Actually, it's not about the journey...

I made it to Singapore in one piece - despite my best efforts at self-sabotage the night before my flight! On Friday I packed up the last few items, checked and rechecked everything about 40 times and called a cab. Due to a couple of factors the taxi was quite late, adding to my stress levels - apparently an idiotic bus driver broke down at a stop but didn't bother with hazards or the warning triangle, causing other traffic to think he was just picking up at the stop & waiting for him to pull out rather than overtaking; and a power outage in Terenure knocking out all the traffic lights In the 25 minutes or so I was waiting (and getting stressed) I checked everything another 40 times. I really need to work on my OCD.

We had had some concern about the packing - Air France having a rather measly luggage allowance of 20kg. This is not a great deal of luggage for a 7 week trip involving meetings, obviously, as we need office clothes and casual clothes. In Singapore,
where you pretty much have to change everything at least once a day if you venture outside for more than five minutes, it seems even more miserly. The excess charge is an extortionate €30 per kilo, which I was anxious to avoid on the outbound trip (though it should be expensible). Due to my l33t packing skillz, I checked in at 19.3kg. I have already realised I do not have enough clothes in this. Luckily Singapore has the odd clothing store*.

I wasn't especially impressed with Air France, to be honest. The movie selection was okay, though being a Cineworld cardholder I'd seen most already, leaving me with Duplicity. Unfortunately I fell asleep halfway through and didn't wake in time to watch the rest, they cut the entertainment about 40 minutes before landing. We had quite a lot of turbulence and while I'm sure it was all fine in French the English version of the announcements was not completely intelligible. Also, even for aeroplane food I thought the cuisine pretty dismal. Luckily Singapore also has the odd restaurant. **

The hotel is fine, it's fairly unexciting. The fitness centre is a little small for a hotel of it's size - I've only been once so far (not on schedule at all) and that was before 7am, so I fear it's going to be difficult to get on machines after work - I may have to try to get there for 7 every day. Currently I have a nice harbour view but I'm being moved next week - the harbour view also grants a pretty good view of the Grand Prix circuit, so I think they've sold 'my' room for a meellion dollars to someone else.

What is incredibly frustrating is the lack of internet access. The network in the hotel is simply extortionate, at SG$600 for 30 days. I purchased an overpriced coffee in Gloria Jeans, where there is numerous free Wifi hotspots, however I cannot figure out how to connect - any other time I've used a hotspot, a login page has automatically popped up on opening a browser (like in the hotel room). Obviously I'm doing something wrong, and I understand that my expectation that things SHOULD JUST WORK in the same way as everywhere else is unreasonable, but I'm just so frustrated now that I can't be reasonable.

Another frustration is that for some reason Meteor users can't text me - since this is almost my entire family (other than the London-based brother, who is coincidentally in Bali this week) and my parents are in Spain, this is less than ideal, and somewhat inexplicable. I believe Joe is on the case but I haven't received any updates on the issue yet, and as I can't check my bloody mail, I don't know if there is any progress.

Typing the last two paragraphs has significantly increased my frustration. I'm suffering from a complete lack of connectivity. This should get sorted today, but I am not convinced of this.

I'm still a bit jet lagged and not sleeping that well, so haven't done much as yet. And I forgot to buy a camera, so have to mall-trawl for one this week. Subsequent posts should include less whinging and more actual Singapore news.

* By odd, I mean there are so many malls I don't think I'll have time to visit all of them.
** Like, millions. And then more than that.