We witnessed a rather disturbing scene at the Sydney security checkpoint this morning. As we arrived at the magnetometer, I saw an older woman–likely from some island in the South Pacific, seemingly traveling alone–sitting on a bench being assisted by airport security staff. Another passenger said that she was “having trouble breathing.” By the time we’d passed to the other side, an airport staffer rushed by saying that she’d fainted. Sadly, this wasn’t the case… the woman had gone into cardiac arrest. As I turned around, security staff were already starting CPR. I thought about offering assistance until the cavalry arrived, but a doctor rushed back through security to lend a hand.

I have no idea why she was traveling or where she was going. I don’t know what happened to her. Clearly, she wasn’t going to be flying wherever today. Perhaps, the Sydney airport was ultimately going to be her “final destination.” However, I’m willing to bet that someone, somewhere is either worried about or mourning her tonight. In either case, my thoughts are with her and her family as I jet over the Pacific.

The whole incident sort of underscores a conversation Libby and I were having last night about travel. We don’t think a lot of people “get” our travel desires. Why the 157×50 goal? Why do we go where we go? Why travel with Emerson when she’s so young? Why take expensive, extended trips in the midst of our careers?

The short answer is “because we can.” We might not be able to later in life. We could suffer from illness or injury. We could experience economic or financial misfortunes. We could find the world a less hospitable place due to geopolitical conflicts. Who knows? And, even if we’re fortunate enough to continue traveling well into our dotage (as we would hope), I still have yet to meet a person who told me someone’s last words were “gee, I really wish I’d spent more time in the office or earned more money.”

The longer answer is that I think that the key to happiness on this ride we call life is really about the journey and not the destination. For example, I don’t derive a huge amount of pleasure or even a strong sense of accomplishment from having visited all seven continents. Yes, it’s nice to have ticked the box. But, I’ve loved the process of planning to make it happen most. The same is true of “collecting” countries: it’s the journey and experience that’s cool.

It’s fun to be “kidnapped” and then “hit by a car” in Slovenia. It’s awesome to make friends with a guy in Oman whose looks would cause the average American to think about scurrying for the exit of an airplane if he boarded after them. It’s priceless to take a baby to Antarctica, even if only to suffer whiteout conditions on arrival at the cost of four days in heavy seas. We’re fortunate to have seen and done so much, and we want to do much more. I can honestly say that there’s no place we’ve visited that we wouldn’t return to. Indeed, most places we’d like to go back to visit again and explore in more depth.

In the end, the best part of the 157×50 goal isn’t that we’ll eventually have been to 100 countries, 50 states, and 7 continents. No, the best part is that the goal has forced us to expand our horizons and then keep going. We’ve now been to places that we laughed at the thought of going to not that many years ago!

So, we’re making plans for completing the 157 goal over the next couple of years. And, we’re working on sorting out our future projects.

Enough philosophical musings.

Here are some statistics for RTW 2013:

Continents: 4
Countries (UN): 7 [5 new]
Countries (TCC): 9 [7 new]
Flight Segments: 10
Flight Miles: Approx. 26,000
Flight Hours: Approx. 50

Impressions

This is something of an homage to our friends Dick and Frank, who write up a fun Q&A summary at the end of their trips

Highlight(s):

Paul–Maritime museum in Sydney. Vila/private pool in Phuket.

Libby–Natural History Museum in London with Dinosaur-crazy Preschooler; Singapore Zoo; riding with no seatbelt on an elephant in Phuket.
Emerson–Spending time w/ Mommy and Daddy. Dinosaurs and zoos!

Lowlight(s):

Paul–Nagging illnesses and fatigue. Thankfully, we were never overly sick… just enough to be annoying.

Libby–the western toilets in SE Asia.

Best meal:

Paul–Take-out from Singapore’s hawker centers. Excellent flavor; low price; huge value.

Emerson–“Mexico” in Sydney and (gourmet) popcorn in Singapore.

Favorite (new) destination:

Libby–Singapore. Vibrant city with lots to do…. and the cleanest toilets in SE Asia!!

Paul–Shockingly: Bali. While we had some of our worst days there, and I didn’t like the resort’s location… the island has a certain allure and undefinable quality. Clearly, we didn’t see everything anywhere else either, but Bali is the one place I didn’t feel like I “got” in our tapas-sized visit.

Would you do it again:

Paul–Most certainly!

Libby–Sure

What would you do differently:

Paul–either a longer trip or 1-2 fewer stops. The long-haul flights weren’t the killers. Moving through SE Asia at 3 nights per city was too fast. Interestingly, this is a very comfortable pace when training or driving. With flying? Not so much. I actually wouldn’t have changed this trip, but I won’t repeat this pace with flights in the future.

Libby–more time in each place if I could. Thank goodness Emerson likes going on planes!

Update from Tampa:

Our flights were uneventful. Emerson was golden, as usual on airplanes, despite a lack of sleep and lengthy journey. We arrived home at 7pm on Saturday about 24 hours after our departure from Sydney. While we love travel, it’s good to be home too.

Round the world: done!

Sitting at our dinette table last night munching on our dinner, I said to Libby that “maybe we should make traveling around the world at least a once per decade thing for us? This could be our 30s trip!” Munch. Playful eye roll. “Ok, dear.”

Overlooking Darling Harbour and ships of the Australian National Maritime Museum

The Australian National Maritime Museum features a variety of exhibits in its galleries, but it’s most popular features are the ships in the harbor that may be toured. These included a destroyer (HMAS Vampire), a submarine (HMAS Onslow), and a precise replica of Captain Cook’s ship Endeavour. We thoroughly toured all three ships, but I was most impressed by the submarine. My grandfather—who served in the US Navy during WWII—always commented on never wanting to serve aboard a submarine.

I can now understand why. Wow! Talk about tight quarters. I can’t imagine spending 6-10 weeks under the surface of the ocean in such a confined space with a full complement of crew. After about a week, I think I’d be ready to fire myself out as a torpedo!

Exploring inside the HMAS Onslow...

For the “strange but true” file: I stopped into an EZ-Mart this evening to pick up a few supplies for our trip home. The foreign guy (Middle Eastern? North African? I dunno.) behind the counter got really excited and blurted out, “I’ve seen you before! I know you! You’re from Florida, right!?!” I couldn’t recall ever seeing this guy before, but I wasn’t wearing anything that was labeled “Florida.” I was tempted to ask about the circumstances of our encounter, but I figured that 1) this would only prolong our social interaction, and 2) it would make obvious my complete lack of awareness of our prior meeting. So, I just smiled and said something inane like “wow, small world, huh?” Still… amazing and, yes, kind of creepy.

Tonight, we had Mexican again for our final diner in Sydney. We then spent the rest of the evening relaxing and preparing for our journey home tomorrow. We have three flights: 14 hours to LA, 5 hours to Atlanta, and 1 hour to Tampa. With layovers, it’s about 24 hours of travel time, which isn’t bad compared to Captain Cook’s voyages to the South Pacific that we learned about today.

We had a busy day today. We took a short ferry ride to Taronga Zoo, which is across the harbor from the Central Business District. While short, the journey provided excellent views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House. Upon arrival at the zoo, we took the Sky Safari (cable car) to the top of the hill. This too provided exceptional views over the zoo and the harbor.

View of Harbour Bridge and Opera House from ferry to zoo...

The Taronga Zoo was, well, a bit of a zoo. Although it’s winter here, kids are out of school for a couple of weeks. As a result, many attractions are busier than one would typically expect this time of year in the “low season.” This was especially true at the zoo, which was pretty much overrun with Australians out for the day. Overall, the zoo was pretty good; it’s certainly not Singapore’s, but it has a respectable collection amidst a lovely hillside setting.

View from Taronga Zoo...

After the zoo, we returned to the Circular Quay via the ferry and visited the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum featured an exhibition by the artist Wangechi Mutu, which was bizarre but also alluring and intriguing (see example in photo below). The museum’s permanent collection was also interesting with a few works that were especially striking, including an especially striking work by Rebecca Baumann, an artist from Perth, called Automated Colour Field 2011.

View of Wangechi Mutu's installation at Sydney's MOCA

After the museum, we went to a German restaurant in The Rocks. The food (pretzels, wurst, potato salad, etc.) was excellent, and the beer was refreshing after a busy day of sightseeing. While the food here is pricey (about $60USD for our modest meal), I have to say that the quality has yet to disappoint, which is a good thing.

View of The Rocks -- where Sydney began...

We started the day with a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens. Given that it’s winter here, the gardens—while attractive—weren’t breathtaking with the sort of blooms one might see in summer. I also became very fatigued from the cold medication I’m taking. So, I let Libby and Emerson walk around while I slept on a bench. That’s right. I fell asleep on a park bench.

After my nap, we walked to the Art Gallery of New South Wales. It’s the most important art museum in Sydney. The European art collection was decent enough, but I especially enjoyed the aboriginal art. I’ve seen it before—somewhere in Europe, Vienna I think—but I’ve never had the opportunity to view as many pieces in such close proximity. I think it appeals to my appreciation of both geometric abstract and mosaic art. Libby seemed less certain, though she enjoyed the more overtly political, conceptual art by Australia’s indigenous people.

Aboriginal Art in the Art Gallery of NSW

We then visited St. Mary’s Cathedral, which started construction in 1868 and finished in 2000. Here’s a picture of the interior:

Interior of St. Mary's Cathedral

We left Bali a little late, but we arrived in Sydney only a little late after our five our flight. Emerson slept through the entire flight (and well before too). In contrast, Libby and I had relatively little sleep. It seemed to take surprisingly long to get through immigration, baggage claim, and customs, which meant we left the airport around 9am.

We took a taxi into the city (about $50AUD). Fortunately, we were able to immediately check into our hotel, the Radisson Blu Plaza, which is located in the Central Business District. This enabled us to take a brief nap before heading out for lunch and to explore the immediate surroundings.

We walked down to the Circular Quay on Sydney Harbour to see the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House, which are clearly the city’s most iconic structures. We then returned to the city center ad walked around for a few hours just getting a “feel” of the city. Our first impression: aside from the aforementioned structural icons, I can’t say that the city has a very distinctive vibe. It mostly just feels like a large city in the English-speaking world… neither especially foreign nor unique.

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Emerson and the Sydney Opera House

We had dinner at a take-out Mexican place – sort of Australia’s answer to Chipotle. But, it was even better: very fresh with spot on flavors. Mexican is the ideal cuisine for Emerson, as she’s most willing to eat a balanced meal there with lots veggies. I also learned another important lesson: Sydney is a surprisingly expensive city! I spent almost $40 on a meal that would have cost less than $20 at home. I mean it’s not Scandinavia, but it’s up there with London and New York. It’s also especially startling given the low-cost of even 5-star resort living in SE Asia.

Today, Libby and I reached all seven continents. That’s a major travel goal achieved. But, we’re not done yet!

Today’s box score: +1 country, +1 continent (Australia)

Sightseeing? No. Too long of a drive from Nusa Dua.

Swimming at the pool or beach? Nope. The doctor banned Libby and Emerson from water-related activities for a couple of weeks.

We spent the day doing basically nothing. And, it was surprisingly blissful. Emerson played happily with her dinosaurs in our hotel room, and Libby and I got caught up on work. Plus, I could leisurely get us repacked and organized for our return to a cooler climate (as Sydney should be in the upper 40s to upper 60s this week). That was a real bonus as I’ve been previously prepping us during the darkness of night for our early morning flights.

We checked out of the hotel around 2pm today. The bill was $800 for our pool-side room, airport transfers, a number of meals, full day private tour, and the aforementioned doctor’s bill. And this is the peak tourist season! Bali is a great value…

After checkout, we returned to the Bali Collection and wasted some time. Libby had a “fish foot spa” that she really enjoyed. Basically, you stick your feet in a fish tank, and the fish give you a pedicure. We’ve seen it malls all over the world… Stockholm, Dubai, etc. She says she’d do it again.

We then returned to the beach and explored the temples and statues on the point:

After this, we returned to our hotel, had dinner, said goodbye to Adi (the friendly waiter), collected our bags, changed into our travel clothes, and left for the airport. We had the same driver as yesterday. Check-in was painless. We had to pay 450,000IRP as a departure tax (about $15/pp USD) to leave the country. This was on top of our $25/pp entry visas. This is still better than some countries like Argentina and China.

If all goes well, my next update will be from Australia. It’s the final country of this trip (#84 overall) and completes our visits to all seven continentson Earth. Very cool!

The distance we’ve traveled so far seems to play with put sense of time. It seems like we left Tampa ages ago. London too seems in the distant past ( though it’s really been only a little more than a week since we landed in Asia). It will be fascinating to see what effect another long, overnight flight has on our perception of time/space.

From Nusa Dua, the drive to Ubud is rather lengthy due to have traffic congestion. We made relatively good time in the morning (about an hour and a half) whereas the drive back to our resort took almost two hours. That’s crazy bad considering it’s only a distance of approximately 30 miles.

At least the drive was interesting. I can’t say that the drive was generally picturesque until we approached Ubud, but I was struck by simply how much there is to explore. For example, I simply lost count of the number of arts and crafts galleries that one could explore for carvings, paintings, and metal work. There are a seemingly endless number of shrines and temples. The culture and spirituality feel very deep; not something you’d ‘get’ as a Western visitor here for just a few days. Of course, Bali is still very much part of the developing world with obvious infrastructure limitations and the sort of griminess (such as trash/liter) that you don’t see in a place like Singapore.

Our main stop in Ubud was at the Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary. It consisted—rather unsurprisingly—of a forest that contained both sacred temples and monkeys. We fed the monkeys bananas, explored the forest grounds, and visited the temples. The setting is spectacular, but the monkeys are clearly the main attraction and fascinating to watch in close proximity.

Sacred Monkey Forest Sanctuary

Portrait of a Balinese macaque

Monkey moms and tots...

After the forest, we spent a little time exploring the arts and crafts vendors along Monkey Forest Rd. We then departed Ubud to visit the temple Pura Puseh, which dates from the 11th century, in the nearby village of Batuan. To enter the temple, Libby and I had to don sarongs. The grounds and buildings were covered with intricate carvings. Unfortunately, our driver was just a driver… a tour guide would have been really useful to explain to us more about the symbolism of the iconography, as well as the uniquely Balinese religious/spiritual beliefs.

Pura Puseh, Batuan's village temple

On the ride back to our hotel, Emerson had a bit of a mini-meltdown again today. She was also rather fussy once we’d returned to our room. Unlike yesterday, this was completely out of character and arose for no obvious reason. After a while, I noticed that she seemed to be tugging at one of her ears. Eventually, she admitted to not feeling good. Today, Libby too complained about her ears starting to bother her. No bueno.

What to do? Try to wait it out and see what develops, risking one or both getting worse? Or, call a doctor here in Bali for some antibiotics? Ultimately, I concluded that with our flight / travel schedule it would be best to seek medical attention now. So, I called the front desk around 6pm. Within 30 minutes, we had an entire medical team (doctor, nurse, and assistant) here to check out Emerson and Libby.

The doctor gave them an examination (nothing serious / no infection yet… just some inflammation in the ears due to their earlier cold worsened by swimming and air pressure changes with flights) and provided a veritable pharmacy of medications for their treatment (antibiotics, decongestants, topical solutions, analgesics, etc.). Total cost for the house call, two examinations, and bounty of medications? Roughly 2,000,000IDR or about $200USD. Amazing! And, I’m sure this was a huge mark-up for a Sunday evening visit to see us at a resort hotel.

I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring. We have to check-out by 2pm, but our flight doesn’t depart for Sydney until late in the evening. Given that I don’t know how everyone will feel and where we’re located, I’m afraid tomorrow might be a bit of a waste. However, we’ll try to make the best of it!

After breakfast, we arranged for a private tour / driver for tomorrow. We then headed to the hotel’s “private” beach via the provided shuttle (really more of compact mini-van). The “private” beach is really just a small section of beach that Marriott seems to own/lease, which enables them to operate a bar for drinks/snacks, provide lounge chairs, hold events, offer cabana services, and so forth. There are a few other hotels with equally “private” beaches along this stretch, as well as other Nusa Dua resorts.

Beach in Nusa Dua.

The beach itself is attractive enough to look at, especially in panorama form. On closer inspection, there’s a bit more trash (soda cans, plastic bags, that sort of thing…) in the water than one would like to see and it’s not exactly “white sand” pretty. I’ve been to better and worse places; this one is somewhere in between. We stayed at the beach for a couple of hours and generally had a good time. We then returned to the hotel via the semi-efficient shuttle service.

On returning to the hotel, Emerson wanted to go into the pool rather than have lunch. This was fine with me as it provided a good chance to rid the saltwater from myself, and I’d already had a big breakfast (which is one more meal than I usually eat before dinner).

The pool started out well. Emerson played with some Australian kids, as she often seeks out other kids. Everyone was getting along fine, but the Aussie kids father came into the pool and clearly wanted to play with his kids. He was actually very friendly and nice to Emerson, but it was clear to me that his kids were older and Emerson was going to be a bit of a third wheel in their fun and games.

This is where the trouble started…

Emerson was unwilling to swim away and play with Libby and me. As the others moved on (big pool), she became increasingly upset at not being able to swim after her friends. This quickly devolved, as you might imagine. It ended—poolside anyway—with Libby carrying a screaming, howling Emerson back to our hotel room. After picking up our stuff, I returned to the room as well and found a pissed off Emerson. When I attempted to explain that her actions resulted in the loss of her pool privileges, she hauled off and tried to smack me.

Oh, hell no!

By this point, I had absolutely had it. I have an unusual personality of being both “easy going” / “happy-go-luck” and yet “liking it as a like it” at the same time. However, I don’t often get really, really mad (even if I’m fuming on the inside). But, today I gave Emerson a dressing down the likes of which she’s never heard from me. Libby backed me up in a “preach it, brother” kind of way. Somewhat surprisingly, Emerson didn’t cry or freak out. I think she was mostly shocked and seemed to realize she’d crossed some sort of previously unknown threshold. But who knows?

Emerson spent the next 15 or so minutes sitting quietly on a chair in “time out.” For the rest of the day, she was on her best behavior… even more so than usual. I’d say that today’s behavior was unusual for her, and it was insofar as she’s usually an easy going, happy kid. But, it’s not unusual in as much as she has a streak of (usually quite) independence-boarding-on-defiance that runs through her, just as one runs through me. We’ve seen variations on this theme on rare occasions before.

I like that she has a strong will and independent spirit. In our society, such attributes are very helpful in achieving success. But, there are also limits that one must learn, such as not hurting others to achieve one’s aims. Hopefully, Emerson learned some of that lesson today.

Later this afternoon, we headed to the Bali Collection. It’s a shopping/dining/entertainment complex that’s down the road from our hotel. We’d intended to have dinner there, but we were uninspired by the restaurants’ menus. The shopping was also pretty lame… some major international brands (especially in the active wear / surf market) and more local purveyors of touristic trinkets and trash.

So, we picked up some supplies at the grocery and headed back to the hotel for dinner here again. Tonight, Libby and I opted for the Indonesian version of beef/chicken satay and friend rice. It was surprisingly excellent and at $10 was a pretty cheap meal for a 4-star hotel.

Today wasn’t the best of days. I’m still sick (though feeling better). We had the Emerson episode. Bali was just kind of “alright” instead of “awesome.” This happens on vacations (last summer, I had a down day in Vienna for no particular reason). Some days are just off. Today was one of those days.

Tomorrow will be a new day…

As I’ve mentioned previously, we define countries based on the Travelers’ Century Club country list. Because their definition of a “country” includes territories that are politically, geographically, or ethnically diverse, Indonesia is broken into a series of different “countries.” This means Batam (grouped with Sumatra) is counted separately from Jakarta (Java) and Bali (Lesser Sunda Islands), which we’ll also visit.

That said, we weren’t sure Batam would be worth the bother. On the one hand, going there would only cost about $150 for the three of us roundtrip. That’s actually very cheap on a per country basis. (By comparison, a simple Caribbean cruise may cost upwards of $1500/country). On the other hand, we really like Singapore, want to see more of it, and will be leaving tomorrow. As a result, I hemmed and hawed. Ultimately, we agreed to go… I simply couldn’t leave a “country” on the table. But, it was a really difficult decision for us as we’re quickly closing in on the 100 country goal, as we already have line of sight (booked trips) to country #91-92. Plus, the final 8-10 should be relatively easy, as we’ll have done all of the heavy lifting following the successful completion of this trip.

Anyway, we took the 10:50 ferry to Batam. We purchased the tickets ($138SGD) at the pier, cleared immigration, and boarded the ship. The ride took about an hour. Yet with the time difference (-1 hour), we arrived roughly when we’d departed. Unfortunately, it was raining—in buckets—on the island (as it had been in Singapore). This curtailed any really sightseeing. Instead, we went to the nearby mega mall, which was an interesting experience. It was home to American fast food chains (KFC, Pizza Hut, A&W, and Starbucks), as well as knock-off stores of high-end retailers.

The mall in Batam...

In fact, photography was banned inside the mall as the counterfeiting was fairly blatant (e.g., the fake Ralph Lauren store was branded “Polo” and even had faux sales tags). The knock-offs were remarkably accurate, but they weren’t good enough for Libby’s discerning eye. Libby has no qualms with me buying her a $1,000 handbag, but she can (and did) deliver a 20 minute monologue on the sins of paying $20 for the $1,000 impostor purse. “Besides, everyone knows all of my purses are real. So they’d think my fake purse was real too, but I’d always know it was a fake.” Who can argue with that logic?

We did manage to get a (authorized) Batam Starbuck’s Travel Mug.

Ultimately, we were both glad to have visited Batam for a few reasons. Singapore would have been a hot, humid washout most of the day anyway. We also managed to see something new and different. It was a bit of a (brief) diversion from the more beaten path, which only increases one’s travel confidence and willingness to explore further. We also learned that Indonesians (at least those on Batam) love little kids. Emerson was a rock star with the locals! So, once again, we found ourselves as Americans half way around the world in a predominately Muslim country and discover (unsurprisingly) that they’re kind, friendly, and interested people who welcome visitors (including Americans) warmly and love children.

As Yoda might have said: uplifting it is.

Emerson planning the rest of our day while awaiting the ferry in Batam...

We returned on the 12:50 ferry, arriving in Singapore around 3pm. Thankfully, the rain had just about stopped. This allowed us to visit the Singapore Botanical Gardens, including the swoon-worthy National Orchid Garden. I don’t know much about orchids beyond the fact that they live pretty happily on our kitchen window sill. Yet to my amateur eye, this place seemed to have it going on.

National Orchid Gardens, Singapore

Acres of lovely orchids to explore...

Of course, I imagine it’s not difficult to grow orchids in a climate that closely approximates someone’s armpit. It was hot and humid today after the rain left. Yikes! My light blue shirt was so soaked from moisture coming at me and from me that it turned about five shades darker. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves.

Tonight, we went to a hawker center for Singapore’s national dish: chicken rice. Delicious! I honestly didn’t believe that a simple dish of boiled chicken and seemingly plain rice could be so awesome. Come on, right? Wrong. It’s fantastic. Both the chicken and rice are delicious, as well as the brown soy and chili sauces that accompany them (thereby allowing each person to customize it to their taste). The cost? About $3USD per person.

We also caught the end of a multi-cultural dance showcase tonight performed by students from the local schools. It was surprisingly enjoyable…

The Singapore Youth Festival's multicultural dance show...

Tomorrow, we leave on a very early flight for Bali (w/ a 2hr layover in Jakarta).

Today’s box score: +1 country (Indonesia, Sumatra)

It’s simply awesome. The zoo is essentially a tropical forest populated with animals in naturalistic, ‘open’ settings. There are few (and in some cases no) barriers—and no cages—between the people and wildlife. So, depending on the species, you feel that you’re visiting them more-or-less in their natural habitat. Honestly, if I were an animal, I think I’d live pretty happily at the Singapore Zoo.

Our visit took the balance of the day. The only downside was the heat and humidity (though, as Floridians, it felt more-or-less just like summer at home). Fortunately, it’s very shady, the sky was a little overcast, and there were plenty of cold drinks to be had. You can get to the zoo via public transport, but we opted for a taxi because it’s much faster and they’re very affordable in Singapore.

Here are a few snapshots from the Singapore Zoo:

Good example of the naturalistic setting for these lions...

A Komodo dragon, who's relatively close to home...

A ring-tailed lemur, up close and personal...

Emerson fell asleep on the way home from the zoo and continued to slumber after we returned to the hotel. Once she awoke, we went out to explore more of the Orchard Rd area. Singapore is an interesting city. It’s a rich stew of numerous cultural influences. It’s tropical, historical, and contemporary. It offers a fusion of Asian cultures wider than Hong Kong or Macau, which are both strongly Chinese in their unique ways. Yet, Singapore feels less “foreign” to a Westerner. Indeed, I think it’s an ideal gateway city for those new to Asia.

Tropical and modern...

High-end retail aplenty...

European influences...

Tonight we had dinner in a hawker center (think: Asian food court, but with awesome and affordable food unlike at malls at home). Libby and I had a full Chinese BBQ (Char Siu) and rice dinner for about $3USD per person. And, it was far better than what we’d pay $10-15/pp. for at home.

Tomorrow, I think we’ll make a run at the Riau Islands in Indonesia.

A few other matters…

Health updates: Emerson developed a fever again last night, but her temperature was fine this morning. She’s got a runny nose, but she’s otherwise her usual happy self. It seems to be just a cold. Libby’s otherwise back to normal, albeit a bit tired. I continue to feel fine… though I keep away the plague to descent.

Visa clarification: I meant to say this on my Day #10 post, but I forgot when writing… how’d we miss the visa requirement in the first place? Honestly, it was a simple oversight. I checked the requirements for every other country on the trip. Most either didn’t require a visa for Americans or granted them on arrival. Given that I’d never heard anyone mention visa requirements for Australia (including the airline on booking our inbound flight) and that Australia is—well, how should I put this?—part of the developed, English-speaking world, I simply made a bad assumption. Fortunately, it was entirely recoverable, but I’m still really annoyed with myself for not clarifying the requirements in advance. Such an amateur mistake!