I’ve been in Singapore now for about ten hours, and for the most part it’s been a pretty rough ten hours. One of the people on the tour lost their passport right after getting stamped for Singapore. There couldn’t have been more than 50 meters from passport control to customs, but he lost it somewhere in between the two. When he realized he tried to go back and find it, but the customs guy wouldn’t let him and he was forced to leave without it. Then when we got to the hotel it turned out that the group’s reservations were never confirmed. So there we were, six people, two of which were walking around all sad (I don’t blame them) and a tour leader upset because he was being embarrassed in front of the tour for not having the rooms All through it I’m kind of enjoying the whole thing, not the lost passport part, but the no rooms thing. I don’t know why but sometimes I like when life throws a wrench into the works. So I’m staying in a dorm room for the night, and as dorms go, this one isn’t bad.

As for Singapore… hmmm… it’s a mature Dubai. I’d heard stories that it was very developed, but I don’t think I was expecting what I ended up seeing today. Everything is at least Western equivalent if not higher, and I do mean everything too. The roads, the buildings, and everything else I can think of just appears new, or very well kept up, even the people seem super polite.

It was a coincidence but today is a holiday, I believe if I heard correctly it was National Day. Much of the day’s festivities were going to be happening at the marina, which so happens was where I was supposed to be meeting the rest of the group at 8. So when I left the hotel that was my first goal to get to the marina, because many of the streets were blocked off due to the celebration that was planned for later it took me quite a while to actually get to the marina and find the spot where we were going to meet. I also screwed up because the battery in my camera had only about a half charge… which means in battery lingo, it was nearly dead. It took me so long to get to the spot that I didn’t want to go back to the hotel for a new battery, and it also meant that didn’t want to go walking around taking pictures and kill the remaining bit of juice I had left. I ended up parking my butt in front of the railing at the marina at about 5 and waited until 8 for the fireworks to start.  I know, right? That’s a long time to just wait, but fortunately there were a lot of other things that happened before the fireworks, there were fly-bys by fighter aircraft, demonstration of light watercraft from the navy, helicopter flyovers, skydivers, and a few other things that made the time go fairly quickly.

Because I got there so early I had the best seats for the fireworks, and they were spectacular too. I think at least from where I was sitting they were the best I’ve ever seen, though there’s no way I could ever really compare to other shows I’ve seen.

I’ve got one more night here and then I’m off for Manila. I’m hoping that tomorrow I’ll be able to see more of the city than I did today. BTW: the tour ends tomorrow morning so I’l be on my own from then on.