Hello Asia!

I have arrived in Singapore. After leaving NYC on a 6:30 pm Egypt Air flight last Tuesday, I arrived in Singapore at 5:30 am on Thursday. Somewhere along the way, I lost 12 hours that I never had.

If you count travel time to and from airports, it took 29 or so hours to get here. The two flights (Egypt Air and Singapore Airlines) were fairly uneventful. I think I got a bit of sleep on both flights but certainly not as much sleep as I needed.

I arrived in Cairo at 11:30 am and I was not quite sure when my connection was taking off. I thought it was at 12:30. I asked a guy where Sing Air was and he told me that it was in a different terminal. I had to give him $2 for the advice and $10 to a guy who put me in a car and I gave the car driver a $1 tip,which was a 10+ minute drive, and a $1 to a guy who pointed me to the Sing Air desk. In my short time in Cairo (never leaving the airport) I discovered that everyone wants money. My $10 car ride was at least 2x the price that it should have been. but not knowing if there was a bus between terminals and thinking that I had an hour to catch my next flight, I don't feel bad about paying more than I should. It turns out that my connection was at 1:30, not 12:30, so I had an extra hour to sit around and watch Arabic music videos.

The women in the videos seem to dress the same way they do in MTV videos - the less clothing the better. I was somewhat surprised as i did see many women in the airport with their heads covered.

Although Singapore Air has some of the best looking flight attendants and good food - with real utensils - I do have a complaint about that flight: too many video choices. I think there were 60 or so channels to choose from. What i did not know until my brother told me, is that I could start any movie from the beginning. I would turn to a channel and info would appear letting me know the movie started 10 minutes ago or 46 mintues ago. I could have hit a button to start it over. no worries. Despite all the options, I was not into watching any. I think I had time for 5 movies but I watched 1+. I saw one Chinese movie and I think I watched a Hollywood movie but i cannot quite remember.

I arrived in Singapore on a hot and muggy Thursday. I found out quickly that "hot and muggy" is the norm for Thursday and every day of the week. I do not have my celsius temperatures down yet, but it was 26C when I arrived and it seemed hot.

Brother Sean and I have been getting a little exercise in since I have been here. I think that is good for both of us. We went for a jog on a track on Thursday and Saturday and we "ran" in a Terry Fox 4km event on Sunday. Each kilo lost starts with the first step.

I had many excuses not to exercise in the States. I am not sure if I'll be able to come up with good excuses here.

Early observations: hot, humid, expensive, money, and Asian.

Deb, Sean and I went to a mall on Saturday and it was bustling with people. There may be a financial crisis in the States but if you find a parking spot between the mercedes and BMWs and make it into the mall, you will see plenty of people buying name brand goods. I don't know where all the money is coming from but there seems to be a lot of it.

A Singapore dollar is worth .68 US or it takes 1.45 Sing to buy $1US. I will let you convert.

Gas costs about S$1.90 per liter here. Organic milk is S$14.00. OJ, on sale, is S$8.

Those are some of the prices I have seen so far.

I should have brought my car here. A 2005 Honda Accord LX (my same car on paper) is being offered for sale at S$45,000. Yikes!

It is Monday morning here and the first day of Fall break. This week, while I start my job search, Sean and Shannon will be showing me a bit of the island.

Updates to follow.

BJM 6 Oct 2008