Lunar New Year Celebrations at Chingay 2015

Getting into the spirit of things with our fabulous gold pompoms 

It’s daubed as the best of the Chinese New Year celebrations in Singapore, so there was no way that I was willing to let another Chingay Parade pass me by without bagging us tickets.

Singapore Through the Ages - celebrating the arrival of the MRT 

The only parades that I have ever been to are the Notting Hill Carnival, which is more of a street party than a parade, and one in Reno with Catherine and her family where the roads were filled with people riding horses – some cowboy themed, some Spanish and some classic Rodeo queens. Neither of these experiences could have prepared me for a full on parade of Singapore extravaganza.

            This year is Singapore’s 50^th birthday, and whilst National Day will be when the real celebrations kick off, the parade was considered a starting point for the year of partying.

            Nick and I had tickets to the F1 pit lane seating (where there run a number of events throughout the year to make use of the otherwise deserted part of town). We arrived and were handed a bag each containing flashing lights, gold sparkly pompoms, flowers made out of old plastic bags, and a bottle of water. We were ready to go!

A traditional fire cracker opening scares away the spirits before the celebrations begin!

Surrounded by Singaporean locals, some who had brought their elderly relatives along (a very sweet idea, but the nightmare of travelling to and from the event in crowds of people did worry me for their safety slightly) we joined in some of the crowd warming up chants, ready for the real show to begin when the sun set at 7:30.

Incredible costumes!

The parade is well known as Asia’s largest street performance and float parade, and with the added force of a 50^th birthday to acknowledge, this year was the biggest yet! The theme was a rather uninspiring “We Love Singapore”, but with 11,000 performers representing all of the many cultures living within Singapore (the Russian dancers were particularly impressive), and a ridiculous number of impressively sized floats and fabulously bright costumes, it was a great way to see the people of Singapore really celebrating their culture and country.

My favourite float of the night

We were definitely the odd ones out, but we were incredibly welcome, and I am so glad that we managed to spare the time to stop by. I think that Nick was slightly concerned about spending his Friday night somewhere a bit miserable, but even he had to admit that it was a great night out, and that he would definitely recommend it to others!

Jakarta - done and dusted!

After a hectic, stressful and tense day, I am finally at the airport, coffee in hand, boarding pass at the ready, return visa paid and sorted, ready to get myself on my flight back to Singapore. The prospect of landing in Changi airport has never before been so wecome!

            Whilst I was hoping that stories about Jakarta had been exaggerated by spoilt Singaporeans who are used to everything running like clockwork and never having to wait more than 2 minutes for the next tube to pick them up, it turns out that Jakarta really is every bit as bad as the rumours had it – and even the locals say as much!

            Once I made it into the office this morning I met up with a couple of Indonesian’s working for Google who operated as my guides for most of the day. From their very own mouths Jakarta just went further and further down in my estimations.

Amidst rumours of kidnapping and abduction by cabbies (even those in the legal and monitored legal cabs) and tales of ridiculously high number of scams and bag thefts by motorbike there really is no safe way to travel in Jakarta. It turns out that there is only one brand of taxi that is acceptable, and the idea of walking even five minutes along the road to get to a meeting or event is totally unheard of. Travel by car takes four or five times longer than it should due to the poor infrastructure, and then made a millions time worse by people’s fear of public transport and walking around on foot.

             Luckily the event that I was presenting at went well, and although I didn’t understand a couple of the segments that were presented in Bahasa, I got the gist of the main topics covered off and found it really interesting to learn more. I was presenting the final segment of the event and the one piece that most of the audience really did need to learn about from scratch. It all went well – I think there’s quite a bit of follow up and training to be done, but people were keen and joined in a lot, so that was great. The other meetings that I had booked in for the day also went well and I managed to arrange for them all to be within walking distance (this was before I received my warnings about venturing outside on my own).

Heliport reception area by the Google lobby 

The only negative aspect of my trip was Jakarta itself. Bali and Batam are two Indonesian beach / holiday destinations, and I have nothing but positive comments to make about them. Jakarta is just inefficient, dirty (not in a quaint, Asian way), threatening, and really just plain terrifying! It should have taken me 30 minutes to get from the airport to the office – one hour later I was still on the road. Then getting back to the airport after the event, I thought I had planned ahead well enough by leaving myself three hours for total travel and check in time but I was told that I needed around 5 hours, just to be safe. 5 hours to travel 30 minutes and check in?! Ridiculous! 
              In the end  made the trip in around an hour and 45 minutes, which was still ridiculous, and then spent quite a while wasting time at the airport, trying some really vile fast food which I ate only a very minimal amount of and writing this blog post while I wait for my gate to board, but if there's one thing that I really don't want to do at this point, it's complain. I won’t complain anymore now. I’m at the airport, my flight hasn’t gone without me, and I will be able to sleep in my own bed tonight. All is well!

My questionable airport supper

Also, I bought my Jakarta magnet on the way through the airport, which means it’s 100% ticked off my travel list and I need never return here ever again. Until work sends me again…

Day trip to Jakarta

It’s 5:30am and I am already up, showered, dressed and waiting at the airport for my hour and a half commute over to Jakarta for the day. I will be flying in and heading straight to the Google offices over there to present at a day long event they are hosting for publishers.

            I should probably be panicking that the slides I have aren’t good enough, or that I will forget what I’m supposed to be saying half way through (in front of 50+ people), but at the moment all I can think about is having to travel through Jakarta.

            Jakarta airport is about 30 minutes by car from the office, so I should be able to get there and back to the airport this evening without any difficulties. However, Jakarta is not very good at roads and congestion, and pretty much everyone I have spoken to tells me that it can often take over two hours to travel 20 minutes down the road. What makes it even more fun is that sometimes the traffic is totally fine, and you will cover the 20 minutes without any issues at all.

            As a lover of forward planning and always being early I know that when I land at the other end I will be fine to get to the office in time for the event, my main fear is that I won’t get back to the airport in time for my flight home this evening.  If I miss my plane then I am going to be stranded in Jakarta overnight as it’s the last flight of the day. This means I am going to have to leave the office as soon as the event finishes – I may get to the airport 4 hours before my flight is due to leave. Or I may make it by the skin of my teeth. Either way, all I hope is that I can get back to Singapore at my scheduled 00:35am landing time. I’m definitely not ready to spend a night in Jakarta today!

Another day, another Artichoke dinner!

I don’t know how it happened, but when our friend Big Mike asked whether there was anywhere chilled and easy to grab dinner before he had to go out for a friends leaving do, Nick made the first suggestion that sprang to mind, and so we inevitably spent our Wednesday night having a lovely relaxed dinner for three at our new favourite, Artichoke.

            We probably need to branch out and find somewhere else to eat pretty soon, but the service is so good, the veggies are so tasty (and relatively healthy) that it’s very hard not to love the idea of going there just one more time!          

            There’s no plans to return for another round anytime soon, so perhaps that will be the last trip for a while – or until this weekend at least! 

Delayed response

We got engaged in early December. We received a card from Woody and his lovely lady-friend Laura today. Only a couple of months late on the follow up Woody!

            Even better, the finishing line in the card “Let’s celebrate again to make it official in the summer (I don’t know what that means)”. Boys don’t always see the point of sending cards, and I think that this might be a prime example!