Today is the most important traditional Chinese holiday: the New Year's Festival. This means four days of public holiday in Singapore and most shops and restaurants are closed. That's why my plan was to travel on to Indonesia today. But just in time yesterday I remembered that that would have been a stupid mistake. Because I want to fly back home from Jakarta on February 21st. But I can only stay in Indonesia for 30 days with a tourist visa. So if I enter Indonesia on January 22, it doesn't exactly fit. Now I could have rebooked the flight and fly home a few days earlier. Or I'll just stay two more days (one to be safe) in Singapore.
The hotels are fully booked these days and the overnight prices are the highest in the whole year. Even in my capsule hotel, I now pay $50 one night and $70 the second (in a larger bed). I will use the two additional days here productively.
The quality of stay in my honeycomb hotel is low. If I stay here in the box all day, I can't sleep at night. However, on the other side of the Singapore River is the Funan shopping mall. I've been there twice in the past few days. In the second basement there is a food court where I can drink coffee and eat something cheap.
My plan this morning was to go there and sit in yesterday's corner of the food court with the outlet. At half past eight in the morning I was already on my feet, but I knew that the shopping center didn't open until 10 a.m. That's why I walked the Singapore River east to the mouth today. It had just rained and now the sun came out, so it was terribly humid. So I just sat down at a bus stop and waited for the next bus. It was a double-decker bus and I sit upstairs just behind the front window. He drove a little further along Marina Bay Drive, where the cruise ships dock, then in the other direction and finally I was called from below to get off: terminal. It was now half past ten and I could go to the Funan Mall. But the food court there was closed because of the holidays. It's annoying, I didn't have a plan B. Not many alternatives either. With a coffee from McDonalds, I then sat down on a long staircase in the center, which is designed as a seat. I ate lunch in one of the few open restaurants in Funan Gyudon. This is a Japanese rice dish with thinly sliced cooked beef.
After that, I continued to work on my podcast about Penang and my trip there. But soon the laptop battery ran out and I had to vacate my desk and go back to my capsule hostel.
I don't miss many in my box from the day, because it's gray outside and it's pouring rain again and again.
For dinner I go to Indian food like yesterday and read Winfried Erdamann's sailing diary "Alone Against the Wind". Only on a trip like this can I read such travel books without getting unbearable wanderlust. At the age of 60, Erdmann sailed alone non-stop in his small motorless sailing boat on a westerly course around the world. I'm totally fascinated by the book and like all good books I'm afraid it's over.
So that I can continue reading a bit, I treat myself to a cocoa milk in the Indian bistro this evening and sit there a little longer.
