Welcome to Singapore!

Singapore Airlines has been rated the #1 airline in the world for many years and even from Economy class, it was easy for me to tell why. Not only are there virtually no lines to board, the staff is all incredibly friendly and personally showed me to my seat on the plane. They had over 1,000 TV & movie choices, and my mind was literally spinning from overload. I didn't know what to choose. I miss everything so much!! In addition, they have 740 music choices, 60 kids game, 70 adult games, and 22 new languages you could learn! The bathrooms you could even turn around in, and it had a cabinet full of free amenities (such as comb, toothbrush & paste, lady products, and baby diapers). We snuggled up with real pillows and real blankets that covered my entire body and had material to spare. They also served me grilled sea bass for lunch! But to top it all off, I liked their colorful flight attendant outfits the best. They even had matching sandals!! When I stepped out of the airport, I knew I was some place special. The temperatures have been in the high 80's and normally I would hate it, but for some reason I am enjoying the break from walking to work in the cold & wind! I love the lush green plants every where (including the highway medians), the brightly colored buildings, and the asymmetrical designs of so much architecture. Plenty of pics to come!

Here is the view of the Singapore River from my hotel room. I am on the 11th floor, and the highest is 30.

Ground level ready to walk along the river and find some thing cool! Pic of my hotel. On the far right, you can see palm trees sprouting from the middle of the building. That's actually the pool on the roof of the 6th floor. I went swimming the first night I arrived. No pics because it was dark!

This is how you know you're in a multi-cultural city! They have 4 official languages: English, Malay, Chinese (Mandarin), and Tamil.

Colorful bridge I passed on my walk.

Picture of me on the bridge on my walk back to the hotel later that night!

Let's take a boat ride on the Singapore River. Our boat is still decorated for the New Year!

Clarke Quay... our departure point. Note all of the colorful buildings. This area is lined with restaurants and bars with indoor & outdoor seating.

Building with blue, green, yellow, and red trimmed windows.

Just in case you doubted who is navigating this tour.

Old building with some new construction in the background. Locals say it's unbelievable how rapidly this city is changing. I say it's unbelievable how many construction cranes can be in one city at a time!!

Some type of colorful stadium seating and the wheel is called the "Singapore Flyer". It's the largest observation wheel in the world. You ride in a glass box with a spectacular view of the city. One rotation takes 30 minutes. I may try to hit it up tomorrow :)

An open-air theater plus some other funky buildings.

Another asymmetrical building under construction. Who knows what all of the crazy stuff is going to be on the ground level near it?!

Singapore is actually called the "Lion City" and here is their famous mascot. His name is Merlion because he is half mermaid & half lion.

Singapore skyline view when entering the Singapore Port.

Oldest building and oldest bridge in Singapore. Both built in 1869. Used to be a post office, but now it the Fullerton Hotel.

Another colorful quay to eat, drink, and be sociable at.

Beautiful asymmetrical architecture.

Entrance to Clarke Quay.

Even the map of Clarke Quay is colorful and has a goofy shape!!

Here's a quick video of the Singapore River. You must go directly to the blog to view it.

Year End Party

On Monday my department at work had their Year-End Party!! (I know this is the month of parties, and it's awesome!!) We went to a traditional Okinawa-style restaurant and then karaoke! Time for another geography lesson... Okinawa is the southern islands of Japan. Generally known as the poorest part of the country (due to lack of industry), but it has tropical temps all year round and some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Oddly, few Japanese people have even been there. They prefer to vacation in Hawaii since it is so much cheaper!! Also, the American resorts are much nicer than the Japanese hotels. At dinner we took a survey, and no one had been to Okinawa but everyone (except me & Jacky) has been to Hawaii at least once!

We had 11 dishes of food... let's kick it off. Here is Shiraishi (Jazzy Dani) and me with some kind of fluffy purple rice chips and dried spicy cucumbers. Both were super yummy. I should also note that Okinawa has the healthiest food in all of Japan. In fact, Okinawa people tend to live 5 years longer on the average just due to their diet. (I think it might also because they are living in a beach paradise, but who knows?!)

3 types of mystery vegetables.

Caesar salad with a runny egg on top. They let me take my portion before they mixed up the egg with the lettuce.

Green onions with some fish hiding underneath.

Today was Jacky's last day for good. He goes back to Transfreight China. Pictured here with our General Manager, Kataoka, and my On the Job Trainer, Yosuke Kawakami.

Sashimi--raw fish. I didn't eat any this time.

Spicy roll made of egg with fish eggs inside. Actually, the spicy flavor made it pretty tasty. Drown out the fish egg taste!

My farewell gift to Jacky: a Transfreight "Engineering Lean Supply Chains" pen. He was super excited because apparently he saw me using this same one in India and was super jealous!! Jacky said it was a VERY NICE pen, and it has a different tagline from China, so everyone will be impressed. TFCL is still using "Explore the Opportunities".

I was told this was a chicken meatball...

...but in fact it was filled with 2 boiled egg yolks. Talk about an old bait & switch!! Thankfully the chicken drown out most of the egg taste!

Yosuke compared this dish to American "breakfast" because there is eggs, meat, and vegetables in it. Kind of like an omelet, I suppose. Also some fish flakes on top.

Japanese pizza. Basically a giant pancake filled with veggies. Also a little like okonomiyaki I had with Mika on my 2nd day here, but much better this time around!

As the night wore on and we order more & more beer, I forgot to take pictures of things when they first came out... Here's the Okinawa version of ramen noodles and some fried rice.

I learned many things as the beers were going down easy:

1. My Japanese language skills actually increased (or at least I was brave enough to speak a lot more!). I was ordering rounds for the entire table, and they were teaching me new words that I can actually remember today!!

2. My coordination goes downhill fast, and that includes chopsticks skills. I couldn't feel too bad though because I saw several other people drop food too, and then pick it up directly from the table and eat it!!

3. Japanese karaoke is just about the coolest thing ever!!!

The gang's all here, and we're ready to move to the bar to sing our hearts out!

We walked by the office on the way from the restaurant to karaoke, and 2 guys went back in to finish up some work for 30 minutes!! I can only imagine what my emails would have been like after 3 hours of drinking!! LOL.

I had a fab time singing a whole bunch of crazy American songs. No one seemed to notice that I'm pretty much tone-deaf...

Jacky & Miyamura sing a slow Chinese song together!!

Kerri & Shiraishi do a duet to Aerosmith's I Don't Want to Miss a Thing!!

A rousing rendition of We Are the World!

Kerri & her GM Kataoka close out with night with Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.

Japanese karaoke (as you can see from the pics) is in a small private room which you rent by the hour (or 3 like us!). They all love it, so you just have to grab the song books and start entering song codes to line them up!! People might also queue up a song for you to sing without your knowing!!

I had a great time. Some of the song I sang were: Pat Benatar's Hit Me with Your Shot, Miley Cyrus's Party in the USA, Madonna's Material Girl (so good I got high 5's all around!), Beatles' Hello Goodbye, Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, and the list could go on... My favorite group song was the Beatles' Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da. I was still singing it in the shower this morning!!

Oh yeah, this Monday night party didn't end until just before 1am!! We all took taxis home. As I was getting loaded into my taxi, Shiraishi was giving me tips about how to prevent a hangover. He was still making motions about drinking a jug of water even as the door was closed, and I was pulling away!! Apparently, he doesn't know that this Central Michigan University girl has had some practice with battling hangovers ;)

A cute video of Ema singing a Japanese love song. You can really get a feel for the tiny room.

Jacky is serenading Miyamura in Chinese, and then they start arguing in Japanese... priceless!!

Visit to Toyota Museum & Plant

Tuesday for work I took a trip to Toyota City. First stop was the Toyota Museum, where you could stroll around and take a self-guided tour of Toyota products and the company's vision for the future.

All of the cars in the showroom and made and sold in Japan. I had no idea they had an actual large SUV they made and sold here!

I'll take one of each. Toyota racing

I've never seen this pick up truck around Nagoya, but the Japanese I was with said they do exist!!

Ultra-light weight concept car. I think it's missing some seats so you can see the structure of the materials rather than for saving weight! Goal is to make a car that's easy on resources, easy on the environment, and super safe.

School kids check out the Prius, and fill out their assignment sheet.

Notice many kids have masks on. This is common for kids and adults. I'm told by my American friends that I should wear one when I'm not feeling well. This helps prevent the spread of germs, and your co-workers really go easy on you because they know you must feel like crap!!

As the car states, it's a Plug-In!

Personal robot car that they suggest is going to change the way we think about mobility! There is a video demo at the bottom of the page.

Close-up of the personal robot car. The trim lights on the car change from purple to green to red :)

For all of my musical friends (Scholls!), here is a video of a Toyota Partner Robot playing Christmas carols! You must go directly to the blog to view it. I have no idea any of the other tricks he can do!

Finally, the video of the personal robot car! It has two positions. Upright, as shown, or the wheels spread apart, and the car kind of lays down. I have a video of it, too, but it is taking forever to upload today!

Second stop was a bus ride to the Tsutsumi plant for the once-a-day English-guided tour!

Even if you're not a fan of Toyota, some of the figures are mind boggling. It's now totally clear to me why the town's official name is Toyota City. For example:

There are 71,000 Toyota employees in all of Japan, and over half of them live in Toyota City.

There are 15 plants in Japan, and 10 of them are in Toyota City!

Here's some stats for just the Tsutsumi plant:

Nearly 12 million sq ft

6,000 employees

2 production lines make 2,000 vehicles a day (takt time = 57 seconds, for all of you Toyota nerds out there...)

They make 5 models on each line, including the Prius and Scion tC exports.