Sunday, January 27, 2008

Ceci N'est Pas Une Pipe.

Ahhh, Singapore. Where safety barriers have helpful messages on them.Where your hotel is built on the site of a historic WWII Japanese prison camp. "Why would we want to keep that? Prosperous countries don't have histories."
Where everything is clean....um....hey wait, am I back in New York? No, because in New York they wouldn't bother to have the garbage boom across the water.
And where the Char Kway Teow is good. Actually, it is amazing. It also must be the most unhealthy thing I have ever eaten that was not served at a fast-food chain. The particular version below consists of flat rice noodles, stir-fried in *lard* with dark soy sauce (which is not the same thing as soy sauce), chillis, cockles, egg, bean sprouts, green onions, Chinese sausage and fish cake.
Crazy good! I washed it down with a sugar-cane-and-lime juice over ice. Burp!

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Another Weekend, Another Ship

So Saturday I went to visit a bulk carrier. This one, the "Kildare", is really big--it weighs in fully loaded at 210,000+ metric tons. On Saturday, the ship was arriving in Singapore with a full cargo of iron ore, bound from Tubarao, Brazil, to Qingdao, China. She was stopping in Singapore to fill up her gas tank, as it were.

Here you can see the bow of the ship as we approach her in the shore launch. Note that the starboard side anchor is not yet down, which is due to the fact that the ship is still moving as it takes a long time for so much mass to stop.
A closer view:
Here you can see that the starboard side anchor is already dragging in the water in preparation to be lowered:

Hey everybody!
To get a sense of the size, take a look at the little tick-marks under the word "Kildare". Those indicate that the bottom of the ship is a full 18 meters under water:



Big:

So after climbing up the ladder onto the deck, this is what the view is like. There are a series of holds with big doors which open up by rolling to the side, splitting down the middle:

Looking over all the holds back toward the bridge. Notice how clean the ship is!

The view from the bridge:
This ship had a lot of Eastern European crew members. They had some motivational material posted in their weight room:
Sunset:



Friday, January 25, 2008

Lily's last week in Singapore

Sunday we went to get some chili crab at Jumbo Seafood. This restaurant has a number of locations in Singapore, but we went to the one at the East Coast, with a pretty view of the ships all waiting out at sea.

The camera died, however, before we could take a photo of the view. Or of the food, unfortunately, but we did get a photo of the beer.

The chili crab was markedly not as good as the pepper crab. The sauce was very sweet, causing both of us to remark "spaghetti-ohs" at the same time.

The next day, while Dave was at work, I walked from our place to Clark Quay, about a 30 minute walk, but a VERY hot one. I had been missing walking this whole time, and forgotten why it is that people don't walk very far here. I arrived drenched in sweat and so wandered around a bit and tried to cool down before asking any institution to seat me. This is a view of Clark Quay from the middle of the river. It's on the left bank. It is essentially a large collection of bars and restaurants on the river. Very expat-oriented. A little ferry, on the bottom left, carries people from Clark Quay to Riverside Point, on the right bank.


These huge umbrellas assure outdoor seating when it rains.


Finally I cooled down enough to sit and have a beer by a fountain that was not half as cool as the one in Hong Kong. This one didn't change, just constant jets of water.
Across the way was a bar called Clinic, with wheelchairs for chairs and hospital dividers and beds for booths.

On Tuesday, we ate at Spize, an Indian-ish place by our home. Apparently it's THE place to be after the big dance club closes. Dave had mutton murtabak (they call it Indian pizza):


I had nasi goreng seafood pattaya (basically fried rice with seafood, inside an omelette)

On the walk home I finally took a picture of this sign that we see every day. It's an ad for a restaurant. It makes me laugh a lot. "And be Seduced!"


On Wednesday I met Dave for lunch. We usually meet up and eat at the food court in the mall by his office. These food courts are basically hawker centers inside malls. Much better than the Auntie Ann's we get in the states. We had amazing laksa.

In the mall I snagged a photo of the Beef Prosperity Burger promised by McDonalds.

And the sign in all the toilet stalls that reminds people to please not stand on the toilet seat. Most bathrooms let you choose between regular sitter toilets and squatters.

We went to dinner at Clark Quay that evening. This is the view across the river.


And wandered around at night. It's fairly disney-fied.
And today (Friday), I spent most of the day packing. By this afternoon I had a few hours, so I headed out to the pool for a last swim and some reading in the sun. It's been a great trip, but I'm ready to be back home. Too bad Dave can't come with me yet. He stays here another week. So I'll hand the camera off to him.

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

My Sunday With The Queen

So on Sunday instead of enjoying my last weekend here in Singapore with Lily, I went and spent 8 hours on the same ship, riding in to the shipyard with her. Hoo-ah! Here I am with the team from the office.
Today the ship was so empty you could see her propeller sticking up above the water.
Hello, my name is Dave and I am wearing a jumpsuit.
The bridge. It was very quiet as the local harbor pilot was on board, coordinating the ship engine, steering and the inputs from the four tugs helping the ship in.
Look, we are actually moving!
Fancy a dip?
One of our tugs, with a liquified natural gas carrier in the background.
Mmmm, industrial. These are oil drilling rigs under construction or repair. The whole Western end of Singapore is industrial on the scale of North Jersey (or maybe worse).
Close-up of a semi-submersible oil drilling platform. This platform floats.
One of our ships under conversion into an offshore oil storage vessel.This is another one of our ships under conversion to floating storage. This one is almost finished. The Queensway was then docked alongside this ship.Two tugs maneuvering us into place. Alongside and tied up. We had to walk through a dirty, dangerous shipyard with no helmets after we got off of the ship, and then take a bus home. Well organized!