Tiny blessings, with some tiny bubbles too! (Day 1 in Singapore)

Well my first trip is here. I am heading to Singapore and then to Shanghai for 2 weeks, with a lovely stop on the way home to see my dear friend Margo and her family in San Francisco. I was equally looking forward to and dreading this first trip. The weeks leading up to this were packed with holiday activities and last minute travel and work preparations. The stress of traveling to Asia for the first time was definitely getting to me. Would I make it, would I get lost, what would I eat etc… Worry can just kill you. First my visa was held up at the Indian consulate for a week because I had applied for the wrong type (tourist instead of business) after attempting for a week or so to work this out with everyone at work on vacation I called and the visa was approved for tourist anyway… A blessing, because I needed my passport to get the more timely Chinese visa and back to me in time to travel. It arrived just in time. A coincidence? Not really. In my world there really aren’t coincidences but divine interventions, and I think this was my first. Thank you…

Then on to more tiny blessings… My travel was booked a little last minute due to my quick transition to my new role and the holidays in the midst of everything so I couldn’t get the normal Northwest flight to Singapore that everyone usually takes and alas the only bookings available were through Singapore Air. When I told everyone at work I was going through Singapore Air they were quite jealous, but I had no clue what that meant. Well I soon found out that they are the BEST airline in the world. My seat in Business Class (that’s right we get to go Business Class and I am so grateful) was the size of a comfy leather recliner which converted to a quite comfortable bed with all sorts of great storage compartments and your own personal entertainment center, full of my usual addicting shows and movies. I sat back after a lame 4 hour layover in SFO in my cozy seat with a complimentary glass of Champagne prior to departure thinking… Finally I’ll be able to get some good rest and sleep! It had been a very frantic week full of late night packing for the trip and getting up to get a 7:30 flight, this was not my idea of a good way to start the trip off. The flight was uneventful, and except for an annoying stop in Seoul where we had to actually disembark and re-board a different plane, the 20 hours (that’s right 20 hours) went fairly quickly and comfortably. I never once wondered when the food was coming, and I swear every half hour a stewardess came by with something delectable to eat or drink. The guy next to me and I totally enjoyed laughing over the luxury of it all and that we just needed to fly this airline to get some normal R& R. I have really no idea how much it cost as I didn’t book it, but I’m pretty sure it’s out of my normal budget range.

I arrive in Singapore and there is a wonderful driver standing with my name on a sign right outside of custom’s waiting to drive me and tell me the joys of Singapore all the way to the hotel. My first observation was, nice BMW then hey they drive on the wrong side of the road here (a carry over from the British colonial days I’m sure). He was very fun and told me all sorts of fascinating things! I didn’t even need a tour guide when I had this guy. My second observation was that I couldn’t believe that at 1 in the morning everyone was still out downtown eating, shopping, and going to movies. Don’t these people sleep?! That’s all I wanted to do. You’d think it was 8 pm with the number of people out and about. I arrived and my room booking was in a very nice club room, which was another tiny blessing because everyone else I work with was booked in a lower level room (which I was moving to the next day), because of some booking confusion between the Singapore office and ours. So for my lovely first night I had a very luxurious room with a massage chair that I sat in for about an hour to work out the knots from traveling. What a nice first day/night (pics below).

In the midst of the stress and preparation for this trip I find that the tiny blessing and tiny bubbles I received along the way were just what I needed to ease my fretful mind. I’m not sure why I’m always surprised at how I am cared for, but I know I have a divine father who is as always wanting to give me good and perfect gifts. Always just what I need when I need it. That is true peace.