travels with janne

We are now on the other side of the world. We have crossed the equator. We have flown about 20.000 kilometres, which is approximately half of the earth’s circumference. We have crossed umpteen time zones and we are now 12 hours ahead of home. If we had flown just a little bit more we would have crossed the international date line and ended up in yesterday again. I have given up trying to eat and sleep regularly and just try to go with the flow. The result is that I am sleepy and hungry at all the wrong times. Tomorrow is today and today becomes yesterday.

At any rate, we have finally arrived in New Zealand, a full three days after leaving home. Auckland is an okay city, I guess, although right now I’m mostly itching to get away from it all and see some kiwi landscape. The city has a youthful feel, especially the kind of youth who go bungy jumping all over the place or do other crazy outdoorsy thing. Just outside out hotel window (we are on the 13th floor) there is a kind of ride that simulates a bungy jump, so we hear screams at regular intervals. Further on down the road is the Sky Tower, from which people pay to bungy jump, right in the middle of the busy city. Weird tastes!

Although I have visited 38 countries in five continents, I am pleased that I can still get excited about embarking on new adventures, such as this trip to the other side of the world in New Zealand. First stop on the very long way is Singapore, which means I can chalk up yet another country on my growing list.

Singapore is a charming mix of old and new, oriental and western, city and rain forest. A wide array of palm trees, some of them sporting coconuts, some of them adorned with epiphytes, and mimosas, fig trees, and flowering trees and bushes that I don’t even recognize lend a rain forest feel to the bustling city. Birds and butterflies abound in the greenery. There is so much verdant lushness that you sometimes forget that you are in one of the largest port cities and commercial centres of the Far East.

The skyline is characterized by modern skyscrapers and a veritable forest of building cranes. I have never seen so many cranes in one place, not even in Shanghai. The number of ships in the harbour is pretty amazing, too. It looks like an aquatic multi-lane highway. I’m impressed that they don’t bash into each other.

Singapore has several distinct neighbourhoods including a Chinatown and an Indian neighbourhood. There are a lots of Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims. Temples, mosques, pagodas, prayers, pudgy and happy Buddhas, and incense permeate the atmosphere in a charming mêlée of multiethnicity.