Singapore!

OK, Singapore... I left on Wednesday afternoon, and flew to Tokyo. We waited on the tarmac for a while in Detroit, but ultimately landed in Tokyo only about an hour late, which left me plenty of time for the next flight. So I spent 13 hours in the plane on the way to Tokyo, had a 2-hour layover, and then another 8 hours on the plane to Singapore. We landed at about 1:30am local time, and I was amazed that no one asked me a single question at immigration or customs, so I was in the hotel and headed to bed by about 2:45am. Class started that evening at 7:00pm, so I didn't do much that day other than rest, find the class room, go over my files, and get ready for the class. I did go to a mall close by when I realized that I had brought a shirt with a stain on it -- fortunately, this month is "Singapore on Sale!" where everything everywhere is on sale. I got a couple of dress shirts inexpensively, though I did feel bad for the woman helping me. The shirt size she picked out for me was too small, which embarrassed her, but it wasn't surprising, given that the shirts are cut to fit an Asian population which is typically thinner than a North American population, and is certainly thinner than me!

Saturday and Sunday were both class all day. The class is really interesting -- there is a tremendous diversity of experience in the students, much moreso than I have wrestled with before. Some of the students are brand new to Human Resources, and really need to go over the basics of how you do Staffing (which is the topic of the course). Others are HR executives who have been doing this for many years, and no longer do the basics because their subordinates do that work now, and they want to talk about much more advanced topics. So I am re-working the classes for the final three days, and will try to find a point that works for everyone.

Sunday evening, I left class a few minutes early, and went over to the Presidential Palace, which is 5 minutes from my hotel. The first Sunday of every month they do the changing of the guard, and so that was interesting. Lots of pageantry, one military band playing as the new guard came in, another playing as the old guard went out. The MPs did a routine that was very complex, but also seemed to border on a dance routine at times. It was well-done, no doubt, but didn't seem to quite fit my idea of what MPs ought to do. I was looking around for an Indian, a cop, and a construction worker to go with them.

Singapore is a relatively large city (4.5 million), but a very small country. The class has several Singaporeans in it, but also Brits, Aussies, Indonesians, Vietnamese, Indians, Americans... it is very diverse, which is both fun and challenging. There is a tremendous variety of food available, and I've been doing my share of sampling it, including getting food from the "hawkers" who sell on the streets. These are very common and very popular, and typically extremely good.

Yesterday I went to Sentosa, which is essentially a resort island that is part of Singapore. They have all sorts of attractions, including the beach, animal shows, rides, etc. It reminded me of Paradise Island in the Bahamas. It was fun, and I got to see some neat things. There were macaques with babies on their bellies, peacocks, and I got a picture of me with a large parrot. There is also a large mer-lion at Sentosa -- the mer-lion is the symbol of Singapore, and it is half-lion, half-fish. To get to Sentosa, I took the Sentosa Express, which is a monorail from one of the jillions of malls here, and on the way back, took a cable car over the water, which gave a nice view. While at Sentosa, I went to the Southernmost point of the Asian Continent, which was nothing fancy, but just sort of cool.

This afternoon I had lunch with the staff who are coordinating my visit here, and we had excellent Thai food, including some really spicy things, and some things that I have no idea what they were. I also dropped my laundry off at the Washy-Washy, and will pick it up this evening. As soon as I am done with this entry, I am going to the Night Safari, where you get pretty close to the animals. I am planning to either go on a day trip to Malacca, Malaysia (a historical area), or to Bintan, Indonesia (a resort for good snorkeling), depending on which I can get to (trying to figure out the advance reservations needed).

So far, I am having a great time, though I feel horrible about leaving Heather and Michael and Heather's folks behind to work on the new house. "Hey, we have a new house, you all paint it while I am gone!" I really appreciate what they've done while I've been away, and look forward to seeing them and it in a week or so.