Singapore

I left England with my body clock still on Pacific time, and by the time I arrived in Singapore, it was anyone's guess what time zone it though it was in.

Checked into my hotel, which is a basic affair in the red light district of Singapore. Not ideal, but all the hotels in the central area were either fully booked or had quadrupled their prices for Grand Prix week. I was not prepared to pay these rip-off prices, hence the 'interesting' location. My room is very small but just about has everything required for survival. I do not intend to spend much time there anyway.

Next task was to collect my Grand Prix tickets. Having travelled into the centre of town, I discovered that the Singapore Post office where I was supposed to collect the tickets was closed. Not a good start, but hopefully they will be open at some point over the next few days. On my taxi ride into town, we went though some of the streets that will be used for the F1 circuit next weekend. Workmen were in the process of installing concrete and wire mesh safety barriers and the overhead floodlighting really did make the road as bright as day.

Went to Clark Quay for a meal and beer at the Breworks microbrewery - one of my favourite eating places. After eating, walked round to corner to watch the GoFlyKite team putting on their usual spectacular performance flying their radio controlled kites. I will post a movie of this as soon as I work out how to convert the file from my cellphone.

On the way back across the river, I saw signs advertising the Singapore River Festival with starts tomorrow and runs for the whole week up to the Grand Prix weekend. Plenty of musical and other entertainment to keep me occupied in the evenings it would seem.

Finished off the evening in the Crazy Elephant bar watching one of the local blues bands doing some not bad Hendrix covers.