia.

Despite the large size and absence of internal columns, the fair still was packed - mostly with boys but also a few girls here and there - all kids about half my age.



Some were quietly playing collectable trading card games. The more aggressive of the crowd (again, mostly boys) were battling each other in the latest mass-networked computer games. I wanted to play too, but I’m not all up on the moves and secret codes required to compete in the newest games. In fact, I was actually hoping to find some older games on sale.

The newest games typically to require too much memory, computing power, or dedicated graphics processing chips to run on my 2 year-old laptop. But I can usually get older games to run okay, so long as they are not too graphic intensive.



I couldn’t find any old games I wanted enough to buy, but I did get to spend a lot of time watching these younger and geekier versions of myself playing the cool new games that I’ll never be able run on my computer.

I also got to spend some time checking out some of the latest gaming hardware.

Now that almost everyone has a high definition flat panel TV, it is pretty standard to have it all connected up to play your X-box, Playstation, and home theater sound system. Gaming now has become so mainstream that its taken over your typical middle-class living room.

You’re almost not a geek anymore: guys, you’re playing on the same setup your mum and dad use for watching American Idol!



Being that I’m probably as old as some of these kids’ mums and dads, it was time for me to move on.

On the way out of the gaming convention, I noticed that there was an early-childhood education convention going on directly below the gaming convention.

Their convention has a cheerful manga-eyed mascot to greet the kids. I didn’t initially realize this was a different convention. I thought it was just another computer character from some new Japanese game being promoted upstairs.



I also discovered a universal truth on my way out: even in an economic downturn precipitated by falling real estate prices, and even at a gaming convention populated mostly with 20-something boys, you can still find some guy pushing dodgy real estate investments.



Having satisfied my inner geek at the game fair, and skipping the chance to make 28.98% return in London real estate, I took the escalators down to the ground floor of the Suntec mall. There was another event in Suntec I needed to find - the Carrefour International Wine Fair.

We’ve lived in California all of our lives within a short drive to some of the world’s best wine regions: Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Marin County, Monterey County, San Luis Obispo, Paso Robles, etc. So we’ve come to expect great wine at reasonable prices. Once we moved to Singapore, however, we discovered neither.

Singaporeans are not big wine drinkers. And when they do, they don’t typically import their wine from California. They look for nearby regions like New Zealand or Australia. Or even France.



Not that you can’t find good wines from France. They’re just not as good as the ones from California. And when you add in the shipping costs and the Singapore import duties on alcoholic beverages, they’re never reasonably priced here.

Fortunately, the wine fair solved two problems. One: they had plenty of wines from all over the world. And two: they had free samples!

What more needs to be said. The wine fair was a hit! I accepted as many samples as they offered. And took liberal advantage of the sample stations set out for me to pour my own.



Alas, I couldn’t stay long enough to finish all the open bottles - I had to meet Deanna after she finished with her statistics class. Thank goodness for Singapore’s public transportation. A couple drinks in the US, and you’re stranded by blood-alcohol. In Singapore you just hop on the train, swipe your ez-link card, and you’re off to the next party.

But as I wobbled out of the wine fair, I thought about the real estate salesmen stuck upstairs in the gaming convention. They might have found a more receptive customer had they have pitched their booth in front of the wine fair instead.

Triathlon

According to Wikipedia, the first known swim/bike/run triathlon was held at Mission Bay, San Diego, California on September 25, 1974. It was invented by members of the San Diego Track Club, which sponsored the race. Only 46 participants competed in the race.

Last month, I completed my first triathlon in Singapore. It was sponsored by Tribob Singapore. Nearly 1,000 people entered, and 748 people finished. Technically, the race was classified as a “sprint” distance triathlon, which means it was half the distance of an Olympic triathlon.

The triathlon was the final of a three-race series. They gave me the bib number (374) for all three races:

Aquathlon
Swim: 750m
Run: 5km



Duathlon
Run: 3km
Bile: 15km
Run: 3km


Triathlon
Swim: 750m
Bike: 20km
Run: 5km


Total Combined Distance
Swim: 1.5K
Bike: 35K
Run: 16K

For people participating in all three races, their results are combined for a final overall score. My final position after all 3 races was 60th out of 229 finishers in my age category (men 40-49).

The thing about racing in Singapore is dealing with the heat and humidity. It is pretty much always 80 degrees in Singapore, day or night. And the humidity makes it feel about 5 to 10 degrees warmer still. Obviously this doesn’t much impact your swimming, but once you get out of the water and start biking or running, you really get hot.

A couple of our friends came out and met Deanna at the beach to cheer me on. I only got to see them for a couple of seconds each time I passed the race checkpoints. After the race, however, it was really great to have friends around to congratulate me and buy cold beers.

USS John C Stennis

There are a few unmistakable symbols of American’s supremacy as the world's surviving superpower. One of the most formidable is a US Navy aircraft carrier strike group.



We recently had the opportunity to tour the USS John C Stennis while it was docked in at Singapore’s Changi Naval Base.

One of Deanna’s cohort in the Rutgers MBA program is a Navy sailor stationed in Singapore. He does not serve on the USS Stennis, but he helped arrange a tour while the carrier was visiting the Singapore base.



The simplest and most obvious observation is that the ship is huge--an entire airport, accompanied by a self-contained mobile city with a population of 6,500 crew and officers.

The city infrastructure is supported by 2 nuclear power plants, and a 400,000-gallon capacity water distillation plant. The city hosts four squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets, and five other squadrons of military aircraft. Eight additional ships complete Destroyer Squadron 21 and make up the JCS Battle Group.

We were invited first to walk into the indoor hanger that makes up the guts of the ship. Here is the giant repair shop where aircraft are taken for routine maintenance and upgrades, and for loading and unloading missiles, weapons, or other equipment, as needed.



The hull contained massive rolls of bubble wrap, which we learned are rapidly consumed by the ongoing repair and maintenance operations. All spare parts removed from the aircraft or waiting to be installed must be protected with two layers of bubble wrap at all times when not attached to an aircraft. An additional third layer is required when parts must be shipped away for repairs that cannot be made onboard. You can never be too careful when your worksite houses two nuclear reactors and enough bombs and missiles to police the world.

From these busy, but well-padded internal operations, we next took one of the four aircraft elevators for a quick ascent to the flight deck.



On the flight deck, the crew allowed us to walk right up to the various planes and helicopters. We were able to touch the aircraft and they encouraged us to take photos. The crew members explained how the four catapults launch fighters down the runway and how arrester cables catch them when they return.



It was fascinating to learn that the launch catapults are powered by steam. Even when they are not operating, you can smell the steam and see slight hints of it rising from along the slot that runs the length of the launch deck. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense when you think of a nuclear reactor as just giant pressurized boiler. The four turbine propellers that drive the ship are also steam powered, as is all of the electricity on the ship.

It had been raining earlier in the day, and the sky was still overcast with clouds. But it was still a great view from the flight deck looking back over the other military ships at docked at the base, and out to sea with the crowd of civilian cargo ships waiting to load or unload at Singapore’s busy seaports.



After our return back down the elevator, several of the women got a more personalized tour when they went looking for the women’s restroom. Of the 6,500-strong population, how many do you think are women? “Not many” was the answer. One of the few female crew members was recruited to lead her civilian sisters into the depths of the ship, down steel staircases, and through waterproof hatches that locked behind them, beyond the executive officer Board Room (and the executive Ward Room), until they found the restroom marked “women.”

After our women returned to us safely, we were invited to tour one of the battle group’s support ships, the USS Antietam, a guided missile cruiser. A few of the group took up the offer, but unfortunately, we did not have enough time to stay for the second tour.

Like all good American institutions, of course, the ship also sold souvenirs. We browsed through them before we left, and if they had miniature toy aircraft carriers or fighter jets I definitely would have bought some.

Returning through the naval base, we passed the USS Antietam, and several other ships in the carrier strike group, along with a few other visiting ships from the Italian and Japanese navies. And of course, the Singaporean navy was present in force as well.



Before leaving the base, I paused to use one of the porta-potties placed for civilian contractors wherein I noted three discarded cans of Heineken, an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, and a used Starbucks Venti Frappuccino cup.

Were these of former civilian or military use? Our tax dollar at work?

No word on the comparable contents of the women’s restroom.

Sprint Duathlon

I completed the second race in the three-race Tribob sprint series. I finished pretty much in the middle of the pack at 281 out of the 620 finishers. According to the final results, my total time was 1:06:26 for the 3k Run - 15k bike - 3k run. Again, I spent too much time in the transitions, but I'm happy with my times.



I finished the first 3k run in 13:56, and then spent 3:06 in the transition to biking. I finished the 15k bike ride in 30:30, and then spent another 2:46 in the transition back to running. In the final 3k run, I took 16:06.

I learned it is much harder to go back to running after the bike. My time for the second run was much slower than the first. I have not trained on any two sports at the same time. They each use different muscle groups, so I think I might have to start doing some combination swimming, biking, and running to get used to switching between muscle groups in the same race.

Having completed the Aquathlon and now the Duathlon, the final race in the series is the Triathlon -- it is coming up soon, so I better get working.