Tips on structuring a Singapore trip

I like to keep lots of coconuts on hand for tired guests.

It's so much fun to have guests arrive here. I love the look of shock when they finally make it to our place from the airport after their 24+ hour trip and see us here in our place like it's the most normal thing to be on the other side of the world. We have quite a few more guests planning a trip here and everyone wants to know how long they should come for, what should they do and how long it takes to acclimatize.

Don't expect too much from yourself for the first two to three days. It'll take that long to get your sleep sorted out. You'll probably crash pretty early in the afternoons and be less able to handle outdoor adventures in the heat. Almost everyone tries to do a lot on day one and then gives up and ends up by our pool instead. You probably need a week in Singapore before taking off for your first side trip. Three days to acclimatize and a few extra to do all the things you want to do here.

Singapore from a mountain bike

This is a little bucket list of things Joel's seen from his mountain bike while riding the trails around Bukit Timah. (The photos are linked from wildlife sites as Joel is never holding a camera while riding).

Long Tailed Macques

Monitor Lizards

Wild Boar

Seen in Singapore with Joel's phone

Walking through an upper middle class neighbourhood at Hungry Ghosts festival time and
seeing people squatting around oil drums burning fake money. 

One of the many truly bizzarre costumes we saw women wearing on CNY

Putting your blood type on your car. This is happening people.

We were lucky enough to see a sticker from the infamous Sticker Lady

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Joel's Singapore marketing moments

"No 1 in The Canned Meat and Mushroom category in Singapore"

Keeping cool in the city

It's been raining a lot the past few days and with rain comes a cooling breeze. Temps drop down to the mid twenties and strolling for long distances is pleasant. Usually this time of year is hot. This is "Summer."

My mother and brother were here this time last year and I remember their stages of adjusting to the heat. So just how do we cope with it? Well I think the first thing that's really important is to not over-cool ourselves indoors. It makes going outside a real shock. Humans were built to live in hot climates, Mesopotamia was not cold. Still, it's a big change for northerners and I find it's a process of relaxing. If I'm anxious about being hot, then I'm hot. If I relax then it becomes a warm tropical vacation all over again.

We have one of these air conditioners in every room of our apartment except the bathrooms and kitchen. They have little remotes where we can set them to just fan or to a particular temperature. All the bedroom ones are usually just on fan while the one in the living room is set to about 28-29 degrees during the day. 4-5 degrees cooler than outside and a good comfortable temp to live with. We also leave our windows open a bit so there's a bit of constant air exchange. We've found that acclimatizing to hotter temps indoors has also chased away the sniffles. We had head colds when we first got here and used to use the a/c a lot more. We've had none in the past year since we started turning it off.

Where you are in the city has a huge amount to do with how hot you feel at home too. If you're down in densely populated areas with lots of a/c units constantly exhausting heat you'll feel much warmer than if you're in an area with green space. Little India, The CBD, Chinatown, Clarke Quay and Orchard Road always feel about 5 degrees hotter than where we live. The coastal areas and the Botanic gardens are great places to go sit at night and be cool enough to need a sweater.

It's not a weekend until someone goes to the ER

Little known fact dispensed by a taxi uncle: elderly Singaporeans save up all their aches and worries for Sundays when they get their kids to drive them to an ER. 

We headed out bright and early this morning to the Singapore Mountain Bike championships. I have to say it was a fairly bizzarre event though not unlike other sporting events here. Some made-up rules and regulations and things that just defy logic that were probably mis-translated from a rule book somewhere. Cyclists were placed at the start line in the order they registered so strong riders couldn't place themselves at the front (which is super dangerous as they then have to get around the slow ones). Everyone attending even as spectators had to sign in -- wouldn't want anyone to congregate anywhere in Singapore without someone knowing about it!