It was made clear to us last night that we needed to be at the marina office promptly at 0900 to check in. Getting up wasn’t too hard since there is an enormous construction side on the other side of the cove that was making lots of noise. We were given a brief tour of the facilities. The marina is part of a private club that opened in April 2007. It costs S$50,000 (USD$38,000) to join. It is swanky, featuring two restaurants, a deli, bar, pool, gym, game room, guest rooms, and on and on. The shower/bathroom area off the pool is amazing. The facilities for the people in the marina are not anywhere close to as nice as the facilities for the club members, but it doesn’t really matter. You get a temporary membership card and can use all the club’s facilities. Most of the boats in the marina are power boats, with only a few sailboats. They also have free unlimited wireless internet to the boats, which is like heaven for us. The connection is so-so by our old San Diego standards, wonderful by our new cruising standards.
Once we were checked in to the marina, we headed to town to do our customs paperwork. The marina is located on Sentosa Island, just south of down town. It is as close to downtown Singapore as Coronado is to downtown San Diego, but unlike San Diego, their bridge connects right in to downtown. The bus stop is right next to the marina. On the short walk to the bus stop, it was abundantly clear that we are in the equivalent of Beverly Hills. Everything is brand new and expensive, with beautiful landscape and big fountains. There was a flock of peacocks walking around, one male with four females. There were dragonflies buzzing about. We hopped on the free bus off the island, which took us over the bridge and dropped us off at the harbor front mall called Vivo City.
We wandered into Vivo City in search of an ATM. Once inside, it looked like every single mall in America, including most of the same stores. The patrons were mostly Asian, with many Indians and white people. Almost everyone was dressed in western attire and almost all the stores exclusively sold western attire.
Once we had some cash in hand, we headed to the subway station, located right next to the bus stop. The subway is modern and incredibly clean, with no trash or graffiti anywhere. You could probably eat off the floor. We bought our tickets and headed down to the train. The inside of the train matches the station, with it being modern, clean and very nice.
We got off two stops down the line, in the heart of downtown. It was a little before 1100. Out on the street it felt like we were in West Los Angeles (for those of you unfamiliar with Los Angeles, West Los Angeles is the business district next to Beverly Hills), with tall, modern, really nice buildings. There was a steady amount of vehicle traffic, mostly taxis and busses, but it was by no means congested on the roads. There were lots of people walking around, but it wasn’t at all crowded like New York is. Most people were dressed in business attire. The landscape is quite lush and beautiful, with many little park areas, much like planned communities in Florida. Like the subway, the street is immaculately clean with no trash or graffiti anywhere. There are no billboards around, and the only advertising you see is the occasional taxi or bus with an ad painted on it. The lack of advertising gives the city a very clean, uncluttered feel. Signs on various buildings are tasteful there are no tacky Vegas style blinking neon signs anywhere to be found. Most signs are written in all 4 official languages (English, Malaysian, Indian and Chinese), though if a particular sign only has one language, it will usually be in English.
After walking a couple of blocks, we realized we needed a cab since we had a lot farther to go. We caught one in seconds. The streets are well maintained and everyone follows the rules of the road, unlike in Indonesia. We were dropped off at the customs office, across from the main container port. The container port extends for far as we could see in both direction, and it is jam packed with containers piled up several stories high.
The customs paperwork was fast and easy. We were now officially all checked into the country. Yay. We took a cab back to Vivo City, where we went to the grocery store. We were delighted to find that many of our favorite foods from home are stocked there, foods we thought we wouldn’t ever see. We gleefully stocked up on boxes of Annie’s organic mac & cheese, Paul Newman Spaghetti sauce, and Bush’s Baked Beans, to name just a few things. We are sad to report no Paul Newman salsa, though.
Back at the boat, we tidied and cleaned, getting ready for our guest who would be arriving in the wee hours of the morning.
Our friend, Omar, arrived at 0300. Christi had waited up for him. After initial greetings, he unpacked the things we had asked him to bring. He also proudly unpacked 6 small single serving bottles of red wine in a paper carrying container. Christi knew he wasn’t a wine drinker, but figured he must have recently gotten into it. After all, he must really like this particular wine to schlep it halfway across the world. They each had a glass of wine as they caught up on one another’s lives. Christi had asked him to bring some candy, and was debating about asking him whether he had brought it or not when a light bulb went on in her head. She had asked him to bring a small package of Red Vines. He had brought a package of small red wines. When she told him of the communication error, he confessed that he was absolutely baffled as to why we wanted him to bring wine when there is a huge selection available in Singapore. And no, sadly, there were no Red Vines in the grocery store.