Singapore

Here I am in Singapore and I'm staying in the hugely large Stanford Hotel. Someone said it is the tallest hotel in the world. I'm not sure that is true, but I'm on the 18th floor and that seems pretty tall to me. I'm on a recruitment trip for Sun, trying to hire the first of our new Asia Pacific operation.

Despite what Amnesty International and Wikipedia say about Singapore's rather harsh penal code, I really like it here. It is small, but I expected it to seem crowded, but it seems just fine. Its very clean and I always feel safe, in a way I don't always in America with all it's poverty and guns.

Of course beer is bloody expensive, at it's worst it's SIN $ 14 ($ USD 9.45 / GBP 5.56) a pint, bloody hell! It's also bloody hot and humid, 31 C tends to be the temperature it sticks at all the time.

It actually looks foggy here, but it isn't. I came out of the air conditioning in my room, stood on the balcony and the camera lens steamed up.

It also rains quite a bit here.

There are also loads of British influences here. The plugs are square pin, you drive on the left and even the car license plates are like the old UK ones with the letter denoting the age of the car.

They even have M&S here!

This bar was by far the strangest UK influence though. Believe it or not, it is staffed by a crowd of young Singaporean people wearing kilts. The guy at the bar, when asked what beers he had, told me "Scottish Ale". When I asked him to be more specific, expecting an answer like "McEwans" or "Tennants", he told me, "ale, you make it with hops", quite. Seems they are a micro brewary and make it themselves and I'm happy to report it tasted like any other lager, Scottish or otherwise, although it was sold at the decidedly un-Scottish price of 5 and a half quid a pint!

Other highlights included a visit to Raffles hotel where you are supposed to be able to see the very chair that Noel Coward used to sit in (we couldn't find it), although for some reason the custom here is to eat monkey nuts and throw the shells on the floor, which seems to conflict with Singapore's clear image as you crunch around on all the bits as it makes quite a mess. Also I think we had a beer in the bar that the original Rogue Trader (although everyone seems to be a rouge trader now), Nick Leeson used to drink in.

Here is my video diary of the trip - edited mainly whilst sitting on a Singapore Airlines flight from Singapore to Hong Kong. Sadly though the Credit Crunch may be biting the best airline in the skys, as apart from one sector, I was able to get three seats all to myself all the way, which was great and even better than first class, but sad that it may be a sign of a bad economy. Singapore Airlines even have in seat power in economy in their newer airplanes, so I got most of the work done on my India movie on the plane.