As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again

You'll never be hungry in Singapore.

The food is fresh and plentiful. Singapore has hawker stands, food courts, and restaurants everywhere. You can get any kind of food you want, Asian, Indian, European, Western. Anything. Anywhere. If you stay away from the touristy spots, you can get your food cheap or at least very reasonably priced. And best of all, they make it for you fresh on the spot.



You need a lot of places to eat when you need to feed nearly 5 million people every day. To compare that to California, if you combine all the cities in Santa Clara County, it comes to about 2 million people in 1,300 square miles. Singapore has less than 300 square miles for almost 5 million people. That’s less than a quarter the area for more than double the population. It works out to about twelve times the population per square mile. So I figure Singapore needs about twelve times the number of restaurants per square mile. And that means a lot of places to eat.



And that how it is. You can find something to eat everywhere. The only thing you can't find (a least not at a reasonable prices) is a good beer or glass of wine. Singapore has very high tariffs on alcohol, so you have to pay a premium for your drink. To make matters worse, you can't find good California wines here. There's some OK Australian and New Zealand wines and a few decent bottles from France. But nothing compares to our great California wines, and there's almost none here. It’s terribly sobering.



Are you coming to visit from California soon? Singapore allows you to bring in 1 liter of wine duty free with each adult. If you are wondering what to bring us in Singapore, please stop by your local Trader Joe's and pick me up a good bottle of California wine. (If you forget the wine, Singapore also allows you to bring in any amount of currency.)

Eating in Singapore can also be a surprise. We've been eating fish every day. Not intentionally. See, there are all kinds of pastry shops that sell perfectly normal-looking breads, donuts, and pastries. Some of them are indeed perfectly normal, filled with chocolate or custard or cream or something else appropriately sweet. Others only appear normal. When you bite into them however, you find your doughnut is filled with fish or pork and some greasy secret sauce inconsistent with your anticipated donut experience.



The other thing about eating in Singapore is you have to bring your own napkins. Not in the expensive restaurants catering to westerners--they have all the usual western amenities. But in normal restaurants where the locals go, everyone carries their own little tissue packs and napkins with them.



More importantly, if you eat to the hawker stands or indoor or outdoor food courts, you need your little pack of tissues to reserve a seat. Due to the other 5 million people trying to find a place to eating at the same time as you, there aren't enough tables in all 300 square miles for everyone to sit. So before you order, you have to reserve an empty seat. If you skip this step, you'll end up holding a tray of food with nowhere to put it down. You reserve your table by leaving your little tissue pack on the table. Only then can you go order. When its really crowded here (uh, all the time), you'll see people hovering over likely tables to be first to claim them when the current occupants are finished.

I suppose you could claim a table with your umbrella, or cell phone, or shoulder bag, or anything else, but you'll be less disappointed to loose my tissue pack if it turns out that the Singaporeans are bit less "law and order" than they say.

Abandoned in Malaysia

Last weekend we went to Malaysia to look at properties at this resort that is still under development. It was just over the border from the west coast of Singapore. The resort was beautiful and the prices sounded great; but that was only compared to your typical US and Singapore prices. In Malaysia it was ridiculously overpriced.

We didn't buy anything, but we thought about it. We did suffer a little adventure getting to Malaysia, which is best summed up from the notes in Deanna's travel journal for that day:

"15-July-2007: Up at 7:00am for a trip to Malaysia. The route from the hotel to Jorong East was uneventful. Apparently not many people are keen to leave Singapore for Malaysia. The bus from Jorong East is only $3.50 [Singapore Dollars] per person. They don't wait for you to clear customs in Malaysia, though."

We weren't the only ones who learned this little lesson last week. There was also a young couple with a baby. They were behind us in the line for customs and immigration. We were both taking a long time because the bus driver didn't give us immigration entry cards like they do on airlines. In fact, the bus company didn't even warn us we might need one. I'm not sure if it would have made a difference, though, because the friendly Malaysian customs officials don't have them on hand anyway. I'm still not sure where we were supposed to get them.

The delay was because the customs folks had to go looking around to find some entry cards for us. Everyone else from our bus must have brought their own, because they cleared out quickly. Soon, Deanna and I and the other couple were the only ones left at the immigration counter. I assumed the bus wouldn't leave behind the family with a baby, so I felt pretty confident being just ahead of them.

Of course, I was wrong.

Eventually, our friendly customs agents found a small stash of immigration cards--enough for everyone. But by the time we filled out the cards properly and cleared through immigration and customs and rushed out to where we were supposed to meet the bus, it was gone. Everyone was gone. We all looked around. And looked back at each other disbelieving. There was nothing. Just an empty parking lot and the road leading up to the freeway.

Not sure what to do, we walked out a bit into the parking lot looking around, thinking maybe we'd see the bus, maybe around some corner, or behind a pole or something.

But no, they were gone.

We were all stuck. Our bus had completely abandoned four adults and one child just inside the Malaysian border. And to make matters worse, as Deanna succinctly described in her journal, "the problem is, it's hot as f*ck."

So we just sat down for a while, avoiding the direct sun, but not able to avoid the humidity. There was a single vending machine, but there wasn't anywhere to exchange my Singapore dollars for Malaysia Ringgits. I handn't thought to change any money before we left.

So we waited. I knew the Causeway Link had at least one more scheduled trip across the border. So we waited. We hunkered down out of the sun and waited for the next bus to show up. While we waited we saw several other tour buses come through. None of them left without their passengers.


The impatient Causeway Link bus. Route CW3.

Another Causeway Link bus did eventually come through. And after a short explanation, the driver allowed us to join his group, no doubt displacing some other unlucky passengers standing around stupidly on the other side of the border without immigration cards and wondering how long their bus would wait.

Night Safari

We've been very busy since we got to Singapore. Last weekend we went on the Night Safari at the Singapore zoo. I wish we remembered to bring our camera, because we came right up close to hyenas, elephants, Asian deer, lions, giraffe, tiger, bats, and many more.

They have separate walking trails and a tram that runs through the park. We did both. And as the name says, it all takes place at night. In the twilight.

On the walking trails, you are mostly separated from the animals' living areas by fencing or moats. But on the safari tram, there is usually nothing separating you from most of the animals. Some of them come right up to the tram.

A couple highlights were the bats and the flying squirrels. They have a few very large areas in the jungle, enclosed top to bottom with fencing and set up as a walk-in cage. One was for bats. Another for flying squirrels. They draw the animals out by feeding them near the trails inside the cage. They came so close you could almost touch them.

These pictures are from the Singapore zoo web page. Its probably ok that we didn't bring our own camera, because they don't allow flash photography during the Night Safari anyway. It disturbs the animals. Of course that didn't stop some people from flashing cameras at the animals, or flashlights, or even bright multi-colored flashing-spinning toys!

Just like at home.

We've arrived

Yes, we've arrived.

But first a short recap: We sold our house and our cars. Auctioned away or gave away almost all of our furniture. Downsized our clothing. Packed some bags. And flew to Singapore with one-way tickets and no return date.

Ok, that sounds more dramatic and braver than it really was, because we left with jobs waiting for us in Singapore. And our company moved us. And we didn't downsize so much that we don't have a shipping container on a boat somewhere, scheduled to arrive in Singapore in about 2 more weeks.


We had thes privilege of flying business class. We flew United Airlines, flight 853, to Tokyo-Narita airport, connecting to United 803 to Singapore. Other airlines have direct flights to Singapore, but not on our company's approved list of carriers. I didn't mind taking a connecting flight, because it helps break up the long overseas flight. Its almost eleven hours to Tokyo, and then another six to Singapore.

And, since we flew business class, we also had the pleasure of using the business class lounge in Narita where we could enjoy a perfectly poured beer from the famous Narita beer machine.

Our flight arrived in Singapore just before midnight, but we didn't get our luggage and clear customs until well into the morning. We had six suitcases between the two of us, mostly clothing. That may seem like a lot to travel with, but we don't know when the rest of our stuff will arrive, so we had to bring at least a couple of weeks of clothing.

Our relocation company arranged to have a driver waiting for us at the airport, but they didn't anticipate us having so many suitcases. The driver smiled and called in reinforcements in the form of a mini-van. A short drive later, we arrived at our service hotel, where we have been spending for the last two weeks.