Sunday, April 12, 2009

DAY FOURTEEN – THE MILE HIGH CLUB THAT ALMOST NEVER WAS

A Big Happy Easter to the Christian World today, and a big, awesome Sunday the 12th to the rest. We’re currently 824km away from Singapore and 12,192 meters from the ground. (Do the conversions yourself. No calculator up here) We’ve occupied our time from Fukuoka to Singapore with old Super Nintendo games and crappy sit-coms. The stewardess (they are still called that in the Far East) has not cut Kent or Steve off from their Kirin fix, though Tim, Andrew and I are doing our best to keep hydrated.

Our bus got a flat on the way to the airport, making us pretty late. Now if this were in the States, we would not have been able to take the flight, but for some reason in
Japan 40 minutes in advance is all we seem to need! More trouble with our MCOs. These people act as if they’ve never seen this before. Mind you the ticket folks are the nicest in the world (a very stark contrast to our first experience at Northwest) but this is getting ridiculous. So we ended up having to pay $4,000 out of pocket for the excess baggage. It’ll be reimbursed at the end of the tour, so it’s not wasted. Just an avoidable hassle. Made the plane just in time for take off, and are now hitting some turbulence. Initially thought it was our innards turning over from yet another plane meal.
This stuff is intense! More from the ground later.

OOOH WEEE! MUGGY baby. Hot and muggy. Met Bama, our driver outside of customs and drove to the off-base housing in lovely
Singapore. Up until this point our digs have been very spacious, comfortable, and down right lovely. The ones here are almost a joke. We each have our own 2-bedroom apartment at our disposal equipped with a kitchen, laundry room, living room, as well as 1 & a half baths. The buildings look a bit dated from the outside and give off a haunted vibe, but other than strange noises from the neighbors upstairs (called the front desk: there should be someone up there) all’s lovely.
Kent, Matt, Tim & Andrew took the train downtown to check out the nightlife on an Easter Sunday evening. The river-side area reminds us of an Inner Harbor re-constructed by Disney. It’s unbelievably clean, and equally as expensive. Tried the famous Singapore Sling but gathered it’s not as good as the recipe Kent and Matt learned in bartending school. Upon returning to Sembawang, we were greeted with the men of the night who congregate near the housing area to meet up and exchange their love for one another. That could explain why earlier in the day they may have been making closer eye contact than we have been used to. We thought it was just Matt & Tim’s matching ball caps.

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