My Asia Adventure

As both of my long-time readers can tell you, I normally don’t post much real life stuff. The occasional review, the attempted wry observation, the scarce links to actual news or events of the day. Not that I’m trying to keep it a secret from you both, but time has been somewhat on the scarce side of every equation I’m involved in these days. That and sleep. But after this past week I thought I’d at least attempt to write down some of my adventure in Singapore and Shanghai. When I first started to document these adventures, this was much more timely–the trip took place at the beginning of August. But as soon as I returned I got swamped with an application launch and then pulled back into my old job for a 30-day special assignment that is neither special nor an assignment.

Actually, it is an assignment, but that didn’t sound as cool. Anyway, back to the trip.

My company, for those who know, is all over the world. And my job works with team members from all the major regions. So part of this job involved visiting various team members and offices to see how my project could help. I visited Ireland and England back in March, a hectic 7-day trip where I spent more time in conference rooms than sleeping. So naturally it came time to visit Asia, a hectic 8-day trip where I spent more time in airplanes than sleeping.

Of course, I could have slept on those planes, and I did pass out a few hours here and there. But being in my movie starved mode I couldn’t help but take advantage of the time to take in some flicks. I’ve already posted some reviews and the rest will slowly trickle in, but this was pretty much the order.

Benchwarmers — Didn’t start out well, this was actually the best choice available for the long flight to Tokyo. After watching it, I think staring out the window would have been far more productive.

Underworld: Evolution — After seeing Benchwarmers, the second Underworld movie felt like Citizen Kane. And by that I mean not enough color and way too long. But a good distraction. I brought this with my portable DVD player, because you just can’t trust the airlines to stock up on anything good.

Pit stop in the Tokyo airport. This was a shocker. Japan has a reputation for being on the cutting edge of technology, right? So you’d expect the Tokyo airport to be a shining beacon of glass and steel and technology so awesome you think it’s magic. Instead, 90% of the signs are hand-written on paper and taped or stapled to bulletin boards. A bus transfers you on the tarmac between terminals–not even a covered moving walkway. And the seats on the bus…let’s just say they’re not up to American design standards. I sat across two of them and I think I got a bit of the guy in front of me’s spleen on my jeans. Big surprise there for me. And the business class lounge was very uncomfortable and I had to pay for internet access. Lame! But my flight boarded soon enough.

MI3 — Once inside Asia, the movie selection stepped up a bit. Not that MI3 was a great movie, or even very good, but it’s perfect for an airplane. No plot worries, no concerns about missing a line of dialogue when the pilot comes on to tell you that, yes, in fact you are travelling through the air and don’t intend to land until you reach your destination. Thanks, Captain Bob. Oh, goodie, a translation!

Inside Man — Yet another perfect airplane movie because you can watch the first 15 minutes, take a decent nap, then watch the last 15 minutes and get the entire impact of the movie. I caught the middle section later just to confirm. Yep, didn’t miss anything.

My first stop in Asia was Singapore, which was awesome. Singapore, for those that don’t know (and I was one of them until I landed there), is a small island just north of the equator. This means it is always hot, always humid, and plants get watered just by being alive. Everything is very green, and they’ve done an amazing job of landscaping the entire city without having to pay for a silly water bill that I face every month to keep 4 flowers and a tree alive in the dry Texas heat.

People in Singapore love to do two things: shop and eat. This means that everywhere you go there are restaurants and malls. And malls with restaurants. And restaurants that have their own malls. And I am not making this up: my hotel connected to a mall, which connected to a subway stop that if you didn’t go in but turned left was actually an underground tunnel that had a mall that connected you to another giant mall. I literally walked for 3 hours between these malls and passed 8 Starbucks. Outstanding!

Also, an interesting note, there was a Carl’s Jr in the foodcourt. I love Carl’s Jr, and they were plentiful in California where I grew up but they are non-existent in Texas. I have heard rumors there is one in San Antonio, but I think it’s a cruel hoax invented to torture me. But there’s one in Singapore. So it turns out I just have to go there to get my Western Bacon Cheeseburger on.

The shopping, although plentiful, wasn’t a very good deal I found. Given currency exchanges I found all the prices to be very comparable, maybe a few bucks saved on something as expensive as an iPod. I even went to a 7-story mall that focused on technology stores. Amazing to see so many stores in proximity all selling the same brands, and none of them good deals. I guess the Internet really has changed how I view pricing these days–a much larger marketplace for us to choose from.

The travel clinic I had visited prior to the trip scared me enough not to eat at any local places. I had one nice dinner with some team members at a fancy restaurant around the corner from where the Singapore Sling was invented. I tried one–nice, very little kick. And the various courses were very good. But the rest of the time I was just too chicken to try…well, chicken. So I just went back to the hotel and ate there. Very lame of me, but I didn’t want to catch something like I did on the trip to Europe.

The hotel food was actually decent, and I had two important discoveries. First, I tried their asparagus risotto and it was bad. This made me feel pretty good since risotto is a dish I’ve been working on for a while now and feel I have it down–and I also feel like mine was much better than the mushy stuff they served me.

The second discovery was Chicken Kway Teow. This is a Singapore dish with thick noodles and amazing spice combinations and is quite possibly the best non-sushi asian dish I have ever had. I had it one more time the next night it was so good. Amazing, amazing stuff. Various recipes are online, but they’re pretty complicated. Still, may have to try soon because it rocked. Yeah, that’s bold type, baby–rocked!

So after some good meetings in Singapore I went to the airport to catch a flight to Shanghai. I’d heard two rumors about Singapore travel. First, that the airport is the best in the world. Second, that Singapore Airlines is the best in the world.

Both are true.

The airport is yet another mall, but we’re talking high-end stuff and lots of it. Not sure if there were good deals or not, since I’d had enough of stores for a couple years. But the airport also had a movie theater (other terminal, so I didn’t go), and a rooftop pool. A pool? A pool. Plenty of flat-screen TVs to catch the news and probably a lot of other cool stuff I could have seen if I didn’t go into the business class Singapore Airlines lounge.

{cue heavenly music}

Now this is a business class lounge. Plenty of comfortable chairs and tables and workstations with free wired and wireless internet. Free. Not charged extra like in Tokyo. And the standard juice/drink/snack bar has some hot dishes including…Pork Kway Teow. Not quite as good as the chicken version at the hotel, but still damn tasty. I only had one serving…at a time.

Eventually I had to leave the comfortable confines of the lounge for the flight itself. Here was another surprise–I was so out of it when I checked in that I didn’t realize that I hadn’t gone through security. Someone had checked my boarding pass, but no X-ray machine. The X-ray machines and metal detectors are actually at the gate. At first I thought this was strange and inefficient, but then I realize that if every gate has 2 X-ray/metal detectors, then with 50 gates they have about 100 entry points to service all the passengers. Compare that with an airport like Chicago which also has about 50 gates but maybe 4 entry points to service all the passengers. Brilliant! The line sped through and in no time I was on the plane.

{cue extra-heavenly music}

I am not going to talk about the super comfortable seats on Singapore airlines. I am not going to talk about the amazing 5 or 6 course meal I was served or the chefs they hire as their executive council (including Gordon Ramsey who inspired my current risotto kick). Instead, I’m talking about entertainment. Singapore Airlines has 80 movies that you can control–start, pause, rewind, fast forward. Yes, 80. They also have 100 TV shows. And 150 CDs worth of music that you can create a custom playlist from. And about 40 games, 10 of which are multiplayer so you can compete against other passengers on the plane.

Singapore Airlines is #1. All other airlines are #2 or lower.

The flight wasn’t long enough for me to watch everything I wanted, so I picked my top 2 movies (and they were both movies I had really wanted to see).

V For Vendetta — Awesome.

Thank You For Smoking — Awesome.

Sadly, the flight was over before I could get a third movie in. The wonders of Shanghai awaited me. As in, I wonder what I would have thought of Shanghai if I hadn’t gone to Singapore first. Shanghai is much more industrial, far less green (although not noticeably cooler or less humid), and I felt less comfortable walking around then I did in Singapore. Maybe it was those strict Singapore penalties (I think you get your privates attached to a battery if you jaywalk), but I far preferred Singapore.

Shanghai is also an interesting city to walk around in because you can see it’s still very much in development. I walked an entire mile and passed only two Starbucks! Honestly not sure how these people live.

But being accosted in their shopping malls was not a lot of fun, I must say. Their style of selling is to grab you by the arm to hopefully lead you to their stall. It isn’t violent, it’s just a big culture shock from the “look but don’t you dare touch or I’ll sue your butt so fast you’ll think I have a lawyer on speed dial, which I do” approach taken in America. I had my arm grabbed repeatedly by people trying to show me various items. Also, people in China must be very punctual given their enormous surplus of watches, as I was frequently asked if I wanted to purchase one of these extra timepieces.

Overall, I found Shanghai to not be as much fun as Singapore in terms of a city built around commerce. There may be some more interesting tourist destinations like Beijing, but I guess I’ll have to wait and find out. One thing I do know–the Chinese visa in my passport looks very cool.

Best tourist shopping in terms of comfort and convenience was actually in the Shanghai airport. Some neat stations where craftsmen carve a name stamp in miniature detail–but if you ever get one skip the ink they sell because the containers leak. I found this out the hard way. Fortunately the ink only got on the stamp and it washes off.

Nothing too good on the flight back in terms of movies:

Goal – The Dream Begins — Okay, but predictable.

Earthsea — Watched on portable DVD (another Netflix). Not worth it.

End result: exhausted and then having to work off a huge backlog (as evidenced by it taking a month to finish this post). Hope to one day return to Singapore with the family, since that’s really the perfect way for a not-very-adventurous traveller from the US to first visit Asia.