Singapore
Trip Start
May 15, 2007
1
3
19
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
Singapore,
Singapore
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The more hours I spend on planes, the more I realize I really hate flying. Selmer isn't a good flying partner either, 'cause he sleeps throughout the entire flight no matter how much I poke him and tell him I'm bored. I don't sleep at all on flights, so I get *really* bored.
Anyway, we were at Charles de Gaulle airport pretty early 'cause we had both been there before and knew it was a pretty nasty airport to find your way around, it's not at all clearly signposted. So we made a point of getting there early to make sure we'd have enough time to find the plane. Unfortunately, it turned out our flight was delayed and was leaving at 3 pm instead of 1 pm, so now we were so early we couldn't even check in yet
First picture in Singapore
. So we waited. Fortunately I *am* very good at airports (just not at planes), so it wasn't too boring. I just walked around a bit, watched people, bought a book - the usual stuff. After a while we finally got to check in and then waited for a bit more at the gate before we finally took off. We booked on SriLankan Airlines, so first it was 10,5 hours to Colombo. To my great surprise (as it was a cheap ticket) SriLankan Airlines is actually quite good; they have the screens in the seats in front of you and the meals were quite nice. The movies they showed weren't really great, the only thing I really liked was the Bollywood channel, but they only showed 'Salaam-E-Ishq'. I really like that movie, but seeing it twice in a row when you've already seen it before is a bit much. :D We have a short stopover in Colombo and then back on the plane for the last 3,5 hours to Singapore, where we, finally!, arrive at 2 pm local time. As soon as we're on the MRT to the city it promptly starts raining like hell - it is the rainy season after all. Oh well, at least it's slightly refreshing.
We dump our bags at the hotel, have a quick shower and a nap and then go out into Singapore. At first I'm not too impressed - there are a lot of modern high rises and boring apartment buildings - but after a while we hit some bustling street markets and some temples where a great mass of people are praying and waving incense around in a completely chaotic manner
Chinatown
. We get some fruit juices (many more will follow in the next few weeks!) - I get strawberry and Selmer gets avocado - yummy! We also buy umbrellas and stroll around for a while, eventually having a great Chinese dinner at one of the ubiquitous foodcourts. It seems like Singapore simply exists for shopping and eating, and whereas I'm not big on shopping, the eating part is fine by me. :D After dinner we watch the sun set and put the whole city in a rather odd but pretty yellow light, and we walk along Orchard Road (the main shopping street) for a bit more - checking out the really fancy end.
Eventually we go back to the hotel where I pass out in bed, whereas Selmer goes for another stroll around the neighbourhood as he didn't need to catch up on sleep - the bastard.
Day 4: Singapore
We wake up at a fairly normal time - quite surprising as we're supposed to be jetlagged. :D We leave our backpacks at the hotel and set off into Chinatown to wander around. After a while we have a yummy breakfast at a Chinese place
Selmer at our first dinner in Asia
. I order ice tea to go with my fishball soup, and I get some crazy concoction. It's definitely tea and there's ice as well, but there's milk added and something to sweeten the whole thing. Very funky. It tastes great though. :D Turns out later this is my first encounter with the Singaporese iced tea with milk, and the first episode in what will be an ongoing series of 'lets order ice tea and see what they come up with'. Ordering ice tea is never as straightforward as it seems in South East Asia, you hardly ever just get a can op Liptonice or something like that. It's very adventurous. :D Anyway, after breakfast we head towards Little India to explore that part of town - unsurprisingly I quite like it there. There are some very pretty temples and shitloads of shops with Bollywood movies, music and pretty fabrics. It's a good thing we'll be back in Singapore before flying home - I have to go shopping here! After that we walk towards the Arabic Quarter and goggle at the pretty mosques.
I really like how Singapore is a mix of lots of things - so many different things to see and foods to sample! :D We go back to Chinatown to have some more fruit juice and spring rolls and then head back to the hotel to pick up our bags. Tonight and tomorrow night we're staying at the Fairy Point Chalet with all the other overseas wedding guests. Fairy Point has a bunch of chalets on the water edge and it's quite pretty, though so out of the way that our taxi driver doesn't even know where it is. Though I was already quite worried he put on glasses to read a map and then took them off again to drive. I just hoped he'd spot signs and other cars while they were still far away. :D
In the end he found it though and I had a bit of siesta while Selmer went out for a few seconds to look around and got roped into helping out with the decorations for tomorrow's party and he found himself cutting ribbons for two hours
My dinnerS
. :D At night there was a welcoming barbecue for all the overseas wedding guests, which turned out to be quite a big group, about 30 people. Quite amazing considering the price of a ticket to Singapore! Anyway, the barbecue was fun and we had some nice food and stayed out until 11 pm when it started raining again and we were chased inside. Day 5: Singapore
The big day of the wedding, which is why we came all the way to Singapore in the first place! The program (very tightly scheduled) starts at 8.30 am, when the overseas guests get picked up from the chalet by a bus (an Asian size bus unfortunately, so no leg room at all for tall Dutch people...), and we're driven to the bride's parents' place. We are welcomed by her family and fed breakfast (a very considerate mix of Western and Chinese breakfast foods), while the family keeps telling us to eat more as apparently we won't get any food for a while. Wendy (the bride) was there as well, and after a while Ruben (the groom) arrived and all the guys had to go outside and the front door was locked very well. The guys (the groom and the best men) had to sing some songs from all the way downstairs (the apartment was on the 10th floor or something) until they were allowed to come up to the front door. There they had to undergo what was called a 'torture session', in which the groom and the best men had to eat lots of different foods (some pretty nasty) and the groom had to read out a few Chinese poems and hand out a fair amount of cash to the bride's sisters before he was finally allowed in the house to get his bride
Sunset
. After the torture session there was a tea ceremony and prayers with Wendy's parents and then we went to the Grand Shanghai for a big lunch. Mind you, this was only about an hour and a half after we were told we wouldn't get any food for a long time. The lunch was great, there were eight courses with lots of yummy Chinese food and we were seated with Martijn & Roos (good friends of Selmer) and another Dutch guy (forgot his name...), so that was fun.
After the lunch we went back to the chalets for a few hours of rest and then at night there was a big dinner (what was that 'you won't get any food for a long time' again?!) at the chalet, during which we got a few speeches, songs and picture shows - typical for Dutch wedding parties. After dinner there was a big party with DJ Akbar (who was this really tall Sikh guy playing lots of 80s songs and making announcements - it could've been a scene from "The Wedding Singer" :D).
So all in all it was a very fun wedding - a nice mix of Chinese and Dutch customs and lots of very yummy food. :D We didn't actually really got to talk to Ruben & Wendy, but we're coming back to Singapore before we leave, so we should be able to fix that.
