My packing strategy worked out largely as planned. I used most of what I brought, and my shorts, tshirts, polos, and flip-flops got me through the week without me needing to buy anything. My khakis and button-up were indeed necessary to make the dress code for my meal at Iggy's, and later for a rooftop bar. I used most of what I packed, other than the two sweaters, extra pair jeans of jeans, raincoat, and my running clothes (which I probably would have attempted to use if not for the crippling smog). Bringing the external battery was incredibly valuable, I was relying on my phone quite a bit to the point where it was certainly not going to last a full day, but while out and about I'd just plug it into the battery and stick it in my camera bag, and by the time I got to the next place it was nearly full again.
I did forget to pack a few things, notably, sunglasses, an umbrella, and sleep mask. Sunglasses would have been nice, and smart for any summer trip, but I went the first day without them ok so decided not to buy a cheap pair while here. The umbrella was a foolish mistake, but fortunately it did not rain here, and my second hotel had provided me one in my room. The lack of a sleep mask was a big problem on my first flight, since I was only two rows behind the big overhead video screen, which was 13.5 hours of bright, flashing light which made sleeping a lot harder. I was going to buy one for the way back, but fortunately I got one when I got upgraded on the second flight leg.
Speaking of being upgraded, going with United, the carrier I happen to have miles on, worked out in the end, as did my brother's suggestion to travel on off days like Tuesday or Sunday to avoid the glut of bussiness travelers on Monday and Friday. I was upgraded for the Hong Kong <--> Singapore legs both times, a nice bit of comfort to have when spending over 17 hours in the air.
My hotel choices worked out quite well. I'm glad I changed midway through, as I like the second hotel quite a bit better, plus it's even cheaper, but that means my strategy of starting with 2 nights to settle in and then reevaluating worked as intended. My friend's family has apparently tried to stay here at the Scarlet Hotel before, hearing very good things about it, but had never succeeded in getting before, so I got extremely lucky, apparently. Even in trips that I've planned far in advance, it's hard to know if the hotel choice makes sense location-wise, only once you get there and get the lay of the land do you understand the kinds of things you to which you actually want to have proximity. I think the only thing I would have done differently with more preparation would have been to look at alternatives to hotels, like Airbnb or actual B&Bs, to have a more interesting experience than the standard hotel stay.
Getting recommendations provided the basis for most of what I did, and with it being so easy to solicit recs and hear back about them, this worked just fine at the last minute. It helped that I wound up in a place where several of my friends had been to though. The main disadvantage of getting recs at the last minute was that I spent trip time plotting them on the map and figuring out logistics rather than doing this in advance, but that only cost a few hours. I also got recs from my expat dining companions while here which also proved really useful, and that's a general strategy that works quite well too: arrive and immediately try to find a local and pick their brain for what to do.
This trip was particularly feasible in the smartphone era, since I relied on both reliable hotel internet to do research, but also on having internet while on the go for maps, directions, opening hours, and general research. Plus I needed mobile internet in the airport in the first place to find the initial flight. I think this kind of trip would have been significantly more difficult without internet and smartphone access, and that means also that not all destinations are equal for a spontaneous trip. I happened to wind up in one of the most connected countries on the planet, so that certainly helped.
That said, another hiccup from a lack of research is that I blew it on my prepaid mobile plan the first few days. It was trivial to get a prepaid sim card, it seems they sell them at virtually every convenience store, and those are on every block. In Asia, convenience stores truly are convenient, offering valuable services like ATMs and mobile phone support and even decent snacks, and aren't just places full of disgusting food like they are in the US. But within about 2 hours, I ran out of credit on my phone. So I bought a S$20 top-up card, but quickly ran out of that too. I finally figured out that the standard top-up gives you primarily voice credits, and only comes with about 5MB of data, after which you start burning through your voice credits when consuming data, at an absurd rate. I think an S$20 card gets you about 10MB of data total before you're out. It turns out you just need to text a particular number to initiate the process of converting your raw dollar credits to a particular plan. I wound up buying a 3-day 6GB data plan for S$15, which is incredibly cheap, and I've barely made a dent in it, even with making a video call. This text-to-select-a-plan thing is pretty standard in Asia, and I should have known better had I done research up front, but the nice thing about Singapore is that all this texting is done in English, whereas say in China, you have no such option for English and deciphering the options is impossible without help.
And lastly, in addition to a smartphone, this kind of trip would absolutely not be possible without Google Maps and GPS. Having maps of everything at your fingertips, plus GPS, means you're basically never lost, even when you're in a foreign country and haven't planned anything. I could always find my next destination while out and about, and felt safe just wandering between destinations because I could always find my way. Plus my main way of traveling is to plot locations onto a custom map using My Maps and then opening this on the phone, so you can tell which places are in clusters and visit them efficiently. And most importantly, the accuracy is key. I've found Google Maps to be extremely accurate not just with streets but also with the locations of even the smallest restaurants even in less-developed countries. This is really important because if locations are wrong, at best you've wasted a bunch of time and effort, and at worst you've wound up somewhere truly unsafe. I have occasionally been led astray, but I'd say locations are at least 95% accurate even in places like China and Southeast Asia. So I don't think without Google Maps I would have had a comfortable, efficient, and safe experience, and this goes for both planned and unplanned travel.
Overall, I had a really incredible time, and given that we have sufficient technology and information these days, I would say this is a totally fun and viable way to travel. At least for this trip, I don't think I missed out on anything that I would have been able to do with advanced planning, and my only major setback was some time lost doing logistics. I think I will almost certainly attempt this again in the future!
Wow. Jonathan. With all of your recent world travels, you should probably write a book (or turn your blog into an e-book) of where, how, what, and with recommendations pro and con. Of course you have the time to write a book, right? Now that you are post-employed (pre-employed??).
ReplyDeleteLove, Your Aunt Karen