Rain Man

After staying up to watch for Premier League action live on Singaporean television late last night, it was somewhat or a struggle to get out of bed this morning.

Football, with me being involved in it directly, in this country, appears to consume the watching public's attention in terms of sports anyway. Just as many Asian countries such as Korea, Thailand and Japan, Singapore's audiences are treated to English football pretty much on demand.

The Mio Sports channel (cable broadcaster in Singapore) caters for all fans needs showing live coverage of every game, and due to the laws which govern the coverage of football back in England, Singapore is actually a step ahead because they also get the pick of live games shown on a Saturday afternoon, a choice which isn't available to us Brits.

Being so busy with the Olympics this summer, I haven't really spent much of my time keeping up with the new football season, and my desire to expand my pallet as it were into pretty much every sport going, and not just football, it has been quite difficult to build the usual excitement around the new season.

After coming back from watching the local team's match last night I had gone of for dinner and then come back to do a few jobs whilst multi-tasking as usual.

By the time the second of the two matches had been shown last night, it was almost 1am so this perhaps led to my body's desire to stay in bed for a bit longer this morning.

For some bizzare reason, I have found myself waking up ten or so minutes before my actual alarm clock goes off. This strange phenomenon, for those of you who don't experience this, is is extremely irritating, particularly as you fight for every minute up to the alarm clock, and hoping by some miracle, or the intervention of Bernard's Watch (its a tv show) that you get some good quality rest before getting up.

Sadly this is never usually the case!

With my alarm clock ringing in my ears at about 7:15 I prepared myself for a day in which I wasn't actually sure what was in store for me.

Originally I was meant to be coaching in the morning, and then going to a meeting with James at an international school. But on a spur of the moment plans changed in order to make it easy for me to get a few more of the jobs on my very long to-do list, as well as also providing me with an excellent opportunity to get out and explore some more of Singapore.

I spent some time on the computer completing daily tasks such as replying to emails and messages that I've received overnight, and then I also did some pieces of work and research for English Soccer Schools that I had been asked to complete.

At about 11:30 I went out to get some dinner at a little restaurant near Sembawang Bus Terminal, which is round the corner from the MRT station. I've been there a couple of times, and after a few experiences the set-up of this type of Singaporean restaurant is becomming familiar.

Usually you start off with a portion of rice on your plate and then have to make a choice what else you would like with meat, fish and vegetables on offer. I consider my diet to be too full of vegies already so I make sure to steer clear of them wherever possible!

For each portion of animal, vegertable or mineral that you have, you're charged an individual price for and then up on the wall it let's you know the price for the combination of 1 meat - 2 veg and so on. Things are usually about $1 with fish being a bit priceier and rice being $0.60. The sub total of today's lunch with a drink was $3.40 which often makes me consider how badly we're getting ripped off back at home.

Just as I headed back home the heavens decided to open, and with the sky being pretty dark all around me I thought it best to remain inside for a bit before making a decision about what to do next.

As I've mentioned, Singapore is what you decide to make of it. Any map will show you that it isn't a vast space to explore, and there aren't so many 'sights' so to speak of. Doesn't mean there isn't plenty to do however, just means that it takes a bit more effort to find things.

Luckily thanks to the very kind staff at Forest Town School I have an excellent book about most of South East Asia, and that plus wikitravel.org will help me to make the most of my stay.

Considering the current weather predicament I thought that perhaps an indoor activity would be best so I considered heading to the shopper's paradise of Orchard for the afternoon.

It felt rather depressing packing an umbrella into my bag as I set off, but in a choice between dodging the weather and staying in or going out, there's no question which activity would be the winner.

The rain seemed to be a bit more prolonged than usual this time around though. The sky looked plenty-full of rain which was pouring down around me as I set off to the MRT Station.

I eventually made it to the station without being completely drenched, and set about reloading my EZ Pass card which was getting low after yesterday's expeditions.

Making my way through the station, I almost contemplated putting a jumper on (which I'd taken out of my suitcase for the first time) as for once it actually felt quite cold outside. I guess that would be the case for someone wearing only shorts and a t-shirt though.

I made my way to the platform and waited for the train.

My experiences with the subway system in Singapore have been plentiful already even in my short stay. As previously mentioned in my one of my early blogs the MRT is air conditioned, pretty spacious and almost pleasurable to ride.

The atmosphere in board is very different to that back home in London. Perhaps because of the rigorous cleanliness applied to each train and station, or perhaps because of the efficiency that they seem to arrive with.

On average a train will arrive every four minutes or so, and due to the size of the country, I'm pretty sure you could get from one end to the other in a couple of hours.

The lines cover pretty much every location with only about five tracks running, mostly named after their route: North-South, Circle, East-West etc...)

Going to Orchard is a relatively journey to make from where I am staying as it involves riding only one line (north-south) and to get there the train makes about ten stops.

After I got to Bioshan (an above ground station) I noticed that the weather had brightened up a bit so I continued on with one of my 'outside-good weather' contingency plans which was go continue on past Orchard and head to a station called Harbor View.

Harbour View is one of the most southerly stations on the MRT map, and is close an island just south of the mainland called Sentosa. My limited knowledge of Sentosa makes it seem a bit of a childhood paradise as there are both beaches and a Universal Studios resort contained there.

From Harbour View station you can walk to a place called Mount Faher (not actually a mountain, as it is only 116m of elevation) where I would be able to climb to the top of a hill and get a good panoramic view of the city.

A common problem with exiting a station in Singapore is that the metro station is usually underground shopping mall and has more exits than are necessary. As you make your way through the maze-like structure there aren't too many maps until you reach an exit (only then to realise you've exitied at the wrong place.)

Although I didn't quite end up where I intended, I decided to walk around the outside of the station I had just traversed my way through. This would also allow me to walk past Sentosa Way which is the main route in and out of the island.

After about ten minutes of walking, the sky was looking decidedly grey again, and very shortly it began to absolutely tip it down with rain. "Not much point hanging out in the rain I though", as I hoisted up my London 2012 Gamesmaker umbrella and headed for shelter.

Most likely due to the heat here, I find that the pace of life can vary drastically. A stereotypical view of life in the city is one of business and a constant need to meet deadlines in the high pressure economic world. Where I'm staying however, things couldn't be more different. Unless they're inside a shopping mall trying to pick up a bargain, Singaporean's usually saunter around without a care in the world.

Until it rains.

Then you really see rushing and panicing as they all search desperately for an umbrella or go running for cover if they have failed to anticipate a brief rain shower. Sadly for those hopeful Singaporeans without an umbrella, this turned out to be a heavy rainstorm which lasted well into the evening.

Undeterred by the fact that I was now inside a freezing cold air conditioned building with wet clothes I decided to make the most of my time. I thought about going back to Orchard to visit one of the shopping malls there, but instead I settled for going to the 'ViVo Center' which is a big mall in the middle of Harbour Front.

My tourist ways make me an ideal target for these shopping malls as to kill time I went into pretty much any shop of interest! The first shop I happened to go into was something I'd never seen before which was a National Geographic shop. It looked pretty royal from the outside, and sold a wide range of things including Nat Geo issues, clothes, pictures, postcards and just about anything to do with animals and our planet.

I spent a good forty five minutes wandering around this reasonably sized store, intrigued by almost everything that they sold! Sadly everything was much out of my price range! I spent a good few hours wondering around the shops. 

Malls here, and generally in fact are so massive that they create plenty of problems for the eager shopper. Rather than being in a straight line, most of the ones here have branching paths with stores which wind and disappear off into places that I have no idea to get back out from. Thankfully to bookend each floor there are usually a bunch of restaurants, but not wanting to miss out on everything I still had to explore each and every square inch of the building.

It's a shame it was so miserable outside actually, because the mall also had open air sections at each end which look over into Sentosa. It's tough to see because of how murky it was, but there was a good view of the cable cars travelling across from the hill I was going to climb up.

A few hours of shopping soon had me drained and I decided to head back. I decided to take a slightly different route going back than I did something. In less than a week here I have probably visited or been through every station on the MRT map!

Once at home, I did a few tasks to do with work. At the moment James is developing an academy program which I've come up with some ideas for, and my big task is to attempt to find a name for it. I decided to give up after a few hours of failing to find the creative juices to come up with something clever, and started on this blog entry instead (probably part of the reason my eyes are so strained and my creativity is feeling limited.)

Tonight's dinner consisted of some noodles and chicken from a vendor at the top of our nearby shopping plaza, and after failing to decide between getting an ice cream and a drink, I brought a beautifully tasting vanilla smoothy which went down even better with a kit-kat I had picked up from a Singaporean dollar shop the other night!

A satisfying end to another enjoyable day :)

Ray, you're never gonna solve it. It's not a riddle because Who *is* on first base. That's a joke, Ray, it's comedy, but when you do it you're not funny. You're like the comedy of Abbott and Abbott.