It takes me a while to relax. Especially when traveling. It really won’t be until Day 3 that I will enter the “oasis of calm” and be able to go with the flow and forget about all the work waiting for me back in Chicago and elsewhere. I do this to myself, really. I make this huge list of things I haven’t had a chance to do and I convince myself that surely I’ll be able to take care of these items during the first few days of my vacation. You know…I’ll make time to do my taxes and then I’ll make time to spend an hour on the phone with Comcast, my cable company, explaining to them for the umpteenth time that I RETURNED THEIR STUPID EQUIPMENT IN NOVEMBER SO PLEASE STOP STALKING ME.
Right. Time for some Char Kway Teow from room service. I was hoping my hotel would have it! And they did. Happy dance. I don’t know what’s in this stuff, but I love it. It was especially good at 4 am while I was wide awake with jet lag. I had arrived at the hotel around 2:30 am.
After finishing Book #1 and then doing some puttering around — I call this “picking things up and putting things down” — it was time to get out of the hotel. I like things on water, so I took a “bumboat” ride (har har) and nearly lost my char kway teow with a sudden onslaught of jet lag combined with motion sickness. Sometimes it can take me 48 hours to share the feeling of being on a plane. Ugh. Singapore is cute though, isn’t it?
Cocktail time. Even though Anthony Bourdain kept saying in The Layaway Singapore to skip Singapore Slings at The Long Bar at The Raffles Hotel, I did it anyhow. And you know what? I loved it. Cool old colonial vibe, even if it is overrun with tourists.
Next, back to the hotel for nap time. Ah, and Book #2 time.
And then it was time to eat again. Chili crab at the “No Signboard Seafood” restaurant in Esplanade with my old friends, Sherry, Roman and Avi. I confirmed that I don’t really like crab. Also, I nearly fell asleep at the table. And despite an invite to see “Four Floors of Whores” for myself, (the band on the 2nd floor is supposed to be great) I went back to the hotel and straight into bed. “You should come out with us, Krista,” they said. “You know you’re going to be wide awake at 2:30 in the morning.”
They were exactly right.
