I think my jet lag has started kicking in.  It’s 7:30pm, Sunday night local time, but it’s 4:30am Sunday morning back home, so I’m getting pretty tired.  All-in-all, though, I think that I did the right thing on the trip to try to get on local time quickly.  I stayed awake for as long as I could, and then slept a few hours during the seven-hour flight from Tokyo to Singapore.  By the time I got checked in and ready for bed here, it was about 3am local time and I got right to sleep.  I did wake up a few times in the morning, but I managed to sleep until almost 7:30, and I’ve avoided any napping today.

The hotel, the Conrad Hilton, is pretty nice.  I did have a bit of trouble finding the electrical outlets for some reason last night.  I was trying to get online so I could let Amber know that I made it here safe and sound, but my laptop battery was almost dead.  I managed to find one after I rushed through the email so I could get my laptop charging.  To my surprise, this morning I found three other outlets that somehow eluded me last night.  In my defense, I was quite sleepy and at least one is quite well hidden.  In any case, how can you complain too much about a room that includes a rubber ducky?  It’s a Conrad Hilton branded rubber ducky, but it is still pretty cool.  Please forgive the picture quality.  I borrowed Amber’s camera for this trip but I don’t have the USB cable to transfer pictures to my laptop with me.  So I used my cell to get this picture.

Day one in Singapore was pretty relaxed.  After breakfast and a quick trip to the mall next door to our hotel, the Conrad Hilton, for sunscreen, we headed to the botanical gardens for some sightseeing.  En route, it started raining.  I mean real rain.  Not Seattle drizzle; an honest downpour.  So when the taxi got there, we spent the first 40 minutes or so hovering around a cafe killing time until the rain let up.  Once we got into the gardens, our patience was rewarded.  The flowers there are really quite stunning.  I was in full on shotgun photographer mode, so once I either figure out a way to get my photos off the camera or I get home, you will get to see the full collection.

After tooling around the garden, we started out for the Singapore Flyer, currently the largest Ferris Wheel in the world, but after chatting with our driver for a few minutes, we decided to put that off for a clearer day and headed to Chinatown and Little India to see how many places in Asia we could pretend to visit in a single day.  These neighborhoods lived up to their names.  Chinatown was definitely reminiscent of China markets - strange food and plenty of people trying to sell you stuff.  As tasty as it sounded, we skipped the live bullfrog soup.  Little India seemed a little less authentic.  I don’t remember there being any pubs in India, but maybe I just didn’t make it to the right neighborhood when I was there.

After a short break at the hotel to catch a second wind, we opted for an early dinner at Jumbo, a seafood restaurant.  The meal lived up to the name, but maybe we just went a little overboard, if you’ll forgive the nautical reference.  The highlight of the meal was a large Chilli Crab, a Singapore original dish and a specialty of Jumbo.  It was tasty, but incredibly messy to eat.  I lost count of the number of napkins and hand wipes I had to use.  Jumbo has several locations; we ate at the one at the East Coast Seafood Center at East Coast Park.  After dinner the jet lag was hitting us pretty hard, otherwise we probably would have checked out the park more thoroughly.  It made me think that I should have brought my Garmin and tried to do some running here.  I’ll probably stick to the exercise bikes in the fitness center for comfort.

Tomorrow we head into the office, but I’m sure that there will be more sightseeing after work.