Singapore

Today was the end of a segment, which means disembarkation day. Many friends were leaving here including Fred and Jan, and Mitch and Shelly. The turnover is about half of the ship's entire passenger complement, about 250. Some people can't wait to get off the ship, while others go begrudgingly.  Our bridge family is getting smaller, and this makes me sad.  We have met so many wonderful people and have made some good friends.  You guys know who you are, so you better keep in touch!!!

    I really don't want to leave. 

Singapore is a sovereign city-State and Island country in southeast Asia.  It lies off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula and is only 85 miles north of the equator.  The country's territory consists of the main island, commonly referred to as Singapore Island, and more than 60 smaller eyelets.  It is connected to the mainland of Malaysia by a bridge.  It has a population of over 5 million people, 75% which are Chinese.

Modern Singapore was founded in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles as a trading post of the East India Company (the famous Singapore Sling was invented at the iconic Raffles Hotel that is named in honor of Sir Raffles).  The British obtained sovereignty over the island in 1824, and Singapore became one of the British settlements in 1826. It was occupied by the Japanese during World War II. Singapore declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1963.

Singapore is one of the world's major commercial hubs with the fourth biggest financial center and one of the five busiest ports.  Singapore has the third highest per capita income in the world.  This is one of the cleanest cities in the world, and you will not find any litter or trash anywhere around.  There are four official languages, which include English, Malay, Chinese, and Tamil.  This is a country with strict laws, and even stricter enforcement. There is very little crime here. If you are caught with drugs you might as well just say a prayer as they lead you to the gallows.

Today marks our third visit to Singapore, and while there is a lot to see here, the weather makes outdoor activities very difficult.  There is a tremendous amount of high-end shopping here, but there are no real bargains anymore.  So what does one do when the weather sucks, but you want to see the sites?  You suck it up and carry a lot of water.  It only takes about 10 minutes before you start to sweat so much that your clothes become wet. 

Singapore has very strict immigration policies.  We had to show our passport to leave the terminal (with another half-mile walk), and then had to get an arrival card and our passport stamped about 15 times. I felt sorry for the poor immigration people going wack wack wack on all that paperwork.  Then we had to go through customs, and since we had nothing to declare, we were able to walk through and out into the mall.  Yes, it was another mall.  The first thing we did was exchange US money for Singapore dollars.

One of the things that were never got to do here is to take the cable car over to Sentosa Island.  The cable car goes right over the ship. Along with Adrian and Lillian, we left the mall and walked to a nearby office building where the entrance to the cable car was located.  We paid the princely sum of $52 for two for a round-trip ride.  We took an elevator up to the 15th floor of the office building; this was the cable car station.  We rode out over the ship and snapped a few pictures looking down into the ship's smoke stacks.  That was a really cool vantage point to view the ship. 

    Cable ride goes right over the ship

    The pool deck of the Sojourn as seen from the cable car

    Michael and Lillian on the cable car

Sentosa Island has an amusement park on it, and so we rode over the attractions.  We did not get off at the cable stop because it was too hot to go wandering around at the amusement park that we had no intention of going to.  Michael became Mr. Grumpy because he wanted to wander around. One does not wander around in the sun and the heat when one has a rational mind. I think he must have had heatstroke to even suggest doing such a thing.

    The wave pool with beach

So we stayed on the cable car and continued to Mount Fabor to view the city from the highest point on the island.  There was nothing much to do here except eat and buy souvenirs, so we continued on our journey.  We walked back to the mall to pick up the MRT, the subway system, to go to Chinatown.  As I have mentioned before, the subway system in Singapore is fabulous.  It is easy to navigate, it is super clean, the trains come very frequently, and it is air-conditioned.  We took the purple line and had to go two stops to exit at Chinatown.  As we walked out of the subway, we were smack dab in the middle of souvenir heaven. Cheap cheap cheap prices!  The fan I bought at Stanley market in Hong Kong broke, so I needed to buy a new fan. That was the first thing I did; I bought a fan for one dollar and it works beautifully.

    Exiting the subway in the heart of Chinatown 

Lillian and I had to restrain ourselves from shopping at this point because we were on our way to the Chinese Heritage Museum for a little culture and history.  This was recommended by all the travel sites as one of the best things to do when in Singapore.  It was in a very old building and had some air-conditioning.  The Chinese immigrants of 100 years ago had a miserable life, with starvation and/or opium addiction.  Many would never see their home or relatives again.

After visiting this interesting museum, we headed over to Yum Cha for dim sum.  And surprise surprise, guess who was there to meet us?  Fred and Jan Groth, who disembarked today!  One last chance to visit before they go home to Colorado. It was refreshingly cool in the restaurant and we all ordered nice cold drinks to cool us off.  Like last year, we were the only Caucasians in this restaurant. If the Chinese are eating there, then you know it has to be good. We enjoyed our meal and then said goodbye to Fred and Jan.

    Fred, Jan, Michael, Lillian, Adrian, Beverly 

    Serving dim sum

Chinatown is a very pretty place here in Singapore. It is quite crowded with many vendors selling a lot of the same junk, but the junk we love. How can anyone resist three for $10?  In fact, that was the name of one of the stores we shopped in.  Some of the stores had fans and a few had air conditioning even though there were no doors to keep the cold air in. I wonder what their electric bills are like.  I tended to shop in these stores because it was so uncomfortable otherwise (See, I am not whining or complaining).  After picking up a few presents, Michael bought all of us ice cream bars; except these did not taste like anything we know. The frozen confection didn't stay frozen very long in the heat and before I knew it, I was wearing it. It had chunks of mango in it and the texture was a bit strange.

By this time we had run out of steam and water, and decided to call it a day. We took the subway back to the Harborside Mall.  With about $13 Singapore dollars in my pocket, we tried to spend it in the mall. We were souvenired out and couldn't find anything else to buy. We will save it for next time. I found free Wi-Fi in the terminal waiting area and was able to backup my iPhone to the cloud, which is next to impossible to do on the ship's Wi-Fi. 

We changed into bathing suits in order to jump in the pool to cool off. Didn't work. The pool water was warmer than a bath. It was so warm, it could have been mistaken for the hot tub.  And it was too hot and humid to lay out. So it was shower time, where I was able to finally cool off. 

We had hosting duty in the dining room with some of the new passengers.  This was one night when room service would have been the perfect end to a most tiring but enjoyable day.