Belated Singapore interim status post

Well, I've been traveling for two weeks now, and this is really the first time I have had any time to write about it at all. The first week I was in San Diego, doing my (not uncommoner) trip to work on government software-defined radio standards. G joined me for the first part of that trip, and between meetings and our evening activities we were both busy and happy. After she left, I had two days to prepare a 4 hour presentation I needed to make this week. Looking back, those were two long days - up at 7 am, make PowerPoint slides until 3 pm, then go hiking and eat dinner until around 7:30, then work again until about 1 or 2 am.

But in the end, it all got done, and I stayed alive. Then my journey to Singapore began on Monday. I started by attending some online meetings until hotel checkout at 11, then drove to Los Angeles, where my flight departed from. I found a very cool place to go hiking (more later, when I have pictures to post), and finally got on my plane at 9 pm (Monday).

My flight was long - about 17 hours. Luckily, thanks to my company (and a very nice $7500 ticket!) I traveled in Business class. That was quite nice, and make the trip reasonably bearable, as you could change your seat into a fold flat (but at about a 10 degree angle) bed. With the help of some wine, I managed to sleep reasonably, and finally arrived at 5 am on Wednesday (remember I left on Monday!). Strange things happen when you cross the international date line...

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday seem to be a blur to me. I am traveling here with 7 others from Harris. We wake up at 7 am, present to the Singapore government until about 7, then work on preparing for the next day until sometime between 8 or 10.

Each day I did manage to get out and explore the city (and take pictures), and it is an amazing place. It is quite hard to describe, and I will work on a more detailed post during my 19 hour flight back home. Here are the short quick impressions:

• Very modern city, very clean, and (I am told) very safe. This is sort of what Singapore is famous for, and yup, this seems true.
  
• Lots of shopping. Perhaps too much shopping! But I guess that's because it has...
• Lots of people. 4.5 million people in what is a very small island.
• Lots of food - good, tasty, cheap food. You can get everything, but Asian food is predominant. A lunch sized portion of anything you want will cost you $2 - 3 Singapore dollars, so $1.25 - $2.25 or so. Commodity items (cans of coke, etc) are priced about the same.

Well, more later...