first update from SIN!

hey hey hey!
Now I finally made it - I'm in Singapore!
The flight was an absolute dream. As my boss had arranged a business-class flight, I was in heaven. This time, heaven was a Boeing 747-400... :-) Of course I had a bit too much luggage, but there was no problem during check-in. They are somewhat nicer when you wink with the right sheet of paper, I guess. Saying goodbye to Tine was not easy, but she made me really confident that we will stay in closest contact, and don't forget she is going to visit me middle of July! That is still some eight weeks to go, but they will pass quickly, I am sure. In Frankfurt I had to wait about two hours for the connecting flight - enough time to shop for some presents and -gosh!- to hang around in the Lufthansa-Lounge. That was awesome, I felt like the businessman I someday want to be. The time passed like nothing and then I entered the 747, having waited long enough to let all the ecos grab a seat before. The seat was impressively huge, and my place by the window was great. A champagne as welcome drink? Why not! I spent about half an hour figuring out the functions of my seat - there is a special manual for it. OK, it is not THAT complicated, but it is sooo cool. Entertainment-System, notebook power supply, adjustable everything and when I stretched out my feet I could not reach the seat before me! After watching two movies, having a tasty dinner and writing some articles for my WHUfriends-network I grabbed some two or three hours of sleep, and swoooosh, it was just an hour to the arrival in Singapore. That got me really exited! My first impression during the descent were the fields - they are not arranged as rectangular as I am used to, but totally unregular, like a paisley-pattern sometimes, round, corners... are the farmers taking some drugs in Singapore? ;-) The airport was very empty and kind of old-fashioned, and I feared that would continue throughout Singapore. How wrong I was! Sharon Chong and her collegue from LH Technical Training picked me up, and we took a cab to my apartment. That was the time when I first got in contact with no-aircon-air... about 33 Degrees Celsius. Oh-my-GOD! I felt like dissolving. Luckily, the cab was airconned. The apartment lies in a very clean (as everything here) and nice housing area, close to a big hospital complex. In the moment I have two flatmates, Elena, who is studying business in her 10th semester (well, I will never study that long) and has been here for over 5 months now, and Markus, who is writing his diploma thesis at LH passage. Elena seems to be from spain or something, I can't really understand her german and she stops talking when I wait the sentence to make sense - - - yeah, whatever. She seems to be much more into partying and having fun then working, fine with me. Markus is in the office for long hours every day, but when we met we had a nice little talk and I believe we will not go on each others nerves. On it went with a walk to the MRT, the mass rapid transport. The underground, so to say. It is one of the most modern systems worldwide and famous for being efficient and fast. I have to add that it is reasonably cheap, too. The way to the MRT leads through an enormous hospital, where I pass a Starbucks on the way (good for the first shot of caffeine in the morning!). It is just two stations away from Orchard Road, the ride is no more than three minutes. Perfect! I bought an EZ-Link-Card, which is awesome: You can charge it with some money and then keep it in your wallet. When you enter, you tap the wallet on the counter, and it lets you in. When you leave the station, you tap again, and the counter shows you how much your ride did cost.
From the MRT station Orchard it is a nice five minutes walk down this main shopping road of Singapore. It is like an "Allee", with large trees all around. The amount of (mostly expensive) shops and mega-malls ist incredible. The best feature: Nearly everywhere in the basement there is a food center, where a plate starts at 3 SGD, which is no more than 1.5 EUR. You can find all kind of asian food there - be it malaysian, korean, thai, indian... I will take my time to taste as much as possible! The office itself is located in the Palais Renaissance, which is a luxus-shopping male for the first three floors and an office-building above. LHT is on the 5th floor, sharing it with an LH passage ticket-store, and the accountants. LH Technical Training is sharing an apartment with LHT, so that there are about 8 people working there. It is a mixture of Germans and Asians, and it seems to be working very well together. The atmosphere is very good and I got a warm welcome from everybody. Mr Bussmann could not be there as he had to go to LHT in Manila, Phillippines for this week, but he gave me a call today to see if everything is alright. He also mentioned that I would have to join him the next time he goes to Manila, as there is a huge LHT-base there with a lot of people related to my project. Yesterday I did not really work but just get to know the ways and the office, so that I left early and got something to eat. I went home at about 8pm, and it was already dark by then. Sunset and -dawn is a thing of minutes here, what a pity! Today I came into the office at about 20 to 8 and spent the morning with trying to get into the internet to start my research. Gosh, it took me hours, and neither my notebook nor the old notebook they had in store for me worked, until I saw a new ADSL-Router lying around and asked if I could set it up. Miracle, miracle: It worked! I am actually actualizing (haha) the LCC survey, which is really outdated as it is from february. Things change amazingly fast here! I also have access to two great databases, which provide me with a lot of details, so this part of the work is easily done and will be finished this week. After work I went to a bookstore just to see what the people like to read here - sooner or later I will buy some nice books here. Then I went home, bought a new top-up-card for my Singapore mobile and took my first swim in the swimmingpool. GREAT THING! Just a minimum walk out of the door... that felt much more like vacation then like work. After a little nap and one of the relaxing-empowering-lovely phonecalls from Tine I went to the 7-11-store in the hospital to grab some junkfood and "starfruit-juice" (haven't tried it yet) at about midnight, enjoying the warmth and the view down to the skyline downtown. That's it by now - can't wait to add more of this great trip! Good night! (written 2004-05-19 01:30am)