Singapore (the sequel)

Title sounds familiar? Back to the beginning, all things come back, the circle is complete.

Once again I'm stranded in Singapore Airport. The next flight leaves in about 3 hours. Hope to get some sleep then, to make the adjustement to local time a little easier.

I think this concludes this journey. Maybe it would be nice to do a little roll call here. Just drop a line to indicate you're here.

The end is near

Haven't been blogging for a while. Not much has happened outside of work.

Apart from eating, something actually happened today. I went for a swim this evening. Each time I walked by the Streets Beach I wanted to get in the water. We went for dinner on South Bank today and I took my swimsuit. Nobody else seemed to embrace the idea but I did anyway. It was great. Just a shame the water was full of chlorine, just like the tap water.

Tomorrow will be my last working day. I think I might even miss the colleagues and the walking around in the city. It will be strange being back home, but playing the drums again will rule big time.

Surely, you remember this guy. Another example of the Steve Irwin craze.

Australia Zoo

No surprises today. We planed the trip to the Australia Zoo properly. We got up around 7 'o clock and arrived 10 minutes early at the train station. We were a little bit afraid we would mostly see the same animals as in Lone Pine. But it turned out to be a valuable trip after all. Lots of action with crocodiles, young tigers, a koala that was actually awake (together with a baby koala) and we even touched one. We didn't want to bother the poor creatures, but a staff member showed us a spot on their back that contained no nerve-endings and she guaranteed we wouldn't wake him up. It got real nice when we passed by the same koala a few hours later, just to see there was a huge line of people, waiting to pad him.



Australia Zoo was the home of Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter. There's a huge tribute wall, telling how he's a legend and how everybody misses him. Since he passed away about a month ago he's suddenly some kind of hero. For those who didn't hear of his death or want to learn more: Steve Irwin [wikipedia]. You can have your picture taken and afterwards they'll blend in a picture of Steve holding a crocodile. We can understand this. Every park has it. But the following thing is just one bridge too far. A talking Steve, like he's some kind of action hero. Just don't understand it.




While you're enjoying the pictures, we'll go out for a nice steak.

Weekend!

Friday around 4 PM, it seemed like everybody agreed on the fact that is was beer 'o clock. We could live with that and ended up in zi-bar with a few colleagues, drinking Golden. It was entertaining. We had a few nice chats about the firm, culture and social life here and in Belgium. A fair deal of the time was spent on explaining where Belgium is situated, what languages we speak and what social conflicts arise. After that, the only right thing to do, was grab a kebab on South Bank.

We got some real good advise on public transport and things to visit from lots of people. We agreed on going to the Australia Zoo today (house of the Crocodile Hunter, well, not anymore). So we got out of bed on time and headed for the railway station. Only to find out we missed the train to Beerwah and the next one wouldn't leave until 12:30 PM. No Australia Zoo today. We should have used all the advice and should have planned the trip properly. Alternatively, we took the bus to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. We are proud to say we saw koalas and kangaroos (finally!).



Ironically, I was most impressed by the birds of prey.



Because koalas only eat eucalyptus (and each species just likes a few kinds of eucalyptus) and it contains about 5% of sugar, they have so little energy they sleep up to 20 hours a day (I could go with that). I'm afraid we saw lots of sleeping koalas. I guess that's why the park was stuffed with other animals. Lots of birds, parrots, snakes, and dingoes. I was quite amused as the dingo is one of koalas' natural enemies. I guess that makes the poor sleepy koalas feel at ease. Even more so because full grown tourists could have a picture taken while holding one (no, we didn't).



I found out the music store I was looking for is just a few hundred meters down the street. It's an official dealer of Brady drums, which are hand made in South Australia. While they were actually closed for a few minutes they noticed me and invited me in. Unfortunately, they only had one snare in stock and they didn't seem to have a tradition in customers hitting their stuff (no set was fully set up). I was in fact hoping on releasing some of my stacked up rhythmic urges as I haven't touched a drum set for over a week.

The internet connection in the hotel is down today (Saturday) so I'm doing some offline blogging and will put it online as soon as we're connected.

Singapore Airlines

While I was raving about Singapore Airlines' video system in previous posts, I have to revisit my opinion. Today on the news:

Failing bolt tracked to jumbo jet's wing

A 11.5cm bolt fell from a plane and hit a man's roof.


A few words about Australian broadband. When you were ever put on small band by telenet you've got a pretty good idea what I'm talking about. I'm having the most fun in the office, filing bugs or updating source depots as the connection drops around 5 times a day. 3G wireless internet is not mature, believe me. Even wired internet is slow, especially if you're surfing outside of Australia. I guess they have one phone wire that connects the island with the rest of the world.

On the bright side. We had a nice lunch with a few colleagues today. They showed us a very nice place, Jojo's, which had some refined and tasteful dishes. As opposed to the plain and average food we had before. One thing that caught our attention however. They are world champion "removing plates". From the moment you take your last bite (even if others are still eating) your plate is gone.

What did we do today? You know the drill: working.

Lots of work

Not that much is happening these days. We wake up, have our breakfast and head to the office. We assist the customer, have lunch and head home (cross the street again). Fortunately there's a lot of places if you're looking for a nice dinner. Today we ate Italian on South Bank. But after that, it's back to work. Communicating with our office, performing fixes and preparing demo's for the next day.

Some local colleagues promised they would show us around and take us out for steak. We also got some good tips for the weekend.

One of the bridges in town (of practically the only highway that leads here) is damaged, causing huge traffic jams and it's the main subject of the day. It's not the bridge that you see in this picture but if you look closely (click to enlarge) you can actually see the highway by the side of the river.


The following picture shows the consequences of advanced advertising (video-screens with speakers). In the front you see the crossing that leads to our office (this is where pedestrians sometimes stop for cars and today we had the privilege of doing it ourselves).

(click to enlarge)

All day long there's a constant noise. No big deal, but during the night it can really keep you awake. More so because the windows are single-layered and they don't close completely. Today we went on a quest and it turned out to be a huge turbine in the middle of the square across the street (the square you can see in the last picture). We believe it's the air co system for the underground food court.

Next, we have another view of South Bank. It think they paid a significant amount of money to whoever designed this pathway. (click to enlarge)


Now, where exactly are we?
The yellow arrow points at our hotel window. (click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

Comments

Sorry people. Apparently you had to be a member of this blog in order to post comments. This should be fixed. Anyone can leave a comment now. Well, we're off to work. In the meantime you can take another look at the city.

First day of work

We went to work today. Boy, are we tired. I used to think jet-lag was bullshit, but now I know better. Or maybe it's because we had to absorb tons of information on a few hours. A foreign language makes it just that bit harder too. I had a good night sleep but nevertheless, feel quite weak. Elevators here travel kind of fast. This causes a lot of blood to go from head to toes. If you're not that strong you feel like passing out.

A few more impressions and things I forgot to mention before.

We noticed the first defects in this micro-society. Last night a vagrant inspected a waste bin thoroughly and half a dozen of police-men invaded one of the malls. One of our fresh colleagues here pointed out that almost nobody lives in the center. There's mainly tall office buildings, huge shopping malls and fancy bars. It was only this morning that we realized how crowded it can get. A strange phenomenon here is that pedestrians stop for cars at times. When a pedestrian is crossing the street cars always stop. But there's an exit of a railway station just in front of our hotel. There are so many pedestrians that cars could be waiting for ever. After a while, people stop at the curb to allow the cars to drive by.

Although I didn't see a single blind or visually challenged person (what's the correct euphemism here?) tremendous efforts have been done for them. All sidewalks have rubber dots and all traffic lights have auditive signals. There's probably one very rich blind man living here. Or he has a seat in the parliament. Or maybe everyone's just too lazy to look up. I caught myself relying entirely on the auditive signal. This can be dangerous when the light next to you turns green and you start walking because you think it's your direction (I know as a matter of fact). The streets are full of surveillance camera's and TV's (every bar, every restaurant and every escalator has one).

Taste of music. I was pleasantly surprised here. Yesterday I heard Erykah Badu in the Queen Street Mall. And I could enjoy the sweet melody of Cantaloupe Island right before we took off in Singapore (as well as right after the landing in Brisbane - I guess the pilot kind of likes this one). The CD-collection on the plane contained Coldplay, Thievery Corporation, Herbie Hancock and so many more. And just in case you didn't here me before: you could actually play these songs on demand or create your own playlist for later enjoyment. Same with the on-demand video's. You could start them if you felt like it and when your next del.icio.us meal was presented to you, you could pause it (again, for later enjoyment). Now that's what I call on-demand (you here me telenet?).

The ozone layer is quite thin here. At times you can see people with reflective umbrella's to block the heat and to prevent their head from toasting.

An update on the advertising progression: this evening a billboard was projected on a building from the back of a parked truck.

Not many cool pictures today. Even after work we're still busy, preparing for tomorrow (and blogging of course). Now, there's no denying we look like nerds so you can keep the comments to yourself.


I'm glad I can at least tell you Cornelius had a good time today. As we went to work he watched some TV (even took my hat) and observed the locals.

First impressions

Ola Streets Beach


We had a good night sleep but I didn't feel rested this morning. Hopefully this will be better tomorrow, the first day we have to go work (which is literally across the street). Luckily we have a day off now, to get used to the time difference and to inhale the city atmosphere.

We decided we would walk around the city and take a look at some places that seemed interesting to us. After a nice breakfast in the hotel (which is in a fact a crossing between an apartment and a hotel) we turned on the TV, just to find out it would heat up to 30 degrees (Celsius that is). Where did I leave my sun lotion? The 15 dollars I spent on my hat were the best I ever spent (ignoring the fact that I looked even more like a tourist on the loose). It turned to be a very relaxing day and we saw some very nice sites in Brisbane. Like the Ola Streets Beach (everything seems to be sponsored) on the South Bank, an artificial lake with a beach. Somehow I was glad we were on foot (and not driving a car). Even by foot you have to make sure you walk on the left side or you will have unintended intimate contact with other pedestrians in no time.

Below you'll find some of the main things that drew our attention.

Everything is explained to you.
There is a sign for everything you have to do. Which comes in handy when you have a jet-lag, are new in town and can't think properly because of the heat. Some of the pictures will demonstrate this. A sign on the escalator: "SECURE LOOSE CLOTHING". On a bus: "PLEASE HAIL DRIVER". On a car-free bridge: "WALK ON THE LEFT", "DO NOT BLOCK PATH", "RING YOUR BELL", "MAX 10 km/h".

Strong sense of community.
The sidewalks are clean (everything is clean). There are drinking fountains everywhere. I can proudly say that my fountain-drinking-skills have significantly improved. We saw 2 places near the river where you could have your own BBQ for free (with electronic BBQ's). Lots of benches and panoramic views. A lot of effort is done to create shade. Most of this is probably done for tourists. And sometimes you feel like you're in center parcs. But at the same time it seems genuine. The staff is friendly and we saw a family that sold home-made lemonade on the Sunday market. Also, everything looks very new here. It seems like a young city, even the churches are new.

Technology.
Nothing we saw was a real technological challenge, but they at least applied it in a way you always wanted it to. After a time I noticed my mobile indicated which street or shopping mall we were in. That's great (for tourists at least). The tourist office had (what first looked like) touch screens built in a glass wall. It was in fact a projected image on the glass wall with two sensors on the ceiling that determined your finger location (touching the glass made no difference, just more work for the cleaning lady). Unfortunately it's also applied for advertising (isn't everything applied for advertising?). There are 3 screens with audio just across the street (when entering the railway station) that show advertising 24/7. All day long a blimp (which we like to refer to as "The Duff Blimp") flew over the city with a huge advertising video screen. Although everything is very relaxed and people are friendly, you don't have much contact with people. Most people I nodded to didn't react. I also got a little suspicious. There are huge shopping malls, an artificial beach, lots of dining possibilities. One big happy community, not a trace of edge-society weirdo's or crime. No graffiti or trashed bus stops. Something is wrong. Where's the catch? Whenever people are involved, things have to go wrong. We just had one strange encounter. A girl that asked for money to catch the bus. We tried to weasel out of it because we didn't know if she was genuine. As we turned our backs she shouted something that sounded kind of hostile (if she wasn't fooling us she probably had the right to - but hey, we're just stupid tourists, don't expect us to be helpful).

To conclude: nothing shocking really but I'm easily impressed and this is the furthest trip for me so far.


The free BBQ-spot


"Secure loose clothing" - on escalator


Some famous bridge


A building with a story. I only overheard a guide saying: "the japanese didn't want to buy it, but we're glad we kept it". Not much info, but I was there!


Your current location on your mobile (currently Roma Street)


What am I looking at? Then stop pointing!


Information point


Hail to the bus driver


Mangrove by the side of the river

Arrived

We made it!

The last flight was not necessary for me, but I could sleep a lot and the 7 and a half hours "flew" by. Local time is now 9 PM, but it feels like 4 AM. But what do you want? We left this morning ... I mean yesterday-morning, and we flew all day ... I mean all day and all night ... I mean, all day and all night and all day. Man, I'm too tired to get all confused now.

Some more delightful things I forgot to say about the in-flight video-system. The headphones were free and I played ... PONG ! Can you imagine, an ATARI-emulator.

For the time being you can take a look at our second plane (Zurich to Singapore) - a Boeing 747. And me trying to drink something. I can tell you, my nose was clean and I was thirsty when I got on the plane.

Singapore

We're in Singapore Airport now. We had a very nice trip so far.

At first we were not so happy because in Zaventem we had to take a bus to get to the plane (to Zurich). That's not cool enough. But it was a nice flight. The transfer in Zurich went according to plan and our second plane was awesome. It had 2 decks and at least the size of a credible plane. 2 excellent meals, lots of snacks and drinks and very friendly staff. Finally some proper flight attendants (nice ;-)

Some words about the in-flight video-system (which we may conclude, deserves 5 stars):
- 80 on-demand movies
- nintendo emulator (i actually played super mario bross)
- multi-player games (we played two games of battleship and tetris)
- on-demand audio (you could create your own play list)
- language learning system (i can count till 100 in Japanese now - itchi, ni, san ...)
- personality test
- brain teasers

Did we just fly for over 11 hours? But I still want to play pokemon on the gameboy-emulator and I didn't see Cars - The Movie yet.

See you all soon, we are having a good time so far. Ready to get on the next plane to ... Brisbane!

Welcome

Welcome to my blog (how many blogs would start like this?).

A colleague of mine urged me to start a blog about my trip to Australia next week. So here it is. Now let's hope I'll have the discipline to keep it up-to-date.