Twelve Feet, Six Continents, One Year

Sunday started like any other day under a Restricted Movement Order in a barely-familiar foreign country. There was breakfast and screen time and generally low expectations. Then we heard about Peru. The news reported that Americans (and others) in Peru were effectively stranded. There were no commercial flights available for them to depart and due to “optics,” according to the stories, the US government did not want to send in a military plane to evacuate them. Then we heard about Singapore. Several sources informed us that Singapore had revised its COVID measures and would prohibit even transiting (connecting) between flights for foreigners. Our main exit strategy had been eliminated. We had decided on Friday (March 20) that we would give ourselves a break for deliberating on our plans until Monday (March 23) but here we were on Sunday back at it. It's eerie to read the posts from Friday and Saturday in light of what's transpired since. What if Malaysia extends the RMO...

Luckily, none of us was hit by a motorbike. I guess this counts as a drive thru restaurants. Motorbikes are literally everywhere. The first HCMH story I'd like to tell you is about immigration. It turns out you need a letter from your embassy, which we didn't have until about 24 hours before we arrived. It turns out you need printed photos, which we didn't have until we bought them upon arrival with cash that we didn't have until after arrival. It turns out you need a wad of cash to pay for the "stamping fee," which we also didn't have when we arrived. Fortunately, I was allowed to leave arrivals (to enter the country) without going through customs. It was crazy! And I had to do it twice to gather enough cash to acquire our visas. Shockingly, there is really no blog entry that I can find that breaks this down and explains how to navigate the system. The second HCMH story I'd like to tell you is about signing up for the wrong food tour. I went ...

Yesterday, I wrote about having a Murphy Law Day (did I just coin a new acronym, MLD?). It was so bad I didn't even post it on Facebook, as usual. Today, we had a total rebound. We ate breakfast in our apartment and then headed out to a nearby park while the temperature was less than 90 degrees. The first part of the park was Jubilee Playground, where Henry created his own "ninja warrior" course. Then we headed up into Fort Canning Park. The old fort was unexceptional but the gardens and other natural features were spectacular. Back at the apartment we had a session of school. It went better than I expected, since school often doesn't go well the first time in a new place. We were wise to set our expectations low! Newly refreshed and educated, we headed off for lunch. Our friend Randy was in Singapore nearly 3 months ago and send us a cryptic note that he had left us something "under table 118 at the Maxwell Road Hawker Centre." Fir...

This one is on me. One of my trip planning decisions was to avoid New Zealand during the school holidays. As a result, we went to Australia first and as far west as Perth before cutting back to New Zealand, five hours east of Perth and many hours in the air. The good news is that we really never saw a crowd in New Zealand. So much so that we harbor some doubt that there are enough people there, including tourists, to ever really make a crowd. The bad news is, well, today. The nonstop flight from Auckland to Singapore is nearly 11 hours. Ours arrived thirty minutes early. Still, that's five hours longer than the flight from Perth to Singapore. It's also five hours of jet lag to address. We landed at about 8:00 and found that customs was so empty that they split the six of us into two lines to speed it up (and give a second agent something to do). We saw no more than ten others in baggage claim, although there were many more in the connections line. Singapore has seemed decid...