US travelogue 2

Sept 07
Had a wonderful trip to the US. A very sudden trip, I had to leave in just two days and for a week. I went via Singapore and I must say, I loved the place. I have now seen Thailand, Hongkong and US but Singapore is different, clean, green and beautiful. Superb landscaping and good use of space. I liked the airport as well. You can easily spend hours together doing window shopping, or watching a game on the huge 103 inch plasma display or another huge screen which has been put up there. There are electric foot massager's kept at various places (extremely useful when you get out of a flight after 15 long hours and when your body has turned into a sensation-less cabbage).

I went to Sentosa - underwater world, butterfly park, dolphin lagoon and to see the merlion. When in Singapore pls done miss the underwater world.


I have heard Jurong park is equally a good place but unfortunately I was seeing singapore during the stopover of 8 hours. I was accompanied by a colleague.

I reached US on saturday night and next dat was free. I spent the day with my friends Shilpa and Sawita (and their families). Shilpa took me to the art and wine festival. An exhibition cum sale was arranged for various things apart from wines by the lakeside in Santa Clara.


Shilpa's baby was also successful in gulping 2 drops of wine (and I'll never forgive myself for that). I enjoyed the day. In the evening I went bowling with Sawita and her husband. Well my score is for you to see....pathetic! The only saving grace is that I did bowling for the first time so you can discount my poor scores. Dinner was also at her place.


Next day was office as usual. Went out with a colleague to have Vietnamese food. It was nice.

Tuesday - did some shopping for the office, got some game CD's. Nothing much apart from office.

Wednesday - I went shopping and bought loads of clothes. This was followed by dinner at Shilpas place. I think Indian food tastes all the more better when you have it outside of India. You are in a more appreciative mood and ghar ka khana is the icing on the cake. With Shilpas baby around, there is never a dull moment.

Thursday was interesting. In the evening I went out with my colleagues first to have Italian dinner followed by an opera. One of my colleague was singing in it. This was my first experience with an opera. The opera was in italian, with english subtitles being displayed on top of the theatre screen. Expensive drapery, sets and some good singing. Overall I enjoyed it but it could have been better if it was slightly less than 3 hours. May be if I understood italian, then I could have appreciated the
words in the song rather than just music and 3 hours would have been highly enjoyable.

Friday was a farewell dinner from my colleagues at a thai place. On saturday, I did some left over shopping but my bags were already full so could not buy much apart form the chocolates which I had to carry back for my team in India. I had lunch with sawita at a singapore joint follwed by italian icecream... yumm. I took a combination of tiramisu and strawberry. Evening it was time to head back home to India.

This time I made a small mistake. I never realized that I had a bottle of cream in my hand bag (I just forgot that I was carrying it, remember I told you my bags were full). You know what, surprisingly the US guys let me carry it but I had to throw it off in Hongkong :( Never do this mistake.

On my way back, I was travelling alone so I didn't try much stunts in Singapore. I took the free city tour which the airport arranges. You get two options in these tours. One cultural city tour and two - where you can get off the bus and take a boat ride. This must be good ride but the boat ride is cancelled on days when
it rains. That day it was raining. I took the option of cultural city tour. Some sights were a repeat for me but anything to kill time. I feel instead I could have gone to jurong bird park but frankly you become a cabbage after a 15 hour flight and I was in no mood to carry my hand luggage while searching for a taxi.

All in all a wonderful trip. I may add few pics later on so please watch this space.