12-1-19 - Singapore heat, marathon & photo shoot
/Day 168. Kyle & Leanne joint blog.
It’s December and we are still travelling. Today is our last official full day on the first half of the trip. We start our holiday break back in the States for three weeks. After Leanne contorts herself in sunrise yoga at the top of the hotel, she finds Kyle in the pool for his quick morning dip.
We start the day meeting the kids at Starbucks. John informs us we are late so no latte for us. Okay, clearly he is in need of this break from day planning. Leaving the hotel, we notice two things. The sweltering heat. And the Singapore Marathon in front of the hotel blocking roads. We walk along the route we can noticing a few differences from runs in the states. First off, it’s about as orderly as it could be - in fact we hardly see anyone actually running as the runners must be spread out in a fastidious manner at the start to prevent masses of people from running into each other. Second, there’s not a single Dixie cup thrown on the ground (those $500 littering fines quite effective). Third, no one is cheering on the sidelines. But yes it is orderly.
We finally find an out and head over to the Merlion, a famous half fish / half lion fountain that is a Singapore landmark. Immediately behind the statue is a great skyline of Singapore’s financial district. The Merlion has a lion head which symbolizes Singapore as a “
Lion City so named by a Sumatran prince who according to legend spotted a lion upon landing on the island. Unfortunately, despite the name, there are no lions to be found in Singapore today. The fish body is a reference to the other ancient name of Singapore, “Tamesek” which means “Sea Town” in Javanese.
In an attempt to beat the extreme heat, we desperately seek anything indoors with air conditioning so we walk over to the National Gallery of Singapore where we enjoy the Singapore Galleries and a short film on Singapore’s history. Officially the country is only 54 years old but the city was founded 200 years ago - making our 2019 visit ever more special.
Once again walking outdoors where no one else is, we arrive at St Andrews Anglican Church to see a service going on. Kyle and Leanne decide to go back to the hotel — it’s just too damn hot and there is a pool calling our names! But walk through the Asia 2019 Cup where a dozen Asian countries are competing for soccer bragging rights. Again a bit odd but very few spectators.
The kids sojourn to the anime convention for the afternoon while Leanne and Kyle enjoy the rooftop pool. Ah, the life. Only a few times on this trek have we felt that “we are on vacation” feeling that only a poolside afternoon screams. This afternoon, 57 stories above the ground we got that.
Later, the kids join us in the pool before they order pizza. Tonight Leanne has arranged dinner with two volunteer friends now living in Singapore. It’s great to hear the ex-pats experience of living and working outside the U.S.
We leave early in the morning for our flights home to Los Angeles. We will spend a week in Los Angeles, a week in Virginia visiting Kyle’s family and a week in NJ visiting Leanne’s family and celebrating Christmas.
The first half of our trip is in the books having visited and experienced 30 countries but there’s still so much of the world to see. We will have a lot to ponder during our break before we head back out to South America after Christmas to start the second half.
