Welcome to Singapore

As anticipated, I arrived in Singapore in the middle of the night. I took at taxi to the Grand Hyatt Hotel - my home base for the next 6 nights.

The room was very nice.  I spent a few minutes throwing my stuff into drawers and hanging my shirts, but then immediately hit the sack for a few hours.

In the morning, I traded a couple emails with a work colleague, who said he'd pick me up in a taxi and we'd go into work together.  He must have heard about my fiasco trying to find the Korea office.  :-)

Again, as expected, the Singapore team extended me every bit of hospitality.  I set up shop in the common work area with the FP&A and accounting teams.   

We had lunch at the foodcourt downstairs, which must have had a kiosk for every type of cuisine in greater Asia.

  I just copied my colleagues and loaded up on some kind of combo dish with rice plus veggies/mock-meat in different sauces. Not even sure what country this represented - I'd say Indian, but then could have been Indonesian or Malaysian.  Whatever it was, i topped it off with a watermelon smoothie.  Mmmm

I spent most of the day trying to get caught up on my California work, versus meeting with the Asia team.

That night, a group of us went out to eat in Boat Quay, one of many neighborhoods in Singapore.  We started with a beer at a local brewpub along the Singapore River (which in this particular area is lined with bars and restaurants.)  Then we headed to the restaurant, an Indian place that has a GREAT rooftop outdoor dining area with a spectacular view of the city.  Unfortunately I didn't have my camera.  Dinner was great. 

We then took a taxi to neighboring Clarke Quay - which seemed to be a bit more upscale and trendy than Boat Quay, where we enjoyed an $18 beer.  That's $18 singapore dollars which is still about $14 US.  We were so full from dinner, though, that we had to force down the beer (but dammnit, for $18 each, we were going to get every last drop).