Whoa! We wake up at noon. How did that happen? It's no way to make progress. Today's progress has to come in two ways: getting up to date on the Internet (that's mostly me) and planning what to do in Malaysia, Thailand etc..
The early afternoon passes in a flurry of typing and picture uploading (I have a mistrusting cafe official standing over me as I load a new driver onto Windows ME). We nip out to Starbucks for a coffee and cake at 3:30 as a late brunch. Singapore seems to sell cheap food but (comparatively) expensive drinks -- your drink may cost 80% of your main meal -- but Starbucks has expensive cakes too. Never mind. Helen heads off to plan Malaysia and I go back to finish up the journal. I finish quicker than I thought which leaves me time in the hotel room to ponder the inevitable end of the trip. We've spent US$22500 to date (excluding my new toys) so there's only US$7500 left to go. It should go a little further, hopefully, than the US$150 per day we've been spending it to date. I must say it's hard to put a finger on what... Whatever, it looks like there's just a couple of months left to go. Neither of us is keen to go home. Lazing around (relatively speaking) is much preferable to a hard day's work.
As we're heading down in the lift I have what might be described, were I a member of the fairer sex, as a "blonde" moment. We were in the rapid action doors lift -- you have to bowl in or out quickly as the doors shoot closed way too soon. On one floor a James Earl Jones character entered just too late, as the doors were closing. Being a sharp lad I hit the doors buttoon to help him but to no avail, he came through well bumped by the doors. His gruff, world weary, commanding (and other more accurate qualifiers) face remained passive. I apologised on behalf of the lift. At the first floor (ground floor -- didn't we have some influence over Singapore and couldn't we have gotten them to get the floor names right?) I announced better luck for all this time and hammered away on the doors button to no avail. All were bashed by the doors including our stoic friend. Naturally, I slipped out, cat-like, at the end just after the doors rebounded off the previous occupant. I was of a mind to complain to the reception staff about the duff lift button when Helen chose to inform me that my sterling efforts had been concentrated on the button labelled "close."
We go back to the pasta place over the road partly because they do a fixed price (S$14.90) dinner deal and mostly because it was very good. We have the same main courses as last time. Afterwards I head off to the top of the road to watch the Worthington Cup outside the Man U shop. It's very quiet mind. The Red Cafe seems full enough but there's less than a dozen watching the web-cam quality big screen over the shop door. I head off after half an hour thinking I might get a beer at one of the cafes showing the match but my chosen one over the road from the hotel looks deserted (and someone's fiddling with the TV). I go back up to the room where Helen is still planning and catch a headline that says Gerrard scored in the 39th. Yay! I drink all the beers in the fridge whilst packing.
Grand Central Hotel, Singapore N1.30137
E103.84187 Elev. 35m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.