Singapore - Day 1

Well, I was sent by my company to audit vendor's operation plants in Singapore and Johor. Since the economy was hitting most companies, including mine.. my MD decided to only send me alone for this trip (initially I was suppose to travel with a colleague). Being their customer, very potential long run customer, I was treated really well here.

Upon arrival at Changi Airport, my vendors (Lim and Heather) picked me up and sent me to their head office. The engineers brief me on their company history, plants concept, design and operation details. It's quite weird feeling to have so many people explaining many stuff to me alone. Luckily my background is also water treatment, else I would be choking with informations from them. Then Lim brought me around their fabrication yard, checked on their skid fabricating processes, spare parts inventory, quality assurance etc.

After that I was brought to lunch at a Hongkie style Char Chan Teng. Normal food served, just like our Wong Kok or Kim Gary. Next item in my visit itinerary is to visit the NeWater Treatment Plant in Singapore. This is a stream of used water channeled from domestic and industrial area for recycling back into supply water. They used high technology Ultrafiltration with Hollow fibres, Reverse Osmosis and Ultraviolet treatment. 2% of this treated water, namely NeWater will be channeled to drinking water reservoir and others to industrial needs. Meaning, yeap.. Singaporean is drinking 2% of water recycled from domestic/industrial waste water. The water supposingly is very very clean in the sense RO and UF are used to treat it. However we're still uncomfortable with this whole idea of recycling used domestic water (from the loo?)

- Newater Water is part of Singaporean's drinking water -

After the visit, I was sent to Hotel York, located at Orchard Road. The hotel was quite good, considering the location and being a 4 star. Just that they don't offer free wi-fi, I thought it would be normal for hotels to have this!

- Small hotel in Singapore cost SGD250 per night -

Anyhow, after resting I was brought out to have seafood dinner at Dempsey Road near Orchard. The "tour guide" keep stressing how nice their pepper crab was, so I give it a try. But to my dismay, the crab was way too far from being nice. Maybe I'm not used to Singaporean tastebuds.

- Long Beach Restaurant, Dempsey Road -

We had some time to walk around Orchard Road that night, together with vendors from Singapore and Malaysia. I got myself a mascara from M.A.C. for SGD20, I thought it's quite cheap though I didn't really check out the price from Malaysia. We visited Galleria, Plaza Lucky etc along the shopping haven in Singapore.

After that we called it a day, I was so sleepy that night but couldn't sleep. Maybe it was my first time sleeping in a hotel room alone after all. I on every lights and also the TV and finally I felt asleep watching American Idol.... zzz....

:)