Picto Diary - 11 April 2017 - Part One - Singapore

Above: Singapore pre dawn. 11 April 2017.

Image from 11th aft deck of Seven Seas Voyager.

My third visit to Singapore.

The first was circa 1977 when TIMDT and Mwah (sic) visited our friends David and Dianne, Harvard Business School classmates and LDS Cambridge Ward-mates.

In Singapore, David was working for First National Bank of Chicago (FNBC). He stayed with FNBC, living later in Hong Kong, until the late '80's and moved to Salt Lake City, where he engaged in various activities, including starting a private equity fund and working as CEO for one of the brine shrimp businesses operating at the Great Salt Lake. In both of these activities he leveraged his Asian experience, in the first instance attracting Chinese investors to Salt Lake City based start-ups and in the second, parlaying his knowledge of the far east (he was fluent in Mandarin) with the Asian customer base... private fisheries... with his highly desired brine shrimp product.

David's professional experience in Salt Lake was not a happy one. One of his Salt Lake City based private equity investments was run by a fraudster, ironically, his old Hong Kong LDS mission president. Because of the fraud.... spec concrete mausoleums fraudulently constructed of wood... his fund blew up and his Asian investors were left hanging.

David sued his former mission president for fraud and after three years of legal wrangling won his case. By that time, however, the mission president had declared bankruptcy and there was no money to be had.

The fraud experience was hard on David and his family. As a devoted Mormon, David's experience with his prevaricating mission president strained his relationship with his church. That fellow church members sided with the mission president when David undertook legal action furthered David's anguish about his religion. The mission president was close to Mormon royalty, having been the contractor of LDS church president Gordon B. Hinkley's private residence.

After the private equity experience, David hired one of his good friends to help him with the brine shrimp business... and later, inexplicably, fired him. The firing led to a permanent rift between David and his friend, who, up until that point, had shared a strong bond with one another since their experience as LDS missionaries in Hong Kong in the mid '60's.

TIMDT and Mwah (sic) lost touch with David and Diane in the mid 90's.

Circa 2000,we were later to learn, from David's estranged friend, that David had taken his life while living with his oldest son and his family in Dallas, TX. I attended a memorial service for him in Salt Lake City, shortly thereafter.

Above: Moonrise over Singapore. Pre Dawn. 11 April 2017.

Image captured from aft 11th level deck of Seven Seas Voyager.

My second visit to Singapore was circa 2011. Singapore was the tail end of a month long cruise starting in Athens.

Then, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) stayed in a spectacular room at the New Fullerton Bay hotel, overlooking the bay and the amazing Marina Bay Sands Hotel.

On that visit, we visited China Town, Little India, and the Singapore Planning Commission. We shopped at Orchard Road (where I bought a Meistersinger watch I still like), watched the water show from the Marina Bay Sands, and visited the Orchid Museum, where I saw a carnivorous plant, the Venus Flytrap for the first time. We were with Montage and SpaGo who via their friend Jim, had organized our Singapore stay. We had a wonderful Chinese dinner out with Jim, Montage and Spago.

The contrast between the spread out and sleepy Singapore we had seen in 1977 and the dynamic, architecturally diverse city we saw in 2011 was eye popping.

Above: Sunrise over Singapore. Dawn. 11 April 2017.

Image captured from 11th deck aft of Seven Seas Voyager.

Third visit to Singapore. With her cronies, TIMDT has visited Singapore a couple of times since 2011. On those visits she became aware of the military sites associated with Singapore's capture by the Japanese in early 1942 during WWII.

Knowing (correctly) that I would be interested in the WWII historical sites of Singapore, TIMDT laid out a plan. The military plan was pleasantly interrupted by a visit to Gardens by the Bay and a brief shopping stop (by foot from Gardens by the Bay) at Marina Bay Sands Hotel. TIMDT and Mwah (sic) decided to get a cooperative taxi driver to take us where we wanted to go. We went to the first cab outside of the cruise terminal and found Tommy, a young sixty something who had worked for six months in the US... Minneapolis.

As serendipity would have it, TIMDT and Mwah (sic) had a great day riding from military site to military site under Tommy's able hand and commentary.

Oh... and its hot as hell here! How did we ever live in these sub tropical climates (Tokyo, Miami, Manila)??!!

Above: "Hash Puppies" Restaurant. 11th deck Seven Seas Voyager. 11 April 2017.

Always a sucker for corned beef hash, these little suckers have become a daily staple for me on the Seven Seas Voyager. This corned beef hash approximates the apex of corned beef hash found at "Over The Counter" in Salt Lake City.

Above: Mural showing emaciated allied POW's at Changi prison camp Museum. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

Changi was the site of the allied POW Japanese internment camp from early 1942 to near the end of WWII in July 1945.

Through letters, drawings, and personal artifacts, the museum chronicles the story of POWs and civilian internees during their years of captivity by the Japanese during. WWII.

Above: Map illustrating the furthest reach of Japan's East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere... by February 1945. Changi Internment Camp Museum. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

Above: TIMDT observes tulip exhibition. Flower Dome. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

Above: Tulips. Tulip exhibition. Flower Dome. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

Above: TIMDT gazes at water fall. Cloud Forest Dome. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

Above: Bishop observes Marina Bay Sands Hotel from cat walk in Cloud Forest Dome. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

After visiting Garden's by the bay, TIMDT walked over to the Marina
Bay Sands Hotel (in sweltering heat). TIMDT bot a pair of shoes while I walked around the mall.

Above: Tommy and TIMDT pose in front of the artificial trees. Gardens by the Bay. Singapore. 11 April 2017.

TIMDT didn't sign up for the ship's tour. We had an idea what we wanted to see and hoped we could find a taxi driver at the cruise port to take us around. Here he is. Tommy lived in Minneapolis for six
months working for an American corporation. He has three kids...
one a doctor, another as a fighter pilot (F16) in the Singapore Air Force, and another currently at university.