Well well well,

Another adventure coming to a close and there is still so much to report on, but we’ll keep this brief. Singapore overall is a very interesting and fun city to visit! I certainly could live in a place with almost NO crime rate (a whopping 0.05%), clean and well maintained streets, and retail and hotel staff so eager to staff that they will sometimes tend to you in pairs and can be fired on the spot for not providing a ‘positive spending experience.’ But alas, I come home to Boston.

We spent the past Sunday in Indonesia, which was a lot of fun. I bought many interesting and cool items, as well as a few hand-made paintings (collecting local art from the places I visit is my new hobby). We were in a place named Bantam Island (Indonesia), which was cool. On the boat ride back from the Island, we found that people were rude. They were eager to get seats, so they filled up the boat faster than a Clydesdale can fill a dixie cup. But we managed to get seats after I used to towering hight advantage to scare people into offering us their seats. In Indonesia, no one is rally taller than 5’3″, and the person I was walking with was blond, so it was interesting to see people actually stop eating and turn their heads to see the “tall man and the blond.” Store owners gave me discounts for being tall (honest). It was fun…like the second coming of Christ. Someone saw me and offered to kill themselves in my honor, but I would have gotten messy, so I settled for a Coca-Cola.

Another interesting story is that someone from my group bought a Celine Dione album, but they found out it was a fake. So I listened to it. Sure enough, it sounded like James Brown singing “My Heart Will Go On.” So we chucked the CD. The same thing with the Elton John CD she bought, which sounded like Richard Simmons. That was funny, but considering she paid US $3.50, she couldn’t complain.

Back in Singapore, things were going along just wonderful, but their concept of tall is someone who is 5’2″, so I couldn’t fit into most things easily. So in Singapore, I discovered that humans can be very flexible out a sense of necessity. Work was a blast (the CFO of Lotus Corporation made us promise that we would never come to his facility in suit or any kind of formal dress). Perhaps one of the coolest things in Singapore are RISIS Orchids, which are orchids that are picked, frozen, and then strengthen with a clear coating before being dipped in 24k gold. They are quite cool. They also did that to real rabbits, but you can give someone a kinda real gold plated rabbit. They would get mad, and I am sure that gift would smell after a year or two.

Anyway, I am 45 mintues away from getting drunk in the airport business class lounge, so I have to scramble. I’ll see some of you (at least) when I return to the states on Friday. My next destination is Chicago for a 3 day mini vacation (people at IBM call them this strange term…’classes’) and then I am off to an audit in Toronto (which is better than Endicott by any stretch of the imagination…ha ha Rich).

See you all around!

–RC–

P.S. If you want to be on my “post-card” list, send me your address and I’ll be sure to send you a post card from the cool places I go, whenever those cool places arise. And if you were looking for something from a particular country that I visit and you want me to pick it up for you (we can work out paying me back later), also let me know that and I’ll do my best.

Well, well well,

It seems like it is time for another posting. Besides, surely we all must tire of Rich’s gloating about posh international destinations as an intern while poor Shannon suffers in the U.S. Allow me to present our team’s latest adventure in Singapore…

The story actually takes place in Malaysia. In particular, we visited the Malaysian town of Jahore Bahru (JB). Translated, that means “city with an ‘open air’ sewer system” or “smelly town of death.” I am still trying to wash the smell of that Malaysian town off of me. Think of it as Singapore’s poor cousin. Once you clear immigration, a 30 minute process that should only take 10 minutes, you then get on a bus towards the JB. You wait on this bus for over 30 minutes due to traffic. Or you can spend 10 minutes walking the same distance, but they won’t tell you that. After you then clear the Malaysian checkpoint, a 15 minute process that should take 30 minutes (it is explained later), you then are in the city of Jahore Bahru. The only safe place to eat is McDonalds, where we had breakfast to go.

Jahore Bahru is filled with muslim stores in which you cannot buy anything unless you are muslim. I tried to buy a really nice painting at a market stall. When I asked the lady what the writing said, she asked “are you a Muslim?” “Yes” I replied, in between bites of the sausage, egg and bacon McMuffin sandwich. For some strange reason, she did not believe me and said that she could not sell items to non-Muslims. Discouraged, I finished my sandwich and then continued to look around.

Other city tourist attractions include viewing the weekly hunted and stuffed animals of the city’s sultan, playing ‘malaria roulette’ with the mosquitoes that have a taste for American blood, and trying to avoid the ‘smell pockets’ that take one by surprise and saps your appetite and will to live. A sure sign that we should have gone to Indonesia instead was that it rained as we were entering Jahore Bahru and stopped when we left.

To get a sense of the smell, imagine what 100 dead bodies from the last pro-democracy uprising a few years ago would smell like. Then throw in dead animal remains (the only ducks floating down the ‘river’ were already cooked). For ‘ambience,’ add the smell that comes from a TKE room after Spring Day. Bake gingerly @ 90 degrees and then serve to who all dare visit and/or live there.

And while Singapore has adequate border controls, one had to wonder about Malaysia. We had cleared immigration to leave Malaysia when we realized that we forgot to buy tickets for the bus back to Malaysia (tickets cost about $1 U.S.). We would have to walk back into the city (a very short walk…literally across the street) to get tickets for the bus (which are interestingly, not available at the bus/immigration checkpoint). The problem was that we had already handed the Malaysian immigration officers our immigation/customs forms. Despite this, we then walked down the street that the transnational busses use. Half way down we found a security guard. We explained to him that we forgot to get tickets and that we’d need to leave the checkpoint, but that we had already gave immigration our forms. However, the sounds of our nervous voices were secondary to him enjoying his cigarette. Before we could finish explaining the problem, he said “OK, sure” and turned away to enjoy his cigarette. We think we would have gotten the same reply had we said that we planned a mass killing spree. Anyway, after we got our tickets, we walked down the same ‘secure’ street behind the immigration checkpoint. Sure enough, our ever-aware officer was smoking another cigarette (this becomes important later). With a wave and a nod we ‘cleared’ immigration for a second time and got onto the bus and left the country. On the bus, we heard someone complaining that border control confiscated their cigarettes.

So we learned that Malaysia has a beautiful and interesting culture. Just not in Jahore Bahru. Unfortunately, we won’t have time to visit the cool parts of Malaysia, but we expect that some island-hopping in Indonesia next week will make up for the experience. What else have we learned? That the only thing that makes this experience different than the Mexico experience is that Malaysians in poor cities have more teeth. Still it was an adventure and enabled me to write an e-mail update, so the experience could not have been all that bad. 😉

Ciao!

–RC–

Good morning, afternoon and evening sports fans:

Today’s story deals with travel and the wonderful experiences that can occur. But first things first. Today I learned that my ThinkPad can dail almost any location on the planet, except from an a Delta Airlines Crown Club Room. I am not sure why, since I seemed to be following all of the directions clearly, but it was one of those crazy things that one chalks up to ‘oh well.’

My adventure begins with the U.S. Shuttle driver who is not quite sure how to get to Logan Airport. We essentially drive in circles around Waltham for about 20 minutes before he finally realizes where the MassPike is. Armed with this information, he then avoids the MassPike and takes the scenic route, as if to show the MassPike who is boss. Anyway, after finally arriving at Logan Airport (and leaving the U.S. Shuttle smuck-o with a tip to buy a better map of Boston), I go the Business Check-In line at the Delta Counter. It’s me, my bags…and the carpet that my laptop bag latched onto to about 2 yards ago. Little kids are laughing, as are adults. The Air France people actually staffing the flight are laughing at me too. It is only when I wave my business class ticket in the air that they flock like the same way Rich flocks to Kerplackistani oil stocks. That is when I realized the true power of business class. And I made a snotty internal remark of my own. Well, someone in Air France must be able to hear my thoughts, because the Air France staff would get their revenge.

If you ever get a business class ticket, relish the opportunity to go into their executive lounge. They say that they have a dress code, but you can be dressed as badly as Brian and still get in because they even allow Structure X-Pants. The drinks are free and flowing thanks to overwhelmingly strong opposition to turning business lounges into cash bars or getting rid of alcohol entirely (thus keeping ticket prices high enough so that people like you and I couldn’t normally afford them). Anyway, I was loving the lounge until I was ripped away like a newborn baby from a mama’s breast.

Once on the plane, they served us some sort of salad as an opening course. It was a ritzy salad with mayonnaise on the side. I told myself “don’t eat that stuff, Rodney, you’ll do untold damage to your innerds.” Then, in a Homer-like retort, I also thought “hmmm, sweet mayonnaise.” Then, the mother of all temptation struts along in her Air France uniform and says “Monsieur Cornelius, eat the mayonnaise. Join us. Join us.” When in Rome…so I ate some of it. She then laughed crazily and said “ha, boy, your innerds will pay for giving in to the desires of mayonnaise. And didn’t you leave your Immodium AD in the bag you checked in?” She then disappeared and almost immediately I felt ill. At that point, I asked the crew mechanic to stuff my business class seat in the lavatory because it was going to be a long flight.

Upon landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, I went directly to a pharmacy, where they laugh when you present them with bodily function problems. One eventually helped me, but I had to wait until they removed the original pharmacist who passed out from laughing so hard. Now, when I say pharmacist, I mean that in more a figurative sense then a literal sense, because one only needs approval from Sally Struthers to be licensed in France. Skipping the mindless drivel, the ordeal took 30 minutes and I ended up with something like Immodium AD…it was called Immodium AD. When I got the counter to pay, I realized that I was so into my French Airport Bathroom Fest ’99 that I forgot to get money. So I said “excuse kind madame, could you see your way to giving me this medication today and I will gladly repay you on Tuesday?” Since she has never seen Popeye, she scoffed at me and I had to use my MasterCard. I still don’t feel better, but at least I am not acculmulating frequent guest points in French airport restrooms anymore.

So now I sit in the Air France Business Lounge, waiting to live, waiting to die, waiting for that evil Air France flight attendant so that I can place her in the guilletine for suggesting the mayonnaise. On this connecting flight to Singapore, I told them to only give me bread, since I cannot trust anything else. Or maybe someone out there has an immune system that I can borrow for the trip. I’ve been in the lounge for about 4 hours now. I even fell asleep here with my wallet on the table. Good golly, executive lounges are like living in Saudi Arabia. Pretty cool.

Anyway, that food concern may not really be a problem. We have been informed that due to strike by the catering service personnel, we will not be having any catered meals. Not even in business class. Or first class. We had boxed meals bought in and that was an experience. It was being in summer camp. And since I like sea food so much (this is sarcasm here), of course they only had sea food boxed lunches. Yipee! So I had nothing to do but sleep. But for my troubles, I swiped a bottle of wine from the galley before I got off of the plane in Singapore.

So now I am in Singapore. The hotel is awesome. The food I have eaten is very good and my digestive track is slowly recovering. The hotel even provides free early-evening cocktails, so that is even better. But i guess that is a story for another time.

Sianora

–RC–