This has been a long day and I'm nearly dead on my feet. But I feel compelled to write it up because the events are quite out of this world.
The day started at about 3.50 am Singapore time, though I have to admit it was 4.50 am in Kyoto, Japan. However, since I'm penning this now in Singapore at 9.30 pm in my hotel room, that makes a 17 hour 40 minute leviathan. I had to catch the 6.30 am Haruka airport express train from Kyoto to Kansai (Osaka's airport) which took its allotted 1 hour and 40 minutes for its journey through endless housing estates, factories, express-ways and the other paraphernalia of urban living in a region that's home to about 18 million people. I left my Kyoto hotel early because it would have been disastrous to have missed my connection to Singapore.
I flew with Jetstar, a Qantas off-shoot and you might think odd for an Australian airline this route. However, the flight went on to Darwin and is clearly designed to connect Australian territory to the fastest growing economic region in the world. It was pleasing to see therefore that the flight was a 100% sell-out, but the passenger list was 99% Asian. I was the only person of European extraction for rows and rows. Well that didn't concern me much as I've been 2 weeks in Japan and had barely seen a European meal in all that time.
Fortunately, I cleared immigration and customs fast in Singapore and exited in the waiting arms of Tan Kok Yang (TKY), my former doctoral student and now successful Singaporean businessman, his wife Lee Boon and their daughter. After depositing my luggage in my hotel room, we took to Singapore's crowded streets for my first look around the city in perhaps as much as 15 years. Much has changed, especially on the sky-line where tall, but elegant structures are mushrooming. The CBD is one large construction site and a lot of the historic areas are being swept away by modernity, save a few heritage districts. This task was very pleasant after the torrid heat of Kyoto. Strange as it may seem, Singapore, which is barely a degree off the equator was much milder than its more northerly rival.
Around dusk, we headed for one of Singapore's large array of ethnic eating areas. There, our party of 4 was augmented by another quartet. One was Lee Boon's Aunt who inhabited a house in the apartment block towering over the eating area. She was 73 and didn't appear to know a word of English. The other arrivals were, I understood, all from Hanoi in Vietnam. One was a former UNE student I knew as Son and she was accompanied by her own daughter who had studied environmental science at the Australian National University and spoke very good English (as did Son) and her daughter's friend. Conversation was brisk and amusing, with the exception of the frail aunt!
Our meal consisted, in the way of the orient, of a large number of dishes, though these had to be carefully selected! A quick glance at the menu was alarming, as the following list of options suggests:
The day started at about 3.50 am Singapore time, though I have to admit it was 4.50 am in Kyoto, Japan. However, since I'm penning this now in Singapore at 9.30 pm in my hotel room, that makes a 17 hour 40 minute leviathan. I had to catch the 6.30 am Haruka airport express train from Kyoto to Kansai (Osaka's airport) which took its allotted 1 hour and 40 minutes for its journey through endless housing estates, factories, express-ways and the other paraphernalia of urban living in a region that's home to about 18 million people. I left my Kyoto hotel early because it would have been disastrous to have missed my connection to Singapore.
I flew with Jetstar, a Qantas off-shoot and you might think odd for an Australian airline this route. However, the flight went on to Darwin and is clearly designed to connect Australian territory to the fastest growing economic region in the world. It was pleasing to see therefore that the flight was a 100% sell-out, but the passenger list was 99% Asian. I was the only person of European extraction for rows and rows. Well that didn't concern me much as I've been 2 weeks in Japan and had barely seen a European meal in all that time.
Fortunately, I cleared immigration and customs fast in Singapore and exited in the waiting arms of Tan Kok Yang (TKY), my former doctoral student and now successful Singaporean businessman, his wife Lee Boon and their daughter. After depositing my luggage in my hotel room, we took to Singapore's crowded streets for my first look around the city in perhaps as much as 15 years. Much has changed, especially on the sky-line where tall, but elegant structures are mushrooming. The CBD is one large construction site and a lot of the historic areas are being swept away by modernity, save a few heritage districts. This task was very pleasant after the torrid heat of Kyoto. Strange as it may seem, Singapore, which is barely a degree off the equator was much milder than its more northerly rival.
Around dusk, we headed for one of Singapore's large array of ethnic eating areas. There, our party of 4 was augmented by another quartet. One was Lee Boon's Aunt who inhabited a house in the apartment block towering over the eating area. She was 73 and didn't appear to know a word of English. The other arrivals were, I understood, all from Hanoi in Vietnam. One was a former UNE student I knew as Son and she was accompanied by her own daughter who had studied environmental science at the Australian National University and spoke very good English (as did Son) and her daughter's friend. Conversation was brisk and amusing, with the exception of the frail aunt!
Our meal consisted, in the way of the orient, of a large number of dishes, though these had to be carefully selected! A quick glance at the menu was alarming, as the following list of options suggests:
- Fish Head Bee Hoon Soup
- Marmite Pork Ribs
- BBQ Stingray, and
- Claypot Drunken Live Frog
I imagine that the Frog would have to have been plied with Vodka or something similar to makes its fate tolerable. Well, we chose wisely and most of the fayre that graced our table was eminently edible. There were many toasts to this that and the other requiring the clinking of glasses and shouts of 'campai' (the Japanese for 'cheers').
It was a good evening and I even landed an invitation to visit Hanoi and perhaps address Son's students. That adds to the invitations I received to do the same in Lisbon, along with suggestions that I attend meetings in Kharkov, Bucharest, and Beersheva in 2014 and a moving conference (literally on a train) between Irkutsk and Vladivostok in 2015. Add in two birthday parties in California next year, June in Rio de Janeiro (for the world cup), an invitation to a canoeing festival in Milne Bay (PNG), and various other things, and I'm not going to stop travelling in a hurry.
AS
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