Days 0-1 E-ville to Singapore

Days 0-1 E-ville to Singapore

Twins modeling Grandma's newly knitted hats (J on right and C on left, tho THB has to get confirmation from the knitter), and no, the twins are not on this trip with THB and DB

 

Quote of the Day: Wait, how long is this flight?

Weather: Cool in E-ville, warm and muggy in Singapore

Disclaimer: This is the first post with THB’s new travel Dell PC. It’s a long sad, tale (or, as Alice said to the mouse, I can see that your tail is long, why is it so sad?). We replaced the chairs in the ocean-front window at the beach which led to the tables next to the new chairs being replaced, to THB and DB considering which chair we usually sat in and deciding to give switching a try to forgetting to switch our computers to a closer plug to both our beach house computers having internal charger connection problems. DB took her Mac to a repair shop and it now works just fine. The Dell goes to two different repair shops and most likely the motherboard was fried and thus he bought another Dell Insperon 13 700 2 in 1 (whatever that means). DB was able to load it up soooo fast, and here it is on the road two days later. A very sad tail/tale, and very long.

Dept of Looking backwards: Jan 19, sunrise over the Salinas Valley

We have a 9:30am flight on Singapore Airlines and LB graciously offers us a ride to the airport at 7am. It is Saturday, the ride takes about 20 minutes, enough time to catch up on what’s going on with her. Maybe the Arizmendi monkey bread with chocolate chips has put her in a good mood. It can’t be the collard greens and carrots we’re also passing along.

First early lunch

Second early lunch

Tiger Beer, filled to brim, not good on an airplane drunk by a guy with shaky hands

Easy check-in, relax in the United Lounge in an area that doesn’t serve food (empty) and it is only when we board and settle into the giant comfortable seats that it slowly dawns on us: this flight is SEVENTEEN hours. THB, unusually for him, has a slight cold. And we’re heading to the mysterious East and the upswing of the coronavirus epidemic. It is supposed to attack weak older people. That’s not how THB thinks of himself. Keep looking for those daily posts. Except when were cruising around the Raja Ampat islands for a week. Then it could be the ship’s lack of connectivity or THB’s personal disconnection.

Giant statue in empty Singapore airport. THB has no idea about symbolism

Hmmmmm….Jakarta flooded a few weeks ago, streets filled with 6 feet of water. That’s our second stop. On the way home, a layover in Hong Kong, will the protests shut down the airport again? You never know nowadays what planning 6-9 months in advance means.

On this flight, there is enough time to serve two early lunches, one on West Coast time, the other on Singapore time.  THB goes native: shrimp dumplings in broth and then congee with fish.

We’re met at the jetway: a guy escorts us to an empty immigration area (apparently our flight came in at a normally not crowded time) and it is Sunday here in the middle of the three day Chinese New Year weekend. Streets are empty.

Check-in at hotel, also seems empty. They take our temps (36.9 for THB) and we fill in forms saying we haven’t been to China in last two weeks nor been with anyone who has. Our room is luxurious, we do our best to stay up to 9pm and crash.

The front of the Fullerton, a converted post office

We're in a sunken room (floor 5.75?)