The Longest and Shortest Days

    Finally our day(s) of travel are upon us. The flight from Portland to San Francisco was average and uneventful. 5 hours in SFO went by fairly quickly as we attempted to watch the entirety of the PAC-12 Championship basketball game (unfortunately the Ducks lost to Arizona) and rushed off to our gate to endure our 17.5 hour flight across the Pacific Ocean. Luckily for us the headwinds which had been lengthening that flight over the last several months abated slightly and it cut our time in the air down to 15:45. Free movies, two seriously subpar meals, and a spouse to sleep on helped make the time manageable.Both Laura and I, who are prone to sore hips and backs after cramped flights, left feeling better than we had imagined.

     With that, we had arrived in Singapore's illustrious Changi Airport 32 hours later than we had taken off. Compared to the TSA's near strip search, customs and immigration were extremely easy-going. We had 12 hours before our connecting flight and decided to spend part of our morning exploring some of Singapore and getting some food. A little bit of figuring, looking around, and consulting our guidebook, revealed a tram that would take us from the airport into the city. after changing a few bits of currency and about a 30 minute tram experience later, we arrived near the Little India district in the center of Singapore. We walked about through the very humid streets doing a bit of window shopping and searching for a place with good vegetarian options. As it turns out we wandered away from Little India towards the adjacent "Kampong Glam" which is the Middle Eastern/heavily Muslim District. There was very little in the way of veggie food, but we did catch a glimpse of the Sultan Mosque (pictured below) Which was the highlight of very picturesque and interesting architecture everywhere we looked ((pictured further below).

     After our short foray into Kampong Glam we returned to Little India where we enjoyed a delightful meal from a vendor right off the main street which included a large portion of rice and vegetables with spiced tofu and an Indian style pancake with egg and onion inside which cost us six Singaporean dollars (about $4.50 US). Feeling very satisfied with our morning, and ready to find some air conditioning we split an ice cream cone and headed back to Changi Airport.

     A long layover in any airport can drag on and cost plenty of money, but this particular airport is certainly a cut above the rest. I sit now typing this post in a comfy recumbent chair in one of many "Snooze Lounges" peppered throughout the airport equipped with charging ports and 3 hours of free wifi. after a short nap we plan to explore more of the free amenities such as a butterfly garden and movie theater. We still have essentially a full day of travel before we will arrive at what we would consider the starting point of this vacation, but today was certainly a nice reprieve from the travel induced soreness and lack of flavor.

     By tomorrow morning we will be landing in Sorong, Indonesia where we will prepare to go diving in the Raja Ampat Islands. We are pretty excited, not only to dive one the places routinely ranked in the top 3 diving destinations worldwide, but too get back in the water in general. It has been over two weeks since I have been diving which is the longest drought since I became a divemaster back in august of 2015.

Internet may be hard to come by until we are back in Singapore in about 10 days, so if I don't post until then you can bet my next posts will be full of diving pictures. Also if there is any particular portion of our trip you are curious about feel free to leave requests in the comments, I'll try to answer them as best I can.

Ta-ta for now,
~Rivers