Singapore: July 20: Conference

On my first full day in Singapore, I attended a tutorial at the conference, where I learned one shouldn't attend tutorials in areas one already knows. (While I knew I knew much of the material covered, the description made me think there was more there. Although there was a little more there, it wasn't what I expected and generally not worth the time of sitting through the material I already knew.)

Aside from the conference, I ate breakfast at a buffet at my hotel, lunch at a buffet at the conference venue, and, to continue getting more true tastes of Singapore, dinner at a nearby hawker center. Breakfast, however, did provide a hint of the variety of people who visit Singapore; the buffet included not only traditional continental breakfast items (e.g., danish and french pastries) but also Japanese rice, glutinous rice, congee, and miso soup. I took pictures of all this. Incidentally, I woke at 7am, which wasn't bad for switching nine time zones.

I got to the food centre for dinner by taking a bus, realizing after the fact that it didn't go down the street I wanted, getting off, and hiking, eventually finding my way back. I was almost misled by a shopping mall with the same name as the food centre, but when I couldn't find any of the particular stores I expected to find, I realized it was too upscale and not the right place. The hawker centre I wanted wasn't much farther along.