The first adventure of the day was an educational tour with a focus on Singapore's history and economy. It was the same guide that picked us up at the airport yesterday (was that really only yesterday?! It seems like weeks ago). The first stop on the tour was the Changi Prison Museum near the airport.
Our tour guide gave us a quick overview of the place and history, it was a Singaporean prison that was turned into an internment camp for Singaporeans during the 3.5 years of Japanese invasion.
And visitors can light candles in memory of those who served and had fallen.
After the war museum, we went to the Marina Barrage which is pretty cool (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Barrage). There are three benefits of the Marina Barrage, the main one is to serve as a reservoir for Singapore (there are 17 reservoirs that fill 60% of the water demand of the country). The barrage also works as tidal control to prevent floods, and is used for leisure activities such as boating.
The dam breaks up the fresh water of the reservoir (seen below on the left side of the picture) from the salty sea and river water (on the right hand side of the picture).
Inside the building, there was a massive exhibit on water, conservation, and the barrage itself.
With a whole wall of plastic bottles!!
An exhibit with a waterfall mimicking rain demonstrated how the dam worked. When rainfall filled the reservoir up too high, the dam walls would open to permit the fresh water to flow out into the river/sea and not flood the city.
After the Marina Barrage, we headed back onto the bus to visit the Singapore Urban Redevelopment Authority to lean about how scarce land is planned. Singapore is smaller than King Country but with a substantially greater population, the URA is responsible for the urban planning to mitigate the issues that come with such a dense population.
But first, Chris and I ran across the street to find coffee. Called a "cuppa", this drink is made with sweetened condensed milk and a very thick coffee. Since we were taking it to go, the cups came with a plastic sleeve with a carrying handle:
Inside the URA, there was a massive model of Singapore. You can tell how huge it is by the size compared to Tiffany in the top left of the picture, I was on the second story taking this photo.
From eye level, you can see the level of detail that went into this model. There were places on the model for future development, potential development, and potential for reclaimed land. Singapore has been in the process of reclaiming land for the island by filling in with sand, and the country will continue to grow by this method.
We went to a Chinese food court for lunch, I was determined to get the famous Singaporean chicken rice that I had heard so much about. I wandered the rows of vendors until I found the chicken rice vendor with the longest line: that must mean it's the best!
And this is what it looks like! Really just chicken, and rice. It was pretty good, but I think it had just been built up by hearing so many accounts of how this was the best meal ever.
Sergey got a coconut and shared the meat and juice with the rest of us!
This marked the end of the first half of the day, and we took the bus back to the hotel to get ready for the second half. Our tour guide left us with his thoughts on the seven things that make Singapore tick:
1. Leadership
2. Rule of Law
3. Multiculturalism
4. Food (food brings people together)
5. English (language and culture/knowledge)
6. Environment (plan cities, real jungles around the concrete jungle)
7. Open country (both culturally and for business)
He also said that God didn't give Singapore anything simple. They don't have clear mountain streams where they can drink without processing the water; anything they have, the Singaporeans had to come up with a way to use it. And God is fair and balanced; they don't have natural resources but they also don't have natural disasters.
For our first corporate visit, we headed out an hour later to visit Expedia (/Air Asia).
PART 2:
We took a bus to the Expedia (AAE) offices in Singapore where Tiffany gave a great introduction to the program and the purpose of our visit.
We learned why Expedia was lucky to be in travel in Asia; it is the largest, fastest growing region with the lowest online penetration.
There is low online penetration in Asia due to low credit card penetration, low broad band penetration, and income inequality (general lack of a middle class).
AAE is a 50/50 joint venture between Air Asia and Expedia; it is a "marriage between two travel power houses" that provides the opportunity for Expedia to enter a currently underserved market (and the market of the future!); the benefit to Air Asia is the utilization of Expedia's online market and that they no longer need to attempt the integration of hotels on their website.
The mission of AAE is "to own the leading travel online brands in their category in Asia, revolutionizing the travel landscape with technology". They have a global scale in terms of technology, but "online travel is an arms race; it's all about conversion on your site". Therefore, AAE has a strong engineering group to provide differentiation.
The pillars of strategy are to innovate in technology, leverage global scale (where it counts), localize (where it matters), market aggressively, develop the one-stop shop, and have a highly effective organization with smart talent focusing and executing.
An example given during the presentation is that, while users in the United States like the predictive search function to eliminate excess typing, users in Japan prefer radio buttons of a list of the top 30 or so locations so that they can see choices rather than having to type in a box.
One of the reasons that it's so exciting to be in the industry in Asia is that 40-50% annual growth is common. Product innovation is required in this industry, and Expedia does this through data loops, "test and learn", and listening to the customer. Travel is complex, there are over 2,000 permutations for some trips because there are so many ways to get to a place. Expedia definitely looks at what customers are doing, but the most important thing is to see what real customers are actually doing on their site.
The visit to Expedia was wonderful, the presentations were great, and we really appreciate their hospitality!!
After Expedia, we took the MRT to the Marina Bay Sands (http://www.marinabaysands.com/index.html). Our tour guide had previously told us that while Singapore only has two casinos, it is the city with the fourth largest profit from gambling. He also told us to please not refer to them as "casinos", but rather "integrated resorts" because that sounds more family friendly and less dirty. We had to see what this place was all about!!
We had to show our passports upon entry and departure from the casino. They checked EVERY page, and due to the insane security I thought it was best not to take any more photographs in the area.
The hotel at Marina Bay Sands is extravagant, there are three towers with a "ship" on the top".
View from the top:
Some of the students at the top of the "ship":
The place is so fancy, they put baby's breath in your cocktail:
In the middle of the screen, you can see those weird tree shaped sculptures everywhere? Remember those for later in this post...
We knew there were a few light shows in the area, and a few of us stayed to watch them. The funny thing is that we asked about 6 hotel/restaurant employees and they all gave us different times. We decided to wing it, and take a walk through the gardens to a restaurant called "Satay by the Bay".
We finally made it to Satay by the Bay, and remembered that it was St. Patrick's Day! Luckily, they had a special on Guinness:
The satay was delicious, although to be honest we couldn't tell the difference between pork, chicken, beef, duck, and tripe. The prawns were quite obvious:
We headed back into the gardens to see the light show under the trees. By this time, the area was lovely:
Remember these tree things from the view from the top of the ship? They were all lit up and the colors kept changing, it was beautiful.
When that show was over we ran over to the other side of the "ship" building to watch the light show on the water. The backdrop to this show was a little less rainforesty and a lot more concrete jungle, which was beautiful in a totally different way:
The theme of this show was "Celebration of Life", and they used projectors to show videos of children, plants, and other things life related on walls of spraying water. They also used lasers, which was awesome.
The weary travelers then made their way back to the hotel, to rest up for tomorrow's adventures in Singapore.
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