Heaven is just past hell

Everyone has one truly hellacious travel experience. Karma, irony and Murphy’s Law all indicated that mine would be for my relaxing fun holiday vacation. That understanding, however, didn’t make it easier when I got stuck in the middle of my travel hell to meet my family in Mexico on Christmas Eve. Whatever bad thing you can imagine happening, short of the airplane falling out of the sky, happened to me on Sunday. There were delays, missed connections, re-routing, assholes, lost luggage, and 2 meltdowns.

But I did get to our resort on the Rivera Maya on Christmas Eve (barely), and my family was awaiting me with hugs and cocktails. I was dirty, tired and luggage-less, but quite happy.

Christmas morning we woke up to blue skies. We opened Christmas presents near the tree in the lobby, sipping our complimentary mimosas. Brunch was followed by pool time and the swim up bar. The afternoon was cloudy. My Dad and I read books in covered cabana beds on the beach listening to the soft sound of rain on the thatched roofs. I napped in my hammock. I used the Jacuzzi in my room.

Our hotel, El Dorado Royale, is a palace wedged between jungle and beach on the Rivera Maya – about 40 minutes south of Cancun. It was beautiful, but not overwhelming - white curved buildings surrounded by impeccable landscaping. The hotel is a little over 400 acres and has just over 400 rooms. There were more than 6 pools of varying sizes, all with swim up bars, and comfortable lounge chairs with bar service. There were peacocks and huge iguanas around the palace. The food was excellent. Every meal I had – from hamburgers and beer to high end Italian was perfect. In short, this is the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. Luxury was way of life - a relaxing, enjoyable way of life.

My sister and I treated each other to Christmas massage and body scrubs. This included a power jet shower, with 16 shower heads. If I am ever rich, I am getting one of these installed in my house.

We went snorkeling on a nearby reef, filled with fish of all colors and sizes. Mesmerized, I don’t think I blinked for the first 30 minutes.

My Dad and I took a bike ride. My Mom and I took a walk. I went running. I read and laid in the sun. We drove ATV’s through the jungle, and then took speedboats on the Caribbean.

We visited Playa de Carmen, a busy little city bustling with tourists, for dinner and some shopping.

And now, I am snuggled in First Class due to an awesome booking fluke, not payback for bad travel. I just finished my snack of fruit, brie cheese, and prosciutto with proper dinnerware and a cloth napkin, and am on my way to the second leg of my relaxing holiday vacation - Kent’s family cabin in the North Carolina mountains.

My hellacious travel from Sunday is becoming a distant memory. Well, except for the carry on bag I have with all my clothes for the cabin, and the scorching letter I have drafted to Continental.

See pics on Flickr!

Shameless Promotion

So Kent, lover of critiquing musics, movies and books, has found a channel for all his enthusiastic ranting for media he loves.

Check out his review blog! I've been known to listen to an album recommendation or two. He even suckered me into 1100 pages of Stephen King after talking about how good The Stand is for months.

Now friends, you too can experience the Kent that takes over my car stereo, turns the music up really loud, and makes funny faces at the parts he loves, then turns it down to say "that's dirty" followed by a 2 minute technical explanation of why.

But don't worry, the writing isn't boring and technical.

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pics speak louder than words

but in this case, these pics are more like a whisper of vague words.

Singapore pics are up, but I don't think I did a great job of capturing the city. Or I did. And it's just not as interesting looking as other places. I did, after all, say it was a nicer, cleaner version of LA.

I'm melting, I'm melting

It’s the little things that tell me how a place is - that give me glimpses of how people might actually live. Singapore is full of small things that make it unique and fascinating.

People don’t have drinks with their meals, nor do they use napkins. However, they use forks and spoons (occasionally chopsticks, but no knives).

Christmas decorations and songs are EVERYWHERE.

Singapore is a melting pot of Southeast Asia cultures. There are huge Chinese and Indian populations. There are Malaysians, Filipinos, and Indonesians. There is a boatload of British ex-pats. But these aren’t separate populations that share space. They mix and mingle, which is unlike other parts of Asian. School kids come in packs of straight and curly hair, and a variety of skin colors.

Flip flops are the shoe of choice. Fat people don’t exist. My American ass is apparently a big ass here. I barely fit into a medium.

There are no beggars. Everyone is friendly, but not overly pushy.

Riding the subway requires you pay extra, which is refunded when you stick your card back in the machine – to force reuse of the plastic cards.

******

My time in Singapore is coming to an end. A cab picks me up at the hotel at 4:30 tomorrow morning (Tuesday) to bring me to the airport. I like my Singapore Airport in the middle of the night.

This morning I wandered around Little India, arriving earlier than many shopkeepers. The streets were mostly quiet at 9:30 am. But as the morning went on, music and incense wafted from the stalls along the streets, and garlic and curry smells made me consider lunch at 10 am.

By 11:30, I was exhausted from walking around in the heat, which was making me decidedly not hungry. Regretfully, I headed out of Little India before lunch time. I came back to the hotel, decadently ordered room service, and then went to lie at the pool to let the afternoon heat pass by.

Late afternoon, I headed out to Chinatown, where I wandered through more stalls, though these were hawking cheap Chinese instead of Indian wares. Afterward, I headed back to the cool comfort of air-conditioning at one of the many multi-story malls for some unsuccessful shopping, and good dinner.

Last night, I wandered around the river area, Boat Quay, and had the famous Chili Crabs for dinner. I didn’t like them. They were ridiculously messy and hard to eat. I needed a bib and a roll of paper towels. I got one wet nap. I am glad I tried them, but I like my meals to be less like a sporting even that requires a post-eating hose down, and more like a relaxing sit down with some food.

I’ll post some pictures when I get home.

The radiation trip

It's 5 am Singapore time, and I am awake for the day. My body thinks it's 3 pm. Also, I went to bed at 8 pm last night.

When it gets a little lighter out, I will stare longingly out my window at the large pool a couple of floors beneath me. At lunch time, I'm heading out of the conference to go check out Singapore, and that pool is high on the list.

I'm 85 miles north of the equator. Swimming and getting a tan is one of the things to do here.

My flight over was very long and very delayed, but considering I sat my ass in an airplane seat for 20 hours, it wasn't too bad. I slept most of the time. The pharmaceuticals industry is really onto something with that Ambien stuff.

In exciting flying news, we had to fly lower than normal due to solar flares, which cause radiation! Since we were flying lower than normal, there was more wind resistance, which meant we used fuel faster and we had to make a quick pit stop in Anchorage for gas. At midnight we landed in Hong Hong. At 3:15 am Saturday, I landed in Singapore.

At 11:30 am Saturday (yesterday my time for those trying to keep track), I did my talk at the conference. It was the best presentation I've given. I was really proud of myself. I was not nervous at all. I broke out into dance midway through when some random music appeared suddenly from somewhere. I am going to incorporate the feelings of extreme jetlag and confusion into all future presentations.

The tiny bit of Singapore I've seen is decidely not Asian. All signs are English only. It is overrun with Europeans. There are wide streets with orderly traffic, high end shopping, Christmas lights, and palm trees. It's like the nice part of LA, but cleaner and, well, nicer. I feel more comfortable about traveling alone here than I did in Spain.

I'll head out of the shopping district, where I am now, today and go to the more ethnic parts of town, aptly named Little India and Chinatown.

Singapore has a fascinating history, and in my research, I've discovered my new travel companion - wikitravel.org. It's run by the fine, fine folks at Wikipedia.

On my to do list for this afternoon and tomorrow are the aforementioned pool, Little India and Chinatown. There is also
- the famously delicious and messy Chili crabs for dinner
- lunch and snacks at a hawker center
- Standard Singaporese breakfast of kaya toast and kopi coffee
- Arab Street
- the Japanese shopping mall on Orchard Street
- A wander around Boat Quay
- Maybe the zoo or night safari

Notice, I plan to eat a lot, since that is the national pastime. Well it comes in second to shopping, but there are only so many 7-story Asian malls a girl can hit before the mall sickness of indecision and crabbiness comes on.