Wednesday, April 12

We arrived in Singapore at 7:15am (2 1/2 hours of time zone change).  We got an app for their version of Uber, called Grab, and took it to our hotel.  Like many urban hotels, the reception desk is up an elevator, not on the street level.  We checked into our small room, and took a little nap.

We got up and walked around.  We had coffee, bought some Velcro (floppy disk now means an outboard 2 gigabyte SSD that isn’t securely attached to the computer), and found a wonderful vending machine.  i.Jooz is loaded with oranges, and you insert $2, watch a Zumex go through its moves through a little window, and get back a sealed cup of fresh-squeezed juice, squeezed as you watch.  They really should be everywhere.  We checked out Atlas, an office building featuring a studiedly Art Deco bar (not built back then, built a few years ago in that style). Dave said it’s a tribute to art deco and I said it’s art deco. A style has to be pretty specific before examples of it can be distinguished as “tributes”. With Elvis, you can have a tribute, or Jerry Garcia. But you wouldn’t have a Democratic Tribute Party. Trump, yes. Definitely in 40 years there will be performers touring the old folks’ homes leading cheers of “Lock ‘Er Up!”, following the morning Naatu-naatu-cise and the afternoon Remembering Tilapia Protein In The Kitchen With Mom.

We weren’t really ready to drink that early, though. We looked at an interesting restaurant nearby, The Coconut Club, but they were only serving snacks. It looked worth returning to when it opened for dinner at 6.

We headed to a popular attraction, Garden By The Bay.  From a distance you see towers covered with growing foliage. I suppose are trying to look like palm trees.  When you arrive you have the opportunity to buy tickets to the attractions.  First we went on the Skyway, a little walk along the towers with a good view of the city.  Then, the Flower Dome, a large indoor botanical garden.  Then, the Cloud Forest, another tall structure containing largely rainforest plants and a large waterfall.  This time it was featuring the movie “Avatar”, and had sculptures and games referencing the movie located throughout, as well as arcades where you could insert yourself into the movie. A lot of different people go there. There was a cherry-blossom themed exhibit with a torii and a model bullet train and of course a plaster Mount Fuji. Pokémon Forest. 

We saw enough of everything, and returned to The Coconut Club for their signature “nasi lemak”, an Indonesian dish consisting of coconut rice with stuff on it.  In our case the stuff was fish curry.  It was all delicious.  We stopped in the Atlas for a drink on the way back, but I was wearing shorts (Singapore is hot!) and they didn’t let us in because of their stupid dress code.

A cloud rather bigger than a man’s hand appeared on the horizon: Meteo Australia is changing their prediction for Exmouth from Clear to Overcast, thanks to Cyclone Ilsa approaching Western Australia from New Guinea. The prediction has been for clear weather, right straight along. We shall see.

Thursday, April 13

We returned to the i.Jooz machine, and then found a place open that early with coffee.

We got a Grab back to the airport, and flew to Perth on “Scoot”, which is a Singapore Airlines project. It’s minimal. Despite being on a new Dreamliner, there is no screen to look at, and inflight entertainment is streamed to your smart phone. The cabin temperature was hot, so much so that the pilot apologized and said it would be better once we were aloft. I wonder if they degrade their experience to make people want to fly Singapore, at a higher price. (But Singapore père doesn’t fly direct to Perth, I don’t think.)

Has everybody appreciated the current fad of airlines conducting their safety videos in anything but an airplane? I first noticed this on Icelandic Airways a while back, but now every airline does it. You are instructed to fasten your seat belt on toboggans or camels or electric chairs, and slide down a slide into a swimming hole or a vat of chocolate, but airplanes are strictly out of the frame.

The flight was smooth enough. Cyclone Ilsa, which was on its way to Category Five, was far to our east. Didn’t even see clouds.