Singapore and Beyond

We made it to Balikpapan alive! (slightly to my surprise). After my last post in Seoul, we flew another six hours to Singapore which I successfully slept for most of after popping a couple Gravol. Luckily, I just happened to wake up when dinner was being served. And speaking of food on the airplanes, my mother, the wonderful and caring lady that she is, went to the trouble of ordering me vegetarian meals throughout each leg of the trip. Well, what I didn't know is that every meal served, four in total, would be Indian. I realized I haven't eaten breakfast in three days, just Indian lentils, Indian spinach, Indian rice, Indian vegetables etc. My stomach is quite confused, as it keeps going from point of starvation to a couple bites of airplane Indian, back to starvation. But I must not complain, because for airplane food, it was pretty damn good; just a lot of Indian.

But yes, back to Singapore. So, we arrived into Singapore at about 1 in the morning. I think that made it 12 noon the previous day in Ontario and 10 in the morning in Denver, both of the times zones I was used to at the time. So of course Bean (my roommate Nadine) and I were wide awake and began what became a failed search for the coveted Singapore Tea House in the airport. We walked for about an hour, followed countless directions with no luck. But, we did find a pond full of very big fish and a butterfly room, jungle thing. Pretty cool for an airport. At about 4:30 I fell asleep and slept semi soundly until 4:55! Big sleep. At that time, the airport began to become inhabited and the day was in full swing.

Mid-morning, we took the "Free Singapore Tour" into downtown Singapore from the airport. Oh, and P.S., it was 37 degrees when we landed at 1 in the morning. HOT, but nice. Anyways, we got to explore a Chinese temple as well as drive through Little India. I'll try and attach some pictures of Singapore. In a nutshell, it's the city of a million cranes. Buildings are going up everywhere. And it's also the city of a weirdly high number of golf courses. 22 or something crazy just in the vicinity of the airport.

When that ended, we were in the final two hours of the 13 hour lay-over and killed time by enjoying some well needed coffee and Skype-ing with some friends all the way back home.

Sorry, this is getting really long. So, we flew out of Singapore in a little plane to our final destination of Balikpapan, Borneo, which is in the Indonesian part of Borneo. Flying in may have been the craziest sight I have seen. So much dense rainforest beneath us with huge areas that had been clear cut (or burnt). We were about to land when the pilot pulled the plane back up... the weather was too rough and I believe I heard him say the smoke was too thick (a regular occurrence due to the heavy burning of the rainforest.) We came in a different way and finally landed in heavy rain, thunder and humidity.

But we are here! And it's great. The trip leaders met us at the airport and we headed to Hotel Sagita (quite posh for Balikpapan standards). We enjoyed a simply dinner at a vendor on the street and I am now settled into bed. At 8 at night.

A little shopping at the markets is happening tomorrow. Cannot wait.

xo