Brazilian Bustle : Singapore ....the trip. April 1

A sun filled warm weekend that made my mood lighter and gave me courage to head back to dreary Shanghai.

As I mentioned I met Tony at the airport in Shanghai on Friday April 1, he had arrived from the States at 2:30pm went through customs and he was waiting for me outside at the departure building - so sweet. I handed over his golf clubs and my overnight case and we headed back inside toward the check in counters. Tony in Business Class, me in economy and as it turned out I had the better ride! I think though he was over tired and miserable that he went from one 14 hour plane ride to another 5 hour ride. Who could be happy? Here is a map of the area, Shanghai is situated just above Fuzhou and we flew down to Singapore.

We arrived at the Shangri La Hotel at midnight and checked into a wonderful suite.

We slept in, as we always do on a Saturday, till 7am. We usually get up between 5a - 5:30a during the week so this was great!!! We headed down to breakfast to a sumptuous buffet comprised of at least 10 stations of food. Most were unappealing at the early hour and I wished that it was lunch time so we could really enjoy the flavors.

Instead of eating some the flavors of India, Japan, or other countries I chose instead to eat American Style!!!!! I ate a big bowl of raspberries and blueberries with some cottage cheese, simply divine. There are NO raspberries in China, ever! OK, any that I have seen in 2 years 5 months and ....days, but who's counting?! I saw that the raspberries were of the Driscoll Brand, ones that I buy at Kroger in Virginia. They are from California and it seems the Shangri La Hotel in Singapore imports them!! I was too happy for words.
Tony enjoyed an egg white omelet and some berries as well. I did eat some lovely papaya and passion fruit, but the berries were the stand out!

We then headed over to the pool to read and enjoy the sunshine. Heavenly.

One of the reasons we were in Singapore was because Tony had to work. He was invited to a client's company gala. I am so sorry I did not take my camera to the gala, there were wonderful pictures to be had.
I will however try to explain it all to you and hopefully you will be able to picture it in your head.

First the gala was being held in Malaysia and yes we were in Singapore. We had to take a 'road trip' in a mini van with 5 other people, 2 of whom worked for Tony, Chai and See and See's wife also came along. And included, my favorite guy, Sam. He is one of the big wigs at the company, TWP, that was holding the gala. Sam has been a good friend of Tony's for more than 10 years. The gala is held once a year for the factory workers, about 800 in all. TWP is a printing company that specializes in children's pop-up books. Those books are put together by hand! It's quite a labor intensive process, not to mention brain numbing and I don't mean boring I mean all the glue they sniff! So into the van we go and off for a 2 hour ride to Johor Baharu, Malaysia!

It's quite a process to drive there as mentioned about 1 hour 45 minute hour ride. Then a stop at the Singapore border to exit Singapore, this entails parking the car, getting out walking into the building getting your passport stamped and then back in the car for a 2 minute ride to the Malay border and repeat. Fortunately, the hotel is only a 15 minute ride from the border. Of course this whole process is repeated again at 11pm in reverse. Did I mention the traffic at the border? Everyone likes to go to Malaysia for the inexpensive shopping and/or going home to see family for the weekend. So it's slow going.

We arrived at what is considered a very swanky hotel, looks like a large dirty holiday inn, actually a bit worse. We entered the ball room, 1 hour late, and they had not started yet, mostly for Sam but they said for us too as we were VIP guests. The event began with a lights low and 10 individuals dressed in the native costume of their country walking down the main aisle carrying their country's flag. Then the president of TWP was carried on a raised chair to the front, he was wearing a wonderful purple costume of Malaysia - really quite distinguished and stunning! I found a picture on the internet for you, this guy is in blue our guy was in purple.

Then came the MC and the program began. The program is comprised of the workers putting on dances or singing. It's very amateurish but they enjoy getting on stage and dancing around. In between the dancing and singing, (which is mostly lip syncing to the record) the food is served. Really really bad Chinese food. But to the workers a real feast!!!    As Malaysia is a Muslim country a number of the ladies were dressed in beautiful headdresses and long colorful gowns (mumu's), not quite a burkah but everything covered except the face; also the men sat at one table and the ladies at another. This was not for every table, just some of them. As there are 10 nations represented there is a mix of Asian cultures at the factory but they all seem to get along.

Midway through the program awards are giving out and there are raffle drawings, the best prizes being cold hard cash. These workers live at the factory in dorms and get paid about 700 ringgits or $ 232.00 per month. Their food and shelter is provided for them free of charge. The 2 cash prizes were 1,000 and 1,500 ringgits, a whole lot of money. The woman who won the 1,500 ringgit prize was crying pretty hard and I do think they were tears of happiness!

We left before the dinner was over, it was a 10 course meal and it was already 10:30pm and we had at least 4 courses to go. I was not disappointed as most of the meal had been inedible and I was ready to hit the road. Oh and the wine was undrinkable, tasted like gasoline, very very hard stuff but I had drunk enough tea to fill an ocean so I was not hungry at all.

The reverse trip was the same, in and out of the car for the border stops and then 2 hours to get back to the hotel.   Ah what Tony has to do for business relations, not fun.

Sunday morning we did a repeat of Saturday morning except at 11am we decided to head over to East Coast Park and rent roller blades (for Tony) and a bike(for me). East Coast Park runs along the ocean and is a leafy covered paved path for runners, bikers, roller bladers and of course walkers.   There are bbq's and picnic areas on large swaths of green grass or on the beach, you choose your pleasure. And of course there is an abundance of sun!

Another picture lifted from the internet.

After about an hour and a half of riding around we returned our gear and went over to the Scruffy Irishman to have lunch and a nice cold beer. The weather was nearing 90 degrees and we were thirsty. We shared a small snack and sat along the riders path watching the rollerbladers and bikers go by.

As we had dinner plans with Sam, the nice friend of Tony's we had to head back to take a shower and get ready. Sam took us to a wonderful Italian restaurant and we had the best food I had eaten in a while. Grilled sardines with fresh lemon squeezed on top, a plate of thinly slice Italian hams, grilled veggies and that was just to start! Then a trio tasting of pasta. On a large plate were 3 different pastas, per person! A linguine and clam sauce (although we could have called it garlic sauce it was so garlicky -yum), a mushroom risotto, I am not a risotto fan but this was delicious, I made sure I ate it last so that was the last flavor in my mouth. And the third pasta was a pumpkin ravioli with a lovely creamy sauce. I was stuffed! But there was more to come, another tasting plate of a perfectly cooked baby lamb chop and some fried veal. I could only eat one bite of each as I was so stuffed. Then dessert, another tasting of various sweets which I cannot remember as I was in a food stupor and just watched as the boys devoured every bit!

The next day, Monday, was a holiday as was Tuesday, well in China. It's Tomb Sweeping Day or Days. This is the time you go to honor your dead relative and clean up the Tomb. So we stayed one more in Singapore to enjoy the sunshine. Tony went to play golf and I went for a quick trip to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. The building is so interesting that I wanted to see it up close and personal.

That's it, a big ship on top of three hotel towers. This picture was taken last Nov. 2010 when were had a trip to Singapore, this was not a great sunny morning, but don't worry it cleared up! The basement of the building houses a casino and the top is a deck for viewing and there is a swimming pool for the hotel guests! The next pictures are the ones I took on this trip.

On my way back from the Marina Bay Sands Hotel I stopped into a fabric market to admire the beautiful cloth and saw this great sign.

We left lovely Singapore at 3pm Monday afternoon and while waiting for Tony to check out I could not help but admire the beautiful orchids that were all over the lobby area!