Apa Khabar!

I feel like I'm a million miles away from my little ocean-side home in Micronesia. But here I am in Singapore: hot, humid, crowded, noisy... I might as well be on another planet!

I left Baltimore early on Monday morning. Saturday I reserved a taxi and Sunday I confirmed the reservation, but at 4:00 am on Monday morning, no taxi was waiting. I called the taxi company and they said it was on the way. I called again after waiting 15 minutes and the dispatcher said, "It is hard to get a driver to take someone to the airport." "So no one is coming?!" said I. He replied, "I'm working on it."

AAARGH!!! I called two more taxi companies and waited another 20 minutes. When no taxi arrived, I called back and one of them told me, "We cancel a reservation if you don't call back after 15 minutes." That's insane!

Well, eventually a taxi came and drove me through the freezing rain to the airport and I got to my gate just in time.

Except for some brief nausia while flying over Russia's Kamchatka peninsula, it was an uneventful trip and I had nice, brief stops in Cincinatti, Portland and Tokyo.

I'm living in a great little walk-up on Serangoon Street in little India. Its an old, old building which looks down on an eating stall, some old houses and lots of high rise apartments and hotels. The bedroom is five sided; who ever heard of such a thing?

The apartment is about 20 feet from a subway station which is amazingly convenient. So far I've had some wonderful Indian and Malay meals. What a life.