Sunday, June 18, 2006

Singapore - I am here

Arrived in Singapore after a 13 hours flight. Not a bad journey afterall. Business class travel is a far cry from the economy seats where you are packed like sardines with very little leg rooms - especially on a BA plane. Flat bed travel is surely a luxury on any long haul flight. The food, even in business class is pretty tasteless. However, I cannot fault the service of the cabin crew. They were quite marvellous. In fact they were at time over attentive which makes me feel rather uncomfortable.

Singapore is still the same as when I left about 2 months ago. Nothing ever change here, well, not at any speed, although I am under the impression that the Singapore authority is slowly allowing more "modern" style of advertising. I was in Orchard Road today and walking along Wisma Atria I did notice numerous large posters of very scantily cladded ladies. This would have been totally banned a few years ago. Even on the local TV advertisement one can see the trend that things and lightening up and more body part are allowed. Not a bad thing really.

A strange event is being launched in Singapore, by the Government no less. It is the " 4 million smiles " project. All Singaporean, PRs, foreign workers currently in Singapore have been encouraged to send to the Singapore Government a smiling photograph of him/herself. All collected photographs will be made into a mural which will be used to impress the oversea delegates when they come to attend the World Trade Congress in September this year. Singaporeans are famous for their unsmiling expression when dealing with foreigner visitors. They are considered quite discourteous to visitors to their shores and often to the point of being rude. The Singapore government hopes that this mural will take away some of this bad publicity and visitors will go away with a better impression of the people of this tiny island. From first impression, I think this project is doomed to failure. Singaporeans are not going to change overnight, mural or no mural.

Hurray!!! good news regarding the World Cup. Just found out tonight that the McDonalds near our place is showing all World Cup matches on their in-store TV. I can just go there at 9 pm, 12 am and 3 am to watch all the 3 matches of each day. England v Sweden will be the next match to watch. However, I will be away on a cruise to Alaska from June 26 to July 13. Hope they have World Cup matches on the cruise or I will miss the most important matches.

Watched the Iran v Portugal game tonight. The Iranians really got trashed. Well, they have only another match to play and they will be on their way back to Tehran. Pity really, would have like to see them get to the next stage.

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