On Wednesday December 5 I went to another Rotary Club Meeting where they required the new member to give a presentation! Fortunately the speaker was Dr. Anne Maria Guiterrez a professor and professional psychologist/mediator and she gave a great talk on “Find the Truth Feel the Love” which was a nice slide show giving tips on when people are lying etc. such as showing Bill Clinton’s face during the Monica Lewinski Questions etc.
I am starting to feel pretty welcome at these meetings as they once again had me give some info of the Fox Chapel Area Rotary Club so I’m going to have to stay on my toes!
Thursday was a pretty quiet day as I had no photos except a couple of articles from the paper.
On Friday December 6 I was to meet Susan and 6 other expats and locals from her office for a big dinner at Jumbo Seafood at Clark Quay a nice area where they used to cruise the river and still offer boat rides for tourists.
My ankle was feeling a bit better so I got an early start as I was going to stop by Marina Bay Golf Course in the heart of the city and near the Marina Bay Sands place where I had previously fallen off the bar stool and sprained my ankle. I wasn’t going to play golf but the directions via the MRT train and bus seemed fairly easy along with a “walk” but the directions didn’t say how far.
So I took the train from our building changed to another train and headed toward the “Stadium” MRT place which is near the indoor and outdoor stadiums and “Sports Hub.”
I then continued to follow the directions to the “Number 11” bus which drove for ten minutes or so across from an apartment building where I started to walk toward the golf course. After about a half mile I ran into some construction workers and asked them where the golf course was and they pointed down the road perhaps another half mile toward a small green building. As I was getting a bit tired I turned left down a road toward East Coast Park as I assumed it would also get to the golf course. (BAD ASSUMPTION).
It turned out that East Coast Park is a large bike riding area and I kept going and going and going even when the bikers didn’t seem to know if there was a golf course nearby.
Finally after about 40 minutes of walking I saw signs to a golf course on my right and headed toward them but the area was very jungly and was fenced off.
So I finally turned around and walked the forty minutes back in the 84 degrees and humidity. I finally turned left and got to a sign to the Club but it seemed a long ways from there so I called the ClubHouse and fortunately they called a taxi for me. I had them drive up so I could get a quick picture and then asked the driver to drive me to Jumbo Seafood. I checked My Fitness Pal and this excursion had racked up over 8,000 steps so next time I am taking a taxi!
Somehow I got to Jumbo Seafood around 6 Pm but learned they had changed the reservation to 7:45 pm.
Civilization at last.
Closest I got to the golf course. Next is Boat Quay and Jumbo Seafood.
Once everyone arrived we had a great meal with Carin hosting along with Vincent and Zorine all from Singapore and there was Steven from Belgium, his childhood friend Oliver visiting from The Hague, and Terri, Jim and Susan from Pittsburgh.
We had a fantastic meal consisting of Chili Crab, Black Pepper Crab, Cereal Coated Prawns, Mocha spare ribs, noodles etc.
Steven, the hairless one from Belgium, and Oliver on the left who is in charge of cyber crime at The Hague left us and Steven had the unfortunate experience of having his cell phone and wallet taken out of his bag at another establishment at Clarke Quay. He never found it but came close to tracking it down using his computer. Must have been a foreign tourist as the crime rate here is extremely low but I guess you always have to guard valuables. (I know funny hearing that from the guy who had his passport wallet and headphones stolen in August at the Miami airport when I left them unattended while searching for a lost cell phone that I did find in the bathroom.)
Following the dinner Susan and I went next door for some great salsa chips and half price pitchers of Margaritas at the iguana Bar.
On Saturday we kind of chilled by the pool reading the paper about some recent riots in Kuala Lumpur and Malaysia infringing on Singapore territorial waters so our timing of going there a couple weeks earlier was very good as employers were warning expats to avoid KL.
That evening we went across the street to CineLeisure movies to watch Bohemian Rapsody a movie about Freddie (formerly Farouk) Mercury and the band Queen. We both thought it was excellent.
On Sunday we had the treat of being invited to Susan’s coworker’s house in the suburbs of Singapore. Eva Roejkjaer is an attorney in the BNY Mellon Office and her husband Christian works for IKEA developing the entire South Asia and Mexico territories. Yes Mexico. He apparently has worked for IKEA and for the IKEA founders for the last 20 years or so and they are from Denmark. It was easy to see after talking with them why Denmark was voted one of the happiest countries in the world.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/16/these-are-the-top-10-happiest-countries-in-the-world.html
Also joining us was their 12 year old son Aksel who impressed us with his trampoline and swimming skills and their 16 year old daughter Anika and her local boyfriend Oscar.
We had some great steaks and sausages from a Swiss butcher and a “decadent” cake that we brought. The evening ended with them inviting me to join them fishing in Singapore after I tried to impress them with my Panama Marlin photos and asking if they had any rich friends who want to go with me back to the Tropic Star. Next week is a short week as we get ready to return to Pittsburgh and Chicago December 15-January 2 so we look forward to seeing a lot of you. Jim Hollingsworth (Photos follow).
Singapore Travel Blog 