Time and a half

I am not enjoying the time difference. On top of the (inevitable) jetlag, which means I go to sleep readily at 10pm, but wake up bright and breezy without fail at 2 a.m., and can't sleep again until 5 a.m.... my alarm clock waking me barely an hour later... on top of this, it's a very lonely time zone.

I'm eight hours ahead of the UK in Singapore, so just as I'm getting up in the morning, all of my friends and family are off to bed. As I finish my working day at about 5 p.m., everyone else is hard at work. By the time they've finished work, I'm in bed. It's rubbish.

Singapore is apparently the same size as the Isle of Wight... with far fewer tourist amenities. Yes, there's shopping if you're into your designer goods, but beyond that, not a lot. I did pop out yesterday afternoon (mostly to stop myself falling asleep in the bath... again) but besides getting rained on and irritated by trying to divide everything by three* (harder than you think with jetlag... and my maths), I didn't achieve much.

This evening I'm torn between visiting the major shopping district and just holing up in the hotel room. I know I should be making the most of being somewhere new and exciting, but after a full day of training people through a total mind-fog of jetlag-ness (yes, that is a word), I can barely be bothered to breathe out once I've gone to all the trouble of breathing in in the first place. And it's still raining. Apparently it never rains for this long. So far I've heard this in: Hong Kong, Sydney, Cairns, New Zealand, New York and now Singapore. I should be sent to areas of drought. I should be marketed. I'm talking bollocks again, aren't I?

The most exciting part of my trip so far is finding out that over in Singapore, the vending machines at the office are free. Free! Free Oreos and Coke and rice milk (no, I don't know what that is either, and not really sure I want to find out. How do you milk rice? The mind boggles, picturing tiny rice udders.). When I asked why this is, a lady told me that perhaps it was because we were too big in London, and they were much smaller in Asia. I'm assuming she meant office size rather than calling me fat.

Well, petite they may be in Singapore, but at least in the UK we don't drink the product that comes from squeezing the teats of grains of rice. Freaks.

* For the exchange rate, not my own personal amusement.