Ministry of Sound

I found a reason to be glad for the extra time in Singapore: Ministry of Sound just opened a club here. Literally about a month ago. Being a Saturday night, it seemed the perfect choice. My coworker and I met up with a friend of his, and headed over to the club. It was only 9pm, so we paid our (cheaper) early cover charge, then headed for the exit to get our re-entry stamp.

The next order of business was food. The area that the club is situated in is actually somewhat touristy, so there were a few upscale restaurants, and we chose a Mexican one. A pitcher of margaritas and a serving of chips with good chipotle salsa got us started on a good evening. When the mains arrived, they were very tasty, too.

Headed back to the club and did our reconnaisance. The main arena, with its "electro house" show called "Filth" was where I was going to be rooted, but my friends alternated between there and the hip-hop room. There was even a "54" themed room with a lighted dance floor right out of "Saturday Night Fever".

The opening DJ was pretty good, and danceable, but the headliner was noticeably better. Once he started his set around 12:30, the place really started to jump. The VJ was also awesome; the visuals were mesmerizing, and occasionally caused me to pause in the getting on of my groove to marvel at them.

Neither Singapore nor Malaysia are places of temptation for me, in terms of the local, shall we say, "talent". The club was no different. There was nothing (except the aforementioned visuals) to distract me from the oonch-oonch.

Devotees of this blog will be disappointed if I don't do the following:

So, if you're going to a dance club, don't fin stand around and exercise your thumb by texting your friends. If you're in front of the stacks with your fingers in your ears, 'cause it's too loud, I'm going to elbow you in the head. Move! And boys, please don't just stand in the middle of the floor looking this way and that for trim, this is the dancefloor. Speaking of the floor, there was gum on it, despite the fact that this is Singapore. Silly tourists!

One thing which was really cool (literally, and figuratively) was when they blew the nitrogen coolers. You're gyrating to the groove when suddenly you feel a blast of air, woot! But then it goes cloudy as the air gets cooler. So cloudy, in fact, that you can't see your hand in front of your face, just the colors of the spots, red, yellow, green, like some bad Mardi Gras trip. And it's COLD. Just the right thing when you've been grooving for hours.

And while it's not Eve's magical wish-granting porch, my iPod did a number tonight. I realized that Prodigy hadn't come up on my random playlist in a while, so I cued The Fat of the Land. So when the DJ sampled in a bit of the opening riff from "Breathe", I thought, "nah, he's just toying with us." But a few more revolutions of the vinyl, and what do you know?! That song, cranked on club kit, rocks.

Edit: In the cold light of day, I realize that this post ended rather abruptly. So, in summary, the evening at Ministry of Sound kicked ass, and the persistent ringing in my ears was worth it.

My Present: Exile

Here in Malaysia, it's already February 24th. That makes me 32-1/2! So, for my half birthday, I have treated myself to another few days in Singapore. It wasn't intentional, but because of the whole stupid Americans gaffe, I had to change my outbound flight from Singapore back to Seattle.

When I asked the concierge at the prior hotel to see if she could change the flight, she reported that the flights on Sunday were booked. Yet if I went online, I could see available itineraries (though through Hong Kong). However, changing my flight online wouldn't work; I kept getting an error message.

After changing our accomodations to move to another hotel (this time, one with net), I figured I'd try my hand at calling up (via Skype) to talk to a person and change the flights. United now has this voice recognition software to "assist" travelers without having to have a large staff at a call center. I haven't yet figured out the magic word to bypass my new electronic friend to get direct to a person, so I have to answer a few of his questions first. "Is this a new, or existing reservation?" Eventually, I get the option to say "agent" (no, not Hugo Weaving), to transfer to a human. I hear "boo-beep" and then "We're sorry, the number you are calling is not accessible from your calling area." Crap!

Next, let's try the Singapore website for some contact numbers. Calling .sg from .my (since they're neighbors) is easy and cheap. Oh, but their office is closed for the evening! Do Singaporeans not travel after 6pm? I ride the elevator down to the concierge to ask for a local Malaysian number for United. That one didn't work at all.

Finally, today, I borrow my coworker's (Singaporean) cell phone, and call up United. The earliest flight I've got is March 1st. Yay! I said "I'm willing to upgrade to business if there are seats in business class available." I was told "We have to have an economy seat available first to confirm you on the flight before you can request an upgrade." Curses! So nothing to do but suck it up and enjoy a couple of days in Singapore.

Where's the Bubbly?

I confess to having a penchant for consuming the cola bevvies. I like to claim that I take my coffee "cold, sweet, and fizzy". Soda is my preferred caffeine vector. A friend of mine keeps track of the relative price of McD's Extra Value Meal #1 (Big Mac) when he travels. I keep track of the price of 500mL of Coke. Here in Malaysia, it's 1.60RM (less than 50 cents in US currency). But I figured out why it's so cheap, and what I'm paying for in other countries.

I'm paying for fizz. I don't buy 2L bottles of Coke (or other soda) in the States because I know damn well that I'll never finish it before it goes flat. As in, I'm not going to chug the whole 2L. And if I open a bottle of soda and I don't get that satisfying 'PSssshhttt' when I do, I know I'm going to be unsatisfied. I miss the "mouth feel" of the fizz. I miss the satisfying burps that you don't get when you drink flat soda. I might as well drink sugar water. Booo. So my sodas here in KL have been disappointingly fizzless. If I pay extra, can you carbonate it for me, please?!

Wrong Trousers

Ok, not really the wrong trousers, but I made a few packing gaffes when coming to Malaysia. I forgot my DVI to VGA adapter for my Powerbook, so I can't give my training materials as a slideshow. Aww. But the shortcomings in the clothing department are a bit more annoying.

If ever there was a place where I should have brought my linen shirts, it's this one. The hotels we've been staying in have pools. Kickass. Did I bring trunks? No. Am I going to buy another "I forgot mine so I buy one on the road" pair again? No, my closet at home won't permit it. Did I bring shorts? Well, yes, but none with pockets, so I can't really walk around with my wallet in my hand. How about footwear... you know, some sandals would be really comfy right now. Let me check the suitcase. Uh, no. Crap!

New Diet

The Indian and Islamic populations of Malaysia consider the left hand to be dirty. You don't use it for gesturing, or for giving gifts. And you definitely don't use it to eat. So during my stay here, I'll be obliged to use my right hand to eat, to fit in. Maybe it'll be good for dropping a couple of pounds. But if I'm required to use chop sticks with my right, I won't be getting any food in my gob at all.

Stupid Americans

This trip to Kuala Lumpur is a work trip to train our partners in the region on the planning, setup and use of our software. I'm accompanied by a coworker of mine who lives in Singapore. I traveled to Singapore first, stayed overnight with my coworker, then the plan was to fly to Kuala Lumpur.

We both made our plane reservations on the same day, to make sure we got on the same flights. Fly from SIN to KUL on Saturday, return the following Friday. No problem.

When we got to the airport, our reservations couldn't be found. The clerk at the checkin desk took a few more minutes to track down our bookings. Turns out, both of us had somehow managed to select March 18th and 25th for our flights. Yes, March. Now I don't see how both of us could have made that mistake on the Singapore Airlines website, but there it is.

Maybe there was some glitch in the website, something to do with counting starting at 0 instead of 1. Who knows? The upshot of this is that we weren't able to get the same return flight on Saturday, so I'll miss my scheduled flight home to Seattle. No Chilly Hilly for me!

Fat Americans

After changing planes in Narita, I boarded my flight from Tokyo to Singapore. The plane was a Boeing 777, you know, two seats, aisle, five seats, aisle, two more seats. I was situated in the center section. Let's label the seats one through five, starting at the left. With three people in the row, you'd figure that the optimum seating would be a person in seats one, three and five.

I sat in seat one. A Japanese salaryman was seated in two. And a very large man (see title), a "so large that a seat belt extender was required" type person was seated in four. It's too bad that things couldn't be rearranged so that everybody had a buffer of a seat on either side of them.

No Place Like Home

As I sit here, back in the Bay Area for a week, preparing to head in for another day of all-day meetings, I wistfully stare out the window and daydream of riding my bike. Clearly, right now there's someplace I'd rather be.

I could get into an argument of which area is more beautiful, Puget Sound or the San Francisco Bay. I could point to statistics about weather, or traffic, or talk about the skyline and air quality, but all that's moot. Seattle (the place that I now call home, for those of you keeping track) holds my interest now, and that's where I'd love to be.

Sunday in Seattle dawned bright and blue, and I wanted nothing more than to get on my bike and ride with friends. What was really on the docket? A flight back to Oakland for a week of meetings. Even my evenings are booked; I don't have a spare moment to catch up with friends.

Where are my ruby slippers? In contrast to Oz, these would take me back to the Emerald City.

Expedite This!

Since I'm going to be traveling to Malaysia in a couple of weeks, I decided that I should break down and finally replace my stolen iPod. I'm really going to want it for the trans-Pacific ride.

Rather than taking the instant gratification route and just picking one up at the Apple Store, I decided that I wanted mine customized this time. So I headed over to the online Apple Store, and selected my new prize. A 60G iPod in black. Monogram the back, thank you very much.

Adding the laser engraving doesn't increase the cost, but it does increase the expected delivery time. A bit of extra processing is of course needed to customize my iPod. From past experience, this amounts to about three more days of waiting. While I'm not in a crushing hurry to get this, I do want it to arrive before I depart. So, I checked the box for "3 day shipping", instead of the standard five. Checking the boxes on my calendar, this was the right choice to ensure iPodness before I get another stamp in my passport.

This was on Friday. I promptly got my order confirmation, and everything was looking good. On Saturday AM, I got my shipment notification. Wait what?! Already? You mean I didn't have to pay for the faster shipping, 'cause it would have made it here without it? Or does that little box make the elves work faster, too, and not just the delivery reindeer?!

Slow boat shipping (literally from China) or no, I'll have a new 'Pod soon. Hurray!