If this is Tuesday, this must be Singapore

My life is, for want of a better word, interesting. As in "may you live in interesting times" interesting.

My Microsoftie called me up from Singapore and said, "hey, why not come down." And I refused. Then she used logic on me (I hate it when that happens) and I decided "ok."

Thankfully you don't need a visa to go to Singapore. So I gathered up my cash and went off to my local travel agent. From a decision made at noon, I had , a ticket by 1500. This was met with much amazement by the aforesaid microsoftie. The young lass just could not believe that I could and would move with great speed when I had to. I'm deceptive like that.

All this was of course after I had come back from a very successful FOSS-ed On Wheels in Kandy. So I was feeling most chuffed and proud of my bad self.

The flight to S'pore was at 0700, which meant that Yours Truly was not getting any sleep. And since that was the earliest I could get there, I was taking the long way 'round. CMB-KUL-SIN. Flying time was somewhere near 6-7 hours. And this being Sri Lanka, the flight took off 30 minutes late.

The flight was ok. The stewardesses friendly, and I recognised a few from my last flight down. The PSP saw lots of action this time, as did the digicam I got my dad. The pics are on my Picasa site. The new games I slammed into the PSP were fun too. I should remember to play them sometime.

Landing at Changi Airport was, as always, a pleasure. I don't know why, but I find the dotesgee airport one of the better places to be. This time, getting past immigration was a mite difficult. I'm youngish, and male. This sends off alarms at MOST places. And since I didn't have any hard cash on me, there were problems. Why didn't I have any sindollars? Because banks close at 1500 here in Sri Lanka, that's why. Anyway, talked my way past them, got on the MRT and headed for the hotel on Orchard Road.

The problem with GoogleEarth is that it makes all those distances so deceptive. What seems like a short hop on GE, and probably is when you're all fit and trim, becomes a rather long haul when you're fat, out of shape and hauling a 10kg backpack and a 17kg bag. It was, to say the least difficult

The hotel was nice, though the 'Softie wasn't there when I showed up. After all, she was working and I was the tourist. A long hot shower later, and I was feeling a lot more human. I kept falling asleep waiting for the 'Softie to show up, but when she finally did I was glad I came. Amazing how much you can miss someone without knowing you're missing them

We decided to take a walk down to the food court place that I ate at the last time I was in dotesgee. It actually was a walk and then a mrt ride. I liked the place, but the 'Softie was not too impressed, so we went somewhere else to eat. The food i had was good, the one she had.. not so much. Ah well.

The next few days were spent with her going to work, and me running around the city, seeing the sights. I also managed to catch a few movies. But more on that later.

One good thing about this run was that the 'softie and I got to do the tourist thing. We went to the night safari, and took a duck tour of dotesgee. Went to the Hard Rock Cafe, which was very close to our hotel, and generally had a good time.

It was also a lot of getting to know each other time, and that was important to us.

Dotesgee fascinates me. As an amateur sociologist, I love figuring out how the systems work. And this time I had a LOT more time to look around me to see what was going on in an effort to find out how the place worked. And what I found was, disturbing. I'm still writing that one up in my head. But what I saw was not pretty. Not pretty at all

All in all we did some fun things. There were some things we had to forego because of a lack of time. Things like having a Singapore Sling in Raffles (I even took a suit to wear for that), and blading on East Coast Park (I took my blades with me). So I guess that's for next time.

Speaking of blading, I see that someone has been posting here to say that it was Aloysius and not Brandon who looked after me at Skatesports, and that he has since moved to Skateline ECP. (where did I get Brandon from? I have NO idea. Blame it on the lack of sleep.) And if that IS the guy, well I guess I'll recommend Skateline ECP as well. I must admit that Skateline had a good choice of blades, and with Aloysius there, I think the mix of enthusiasm and a good product line will ensure lots of happy blading for everyone.

The time I spent in dotesgee was good. And I think many a good thing happened from it. I found that its easy to forget what you feel for someone when you're separated, and that sometimes it takes a while to remember.

Where will my globe-trotting ass go to next? Your guess is as good as mine