Sunday, August 31, 2014

A little fun before the finish line

The end is in sight!

We are almost finished with the move that feels like it is lasting forever.  Tomorrow at 2pm, Melissa and I will take over the keys for our new (to us) condo in Singapore.  We've been cooped up in this little serviced apartment for about a month now and we're very ready to move into our permanent place.

We've got about a week of overlap between the two places so that we can take all of our deliveries and move in.  Our sea shipment as well as the furniture we are leasing locally arrive on Friday.  I will unfortunately be in Japan on a business trip that day, so Melissa will be handling that full day on her own. (I can see this trip to Japan becoming it's own story a mile away. I've already been asked to come up with a speech for an authentic Shinto ceremony. Stay tuned.)

We still have to set up internet, cable and a few other details, but we're planning to spend next weekend unpacking and getting completely out of the temp apartment.

As a way to have some fun before all of the heavy lifting starts, Melissa, Jack and I spent the day at Universal Studios Singapore today.

The park itself is very nice and in pretty good shape.  The biggest drawbacks are that it is quite small (compared to American parks) and the signature roller coaster has been out of commission for over a year after having a number of technical problems since it's debut.

There are about seven or eight sections to visit, ranging from Shrek to Sci Fi to Egyptian Pyramids.  Each section usually has a signature ride as well as one smaller ride for the kiddos.  For the most part, the rides are pretty short and tame based on US standards.  

 MADAGASCAR

 SHREK

SCI FI / TRANSFORMERS

We made it around the whole park in about four hours. That includes going on most of the rides.  The lines were pretty much nonexistent though because we elected to go with the annual pass with the "express" (cut the line) option.  The lines today didn't look to bad compared to Disneyworld, but after riding the little, short rides, I'd have been frustrated about waiting for more than 30 minutes to ride most of them.

Without a doubt, the best two rides were "The Mummy" and the "Transformers 3D" rides.  The Mummy was very similar to the Dinosaur ride at Animal Kingdom, but a lot darker and faster.  The Transformers ride was similar to the Star Wars ride at Disney Studios (ex. MGM Studios) but the car you were in drove around from screen to screen.  Pretty cool.  That was the only ride Jack and I went on twice.

One last story before I call it a day.  

After riding the obligatory river raft  ride that is at every amusement park in the world (here it has a Jurassic Park theme), we got nice and wet but didn't mind too much because of the usual Singapore heat.  As we came out of the ride exit, we saw this:


That's right, it's a big blow dryer dryer for your whole body! S$5 to get blasted with hot air in a town drowning in hot air!  They think of everything in this town.  If someone ever figures out outdoor air-conditioning, it will be a Singaporean.

That's it for now.  Hopefully the next post will be pictures our our new condo.



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