In Transit
Monday, April 30
Driver Glennis picked me up at 10:00. My home security system had been having issues overnight, so I spent much of the ride from Youngstown Northside to the Cleveland airport on the phone with my security company, trying to get issues resolved so the Jazzman wouldn’t be plagued with them during my absence. In addition, my younger son’s birthday would occur while I was gone, so I spent time on the internet procuring suitable gift cards (Panera, Amazon, and Starbucks) so he would feel appropriately feted by his mom in her absence. (The opening photo shows the duffle bag I made for the trip, using fabric Tina had ice-dyed.)
The driver’s insistence on an early pick-up time meant I had three-and-a-half hours to kill before boarding. Once checked in and through security, I relaxed over breakfast in the airport’s Irish pub. When I reached the gate, I realized I wanted to purchase a new phone charger to carry in my bag for long days in Bali. I walked back to the inMotion store. I made the mistake of telling the employee with the grape-colored hair that I wanted an “auxiliary” charger. While that terminology made sense to me (definition: providing supplementary or additional help and support; synonyms: additional, supplementary, supplemental, extra, spare, reserve, backup. “Auxiliary” works in this context, doesn’t it? Why would one word make her talk crazy to me?!), it did not make sense to this young woman. She got all wrapped around the axle over the term “auxiliary.”
As I was trying to amend and clarify my words to her in the interest of her just telling me what was available on her chargers rack, I heard a voice on the public address system announcing that someone should come back to security to pick up their iPad. Suddenly my brain was awhirl as I tried to figure out where my iPad was. It was on the kitchen counter as I was loading my arms to leave the house. Was it still on the kitchen counter? Had I left it in Glennis’s van? Had I left it somewhere in the airport? Did I put it on the security scanning belt? That iPad is a very large part of my life. I didn’t even want to think about living for three weeks without it.
After placating the salesgirl, I bought a cool little charger, then placed a call to Glennis to see if I had left it in her van. Half an hour later, I learned it had slid under the passenger seat and it would live at her house until she picked me up on May 22. Oh, well.
In a walk through the Hudson Booksellers near the gate, I procured Anita Shreve’s “The Stars are Fire” and John Grisham’s “Camino Island” to keep me entertained in long plane and van rides.
And soon it was time to board. Cleveland to Chicago, (1:10 flying time, 1:33 layover); Chicago to San Francisco (4:28 flying time, 6:30 layover, get bags from belt, check-in with EVA Air, find Tina, utilize the Star Alliance partnership lounge to charge phones and get something to eat) ….
Tuesday, May 1
Continuing … A few minutes after midnight, we took off from San Francisco.
SFO to Taipei (13:30 and lose a day to the International Date Line, 2:17 layover); Taipei to Singapore (4:27). In case you were counting, that’s almost 24 hours of flying time and 10½ hours changing planes and walking around time.
Thanks to my doctor for a few Xanax tablets to help me throughout the trip, and thanks to being able to fly business class in a Boeing 777 with seats that make into full-length beds, I was actually able to sleep about six hours between SFO and TPE.
I really enjoyed the service on EVA Air. The Taiwanese airline deftly hires a crew that is thoughtful, kind, and just plain sweet. And the new uniforms that were introduced in December, 2017, are chic and beautiful. The pastel aprons they don for food service are eye-candy to this textile nerd.
Each flight attendant has a handful of business class passengers for whom they are responsible. When they first meet you, they kneel down so they are on your level. They ask for the correct pronunciation of your name and introduce themselves, pointing to their name badge so you are sure to understand the name. (Upon arrival at SFO on the trip home, my flight attendant smiled and said, “Goodbye, Crews” to me. She had had a hard time pronouncing both my first and last names, but mastered it before we parted company. Made my day!!) As the long flight passes, they routinely check on you. A bottle of water is waiting for you on your “bedside table” when you wake. When they see you’re awake, they offer you snacks. You receive food and beverage menus when first getting settled and they are diligent in making sure your needs are met. You even receive a pair of pajamas to change into for the long flight. It’s no wonder that TripAdvisor’s readers have named EVA Airlines among the top-10 international airlines.
Singapore
Wednesday, May 2
Noon arrival into Singapore
When Tina and I began planning this trip in August of 2017, we knew we wanted to stop in Singapore. I had visited that beautiful city in 2001 and couldn’t wait for another visit. Tina’s husband has a niece, Laura, who has been living and working in Singapore for several years, and she suggested she take a day off to show us around her city.
This is not an inexpensive city to visit—let’s be clear about that. It took us a while to select a hotel for our two-night stay while we got a little grip on jet-lag before the Bali tour began. Laura suggested we look at hotels in the Little India section of the city. In the local boutique hotels in that area, the rooms were very small. After all, real estate is pricey and the cost of the room comes down to price per square meter, plain and simple. Instead, we opted for an international hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn Singapore on Belilios Road. It was in a good location, twenty minutes from everything we were interested in seeing; the room was tight for space but clean; the room on a high floor in the 14-story building gave us great views out over the city; and cabs were easy to come by.
And the people of Singapore? Wow! Kind, thoughtful, friendy. Cabbies with near-perfect English, in love with their city and eager to tell us all sorts of facts to enhance our visit. We got settled into our room and took a couple of short naps, careful not to get into a deep sleep that would keep us jet-lagged for days to come. Laura met us at the hotel at dinnertime and we walked around the corner from the hotel to Arasu Restaurant, a South Indian casual eatery which one TripAdvisor reviewer dubbed “deliciously affordable.” After catching up with Laura and learning about her life in Singapore, we agreed to meet n the morning for brunch at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. She walked us back to our hotel, called a “Grab” ride (formerly Uber), and Tina and I quickly crashed after our 48-hour day.
Thursday, May 3
We woke at a reasonable time, considering all the travel of the previous day. After eating some snacks from our carry-ons to tide us over to brunch, we dressed and hailed a cab to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. While waiting for Laura to arrive, we bought postcards and a few other goodies from the gift shop. Most of the textile items in the shop were made in Singapore. I love how the shops support local artists. Then Laura arrived and we walked over to the Halia Restaurant for a delicious brunch, afterwards heading into the exquisite National Orchid Garden. You’ll see many photos in the gallery below of both the Botanic Gardens and the Orchid Garden. Breathtaking beauty in both venues. It’s no wonder that the Singapore Botanic Gardens are the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in Singapore.
We exited the gardens at the Tanglin Gate, which led us past the large and architecturally chic Interpol building. We had no idea what the building was, as the point at which Tina paused to take a picture of this visually pleasing building showed us neither logo nor name. And then the guard yelled at her “no pictures!” She put her phone away and we kept walking. At the other end of the building we saw the imposing “Interpol” sign. Oops. We are not terrorists. We have no intention of turning our photos over to bad guys.
We kept walking along Grange Road until it intersected with Orchard Road, one of the prime shopping streets in Singapore. We sauntered down Orchard, noticing famous name shops on either side of the road. By now it was early afternoon, and we had walked well over two miles. Laura wanted to show us the Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza, in which she had had a hand in the interior design of the lobby. When we noticed their sidewalk cafe, with a vacant table directly under a large fan, we sat and ordered cool beverages. We probably sat for an hour, sipping, noshing, people-watching. Oh, my gosh, is Orchard Road great for people-watching!
Sometime during the day I realized I had left my camera charger at home, so had searched for a store that sold Olympus products. Google showed me TK Photo Technic, and Laura called a Grab to take us there. Honestly, this is one of the coolest camera stores I’ve ever been in. If you’re ever in Singapore and camera challenged, this is the place to go! And the mall it’s in, Plaza Singapura, isn’t a bad space in which to kill some time, either.
But Tina and I hadn’t touched any fabric yet that day. So we initiated Laura into the fabric-shopping-with-the-aunties club and headed for Poppy Fabric. There are many fabric stores in Singapore from which one can choose, but Poppy is the place to go. They bring the highest quality silks (along with a few other fiber choices) from India, and have great selection and great prices. I still have some of the fabric I bought at Poppy on my previous visit to Singapore in 2001. In fact, I just used some of it to make a small purse for my great-niece to carry at her wedding two months ago. Exquisite doesn’t adequately describe either the selection or the quality. And Laura just stood to the side, quietly watching, as Tina and I went into high gear.
I think we spent forty-five minutes there and walked away sated and happy. And Laura led us around the corner to the BluJaz Cafe for drinks to toast our Poppy success.
But we still needed dinner, and she had a boyfriend we wanted to meet, so she called him and he agreed to meet us on Orchard Road for dinner at Som Tam (Modern Thai Fusion) in Orchard Central. We greatly enjoyed meeting the BF, and approve, as aunties and honorary aunties feel it is their privilege to do. And we said goodnight and Grab’d back to the hotel while we could still hold our eyes open.
Friday, May 4
A leisurely wake-up, breakfast in the hotel restaurant, final packing to relocate to Bali, and a cab to the airport for our 3:00 flight to Denpasar, Bali, on Singapore Air. Once on the ground again, we found our driver and got our first introduction to the absolutely insane traffic that is everywhere in Bali. Arriving at the Patra Bali Resort and Villas, we quickly checked in and were shown to our suite. Patra Bali is an older hotel, and the electrical outlets were in awkward places, making it difficult to place Tina’s CPAP machine near her bed. We spent a little time rearranging the beds and then collapsed after a long day.
Flight and Singapore Photo Gallery
