Walkers' Adventures in the Asia-Pacific 2014

By Marilyn Walker

Marilyn and John Walker are members of that highly desirable demographic: retired, healthy, active and ready to leave home for adventures. In the autumn of 2014, we visited Lembeh Strait and Raja Ampat for underwater photography. We took lots of pictures but no selfies. This narrative is entirely personal, with no politics or viewpoint or uplifting message. It's just for fun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marilyn Walker
• Release date: Jul 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311172525

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Walkers' Adventures in the Asia-Pacific 2014

September 30 – October 26 2014

Chapter 1: SFO to Singapore

It's a long journey aboard Singapore Airline's SQ01. We left home about 8 pm on Monday night, BART to SFO, checked in and headed for the business class lounge until boarding time. It's a pleasant way to spend a few hours, with food and drink and comfortable chairs.

Once aboard, it was fourteen hours from SFO to Hong Kong, 1.5 hours in that airport, then 3 hours onward to Changi airport. Singapore Air's 777 business class has the biggest seats we've experienced, lots of good food at frequent intervals and a large lie-flat bed, which made the journey easily tolerated. I slept about seven hours, awakened occasionally by bumpy air, although the majority of the journey was smooth and unremarkable. Watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes on their excellent video, with high-end noise canceling earphones and waited for the trip to be over with.

I had been a little concerned with the stopover in Hong Kong, due to the ongoing Umbrella Revolution. While the city itself is in knots, the airport was not affected, so the plane landed, made itself ready, and we transited onward without delay.

We landed on time in Singapore. Our luggage came to us quickly, we did the formalities quickly, and were soon released into the tropical city. We used the airport shuttle (S$9 per person) to travel quickly to the Pan Pacific Hotel on Raffles Blvd, a high-end high-rise, well air conditioned. Pricey but very comfortable and quiet.

Traffic signs and advertising are all are in English, with an occasional subtitle in Bahasa Indonesia or Chinese or Thai for inclusiveness. All the people we encountered speak English and other languages as needed. If it weren't for left-side driving, we would scarcely know ourselves to be out of country.

Our first experience with the large shopping malls (Marina Square and Suntek City) adjacent to the hotel came the first afternoon. The malls themselves are handsome and very clean and shiny and well air-conditioned, with any number of clothing stores, sunglasses shops, electronics boutiques and a maze of corridors, well-filled with shoppers but not unduly crowded. We were out to purchase snacks and bottled water and some grocery-store wine. We obtained directions to a suitable store in Suntek City's mall and a map. Sounds quite easy. However, it was a dispiriting march, first on the outside promenade in the heat and humidity to find the mall entrance and later within the mall to find the required store. Round and round and round.

Eventually, we found a well-stocked grocery store to buy wasabi peas, goldfish crackers, tasty cheese and crackers, bite-size cookies. Wine is a shocking S$18 a bottle. Spirits are even more expensive. We bought two bottles of Tiger brand beer for S$6 each. Then we had a long, hot, tiring walk to find our way back to the hotel, taking all possible wrong turns.

Drank the beer and snacked then crashed into bed at 6 pm local time.

We awoke refreshed at 7:30 am.

The Pan Pacific's breakfast buffet is amazing. The serving stations are spread out over the large room, organized by international style: Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, US, European; ten or more tasty selections within each nationality for whatever you feel peckish for. It was easy to take just a small amount of different items to sample. Between us, we grazed across many cultures. I suspect the buffet is expensive, but the price is included in our room rate. The coffee is very strong. The fruit is excellent. It went down a treat.

One new fruit for us: pitaya. The flesh is white, speckled with small black seeds, and a bright red rind. It was served on the airplane and was on the buffet as well. Thus we are able to check off learn something new every day yet again.

We inquired at the concierge desk about where to catch a hop-on-hop-off (ho-ho) sightseeing bus. Did you fly in on Singapore Air? he asked. They have their own tour bus, $8 if you show your boarding pass. He gave us a brochure with a map. I hurried to retrieve the boarding passes from the trash. For once I hadn't lost them already. The other sightseeing lines cost about $30 each.

Back home, I had made reservations for Breakout Games, strange to us, after reading reviews from Trip Advisor. The number one rated Singapore sight is the Botanical Gardens, and Breakout Games is number two rated. The reservation is for noon.

We plotted the day. We discovered we could take the ho-ho bus to Chinatown in mid-morning, then stroll a few blocks, sightseeing, to the address for Breakout Games. Thus, we prepared for the heat of the day with sunscreen and lightweight clothing and walked out to find the bus stop.

It was a short walk to the Singapore Flyer, a big Ferris wheel, the first stop on the SIA bus route, which we found with minimal difficulty, mostly because the wheel is very large and easy to see and we spotted the bus in the parking lot.

We went to the upper deck of the bus, which is a hot and uncomfortable location even at 10 am on an overcast day.

The recorded commentary was quite difficult to understand and light on content in any case. We regretted not having brought our good ear buds, which probably would have helped. Before long, we alighted at stop number 5, Chinatown, for a dose of sightseeing.

There are the expected tented stalls selling trinkets and cheap ready-made clothing and suits in four hours by Chinese tailors.