We flew from Yogyakarta to Singapore on the 30th of March, in time for a Singapore Sling on my birthday at the new ‘Disney’ reincarnation of the Long Bar at Raffles. Honestly, give it a body swerve.
The arrival at the airport and transfer to our hotel was as smooth as silk, especially now that I’ve fully mastered Uber and it’s SE Asian iteration. In Singapore I could even link it to my credit card, so no more fumbling about with currency and drivers with no change. Apart from the arrival, however, Singapore was a real culture shock. I don’t mean that in the way that New Dheli was a culture shock, quite the reverse.
After more than three months in India and SE Asia, we weren’t quite ready for the intensity of Singapore. To be honest I don’t even think we were even quite ready for the orderliness, but we survived it.
Now we are sitting in our hotel in Beijing after our first full day. It was, I hate the formulation, but I feel impelled to use it - ‘interesting’.
We are in China and, although I’m not normally given to paranoia, I think I’ll reserve any fuller description of our experience until we’re safely in Japan. (If you have any comments on this, I’d suggest some self moderation - I cannot even sign in to Disqus here!!)
We did try to get to Tiannamen Square today. That was ‘funny’. Do keep an eye on the blog. We would have to admit that we hadn’t booked and you have to. Also it was so tortuous, we actually thought we’d be leaving Beijing without ever going to its most iconic sights, but when we got back to the hotel this evening the staff at the hotel were brilliant and they have us booked in to go on Saturday. It is a Chinese holiday and the weekend, so let’s wait. See it we will though!
Tomorrow we are off to The Great Wall. We used what was left of our morning and early afternoon to find where we can get the bus from and that entailed learning to navigate the Beijing metro and the whole card and payment system. That was, and I’m not being cynical, real fun and a welcome change from the mornings earlier frustrations.
So, it’s off to The Great Wall of China early Tomorrow.
