Singapore: Dec 27: Getting to Singapore

The Sunday after Christmas, December 27, 2009, we awoke at dawn to begin our trip to Singapore. Because of Singapore's equatorial climate, we didn't pack heavy coats or gloves. Consequently, I worried we'd be freezing to death while looking for a taxi in the morning in Shanghai. I needn't have been; it wasn't unpleasantly cold. (While walking outside that morning, I even decided we should be waking up and doing stuff earlier in the mornings in Shanghai. The temperature wasn't bad.) And, besides, we found a taxi amazingly quickly. A short ride later, we boarded the long-distance bus that brought us to the airport, and, from there, check-in, customs, and security were a breeze. We had tons of time to wander the terminal; the best store was one selling stuffed-animal pandas. See the picture.

We landed and headed to our friend's place where we'd be staying the whole week. Though I didn't photograph it, the house is clearly a rich place, ornately decorated. It has a study, a koi pond, workout equipment, Persian carpets, pendulum clocks, and, as we discovered another day, bats that visit in the evening. They fly in the open windows, circle several times, and leave.

After a bit of confusion regarding meeting/not-meeting at the airport, we finally found our friend/host and headed out for dinner. We stopped for dinner by the small part of the Clementi hawker centre--a hawker near our friend's place--adjacent to the bus stop (we'd explore the rest of the centre another day), walked through the small nearby mall, then headed to Little India to meet a friend of Di Yin's. We met at Mustafa, a crazy huge 24-hour department store. It sells everything! After Mustafa, we stopped for a snack at a South Indian joint nearby.

Sorry I wasn't yet in a picture taking mood this day. Di Yin, on the other hand, was. She took some. That link goes to the first picture in the album; when you see a picture of me having just woken up (picture #12), you've reached the next day's pictures. I'll link to the rest in later posts.