Day 4: High point

That's him!

It was another early rise day today, with the added wrinkle that we had to relocate, so the luggage had to be up early as well. At breakfast, another complication became evident: a second large group had just checked into the hotel yesterday and was turning out in force during our breakfast time. Nothing for it but to stand in line watching in amazement how unthinkingly people can wait for a minute in front of the toaster for their personal piece of bread to reappear and then block the queue for another minute to apply butter to that piece on the spot. A throughput three times as large could easily be achieved by a less dimwitted scheduling of the scarce resources. Granted, the placement of toaster and butter in itself showed that the hotel staff had very little understanding of queuing models themselves.

After the delayed arrival of our luggage last Monday, luggage jokes had been made so frequently that the humour had worn rather thin, but fresh inspiration was found in the many plans drawn up, announced and rejected to get our stuff to Marina Bay Sands somewhen during the day. For now, after applying the "business formal" dress code and squashing everything else into the hold of the bus, we made our way to the first visit of the day: MAS, the Monetary Authority of Singapore, regulatory body, central bank and mint rolled up into one.We were visiting a new branch of MAS, the FinText Innovation Group.

Improvised meeting room

Interestingly, though on ground floor it looked as though we had finally hit the right level of formality, with suits aplenty swarming around us and a thorough passport scan, after lifting up to another 13th floor we were met with the sight of a hallway in the process of complete overhaul, with panelling mostly missing and walls chalked full of well-wishing messages; and we were welcomed by a friendly guy dressed no more formally than our own "casual" code, who introduced himself merely as "Roy". The presentation he confronted us with, too, was full of keywords like "startups", "initiatives" and "technologies", and indeed he seemed to mean it. In fact, apart from the research group hosting at USTD, this was the only place where emphasis was put on security. The thing is, Singapore is relying on its position in the financial market as one of the cornerstones of its economy (together with transport and tourism), and the financial world is nowadays in a bit of an uproar due to new enabling technologies - first and foremost Blockchain, which we had already had a nice introduction to on Tuesday (by TNO). It turns out that MAS is reacting to this by trying to be proactive and bringing in people who can help them retain their prominence. I have to admit that the way this was cast by Roy sounded quite exciting, though ever before this, finance has been high on my list of ten most boring topics I could think of. He even promoted a FinTech festival mid-november that I later heard some of our students seriously considering to make time for at the end of their (post-study-tour) trip.

May Ideas Soar!

We were invited to ask questions, but true to the pattern that is emerging, there was not enough time to actually exhaust the curiousity of the group. I wonder: in the book The Culture Map there is a dimension on timing and scheduling, which essentially ranges between cultures from being very strict and rigid (more than five minutes late is a problem) to being extremely relaxed and flexible (anywhere within an hour of the scheduled time is quite OK). Though none of the countries the study tour is touring are explicitly listed in the book, all Asian cultures tend to be on the relaxed/flexible side of the spectrum; but that is not actually what we have seen around us. Every time that insufficient Q/A time is scheduled in (which is every time), there is little flexibility towards the delay incurred when questions are actually asked (which is also evey time).

Back to propaganda time

After the presentation we were led back downstairs into a standard exhibition of MAS on their financial policies and past triumphs. This pretty much meant going back to propaganda time. The most interesting (and slightly awkward) thing was the fact that some of the students managed to interrupt one of the running demos and start up an internet browser on the demo machine. My role is not that of a parent or responsible adult, at least that is the way I see it; but it might very well not be the way the Singaporese see it when push comes to shove. I suspect they might think that seniority means, well, seniority, and breaking into a demo means breaking the (unwritten) rules sufficiently for seniority to be expected to step in. In the end, I let my perspective prevail, did not step in, and luckily push stayed sufficiently far away from shove.

Rolled-up sleeves: as casual as it gets

Act two of the luggage and dress code soap ensued. The plan upon which the OC had finally settled was to drive by the hotel and drop off all main luggage there, without checking in just yet. However, jackets and ties were to be kept with us for later. Then again, our next hosts had explicitly asked for casual wear, whereas the best we could do with the means at hand was business casual (long-sleeved button shirts, no jackets or ties). Means were discussed to further casualise; scissors were rejected; in the end we settled upon rolled-up sleeves. Which is really a laugh: a more casual group than the MISC students is really hard to imagine, and here we were, looking for all the world like a bunch of regular suits painstakingly playing at being casual.

One of the self-assembled SwarmX drones

After quite a bus drive northwards, we arrived at SwarmX, a small start-up company located in a non-aircoed shed-type building way outside downtown Singapore. They build drones; their "value proposition" is AI for self-guidance. Their appearance belied their ambitions and claims of current success, which were extensive. After having been shown their launching installation, outside in the really hot sun, we got to hear a fascinating overview of the sort of thing their drones can do or should be able to do soon, completely autonomously. If it's all true (and with this amount of enthousiasm, not to mention salesmanship, that is hard to judge) then this is really impressive: surveillance, policing, reconnaisance, inspection, crowd control, you name it they (plan to) do it. Interestingly, our guide (an American himself) told us that, though they're located in Singapore for quality control, their prospective clients are rather in the surrounding countries, where there is much less regulatory objection against drones.

SwarmX launch installation

It made for a welcome change in the type of visit, too: not only regarding topic but also regarding type of company. Without a good deal of enthousiasm and energy I think you can get nowhere with a startup; I'm sure you have to wrestle your way through a good deal of failure without getting discouraged. Not for me, but kind of admirable to see. We were certainly welcome and our questions were, for once, answered in full and without hurry to end the session (which anyway was conducted stand-up in the garage where it all happened, half-finished drone prototypes strewn around us); nevertheless, it was clear from the context that we were interrupting the ongoing work, and the lost time would probably have to be made up for into the evening.

Japanese food to stave off the temptation of the neighbouring Subway

Within the hour we were on our way again. After waking up the driver who was taking advantage of the break to have a nap, we made our way to an office of Info-Comm Systems, a division of ST Electronics, itself a branch of ST Engineering, a state-owned company (as far as I have been able to distil out of the info given). This was quite another type of deal again. After a quick, late lunch across the street (most, though not all of us managing to stay away from Subway and MacDonalds) we were received into a rather formal meeting room, with name tags on the central table for Luís, myself and the five company representetives present, who included the CTO, a director of research and three less senior, probably more tech-level employees. The students for the most part had to sit on chairs placed against the wall - where, to make up for the lack of status, at least baskets of chocolates and sweets as well as bottles of water were provided for all. Later, during the presentations, all that was said was directed again at Luís and me, the 25 students might as well not have been there. This was almost a caricature of the type of situation I had been led to expect from my reading of The Culture Map as well as some prior experience. The key concept here is "power distance", which involves the degree to which hierarchy is important in a culture, national or organisational. Needless to say, power distance is much smaller in the Netherlands tha almost anywhere else; I think only Denmark beats us in egalitarianism. Our hosts, who themselves were quite high up in their company, were, I think, culturally unable to grasp and believe that the students, and not us teachers, were really responsible for organisation and content of this tour; they could simply not help but address us, and leave it to us to deal with the learning process of the students.

Asset Management: 6 Key Messages

When in Rome... Unable to change the culture just yet, we had accept things as they were. That meant switching to listening mode. The company is responsible for much of the communication infrastructure in the nation, and we got to hear all about it, in four back-to-back, uninterrupted presentations of about 20 minutes each. No invitation to ask questions was issued. I had to apply all the tricks I have learned over the years not to fall asleep during this session, which so amazingly went against all that is known about effective means of knowledge transfer: biting tongue and cheeks, or trying to stay actively involved by anticipating what was being said or preparing questions in my head. Left and right I saw students nodding, and not necessarily because they agreed to all that was being said. A pity really, because given more time I think this could have been a really great visit, content-wise they had a lot of interesting things to say. As it was, we were quite badly overrunning the tight schedule. After the company presentations we had a slot ourselves, which was to be filled by a short talk by me to set the context of the Netherlands and the University of Twente, then a few words by Joyce Pebesma to explain the setup of the study tour, and finally a few slides about the Kennispark right across the street from the university, which Info-Comm had specifically asked about, after apparently having studied the place a bit. Given the situation, at the last moment we decided to skip the middle bit. Even so, we were quite hurried in closing off, and when we finally got on the bus again the driver was clearly far from pleased. I take that as another sign that Signapore does not really have a flexible-time culture.

Marina Bay Sands

Lobby (view towards towers 2&3)

We, on the other hand, were extremely pleased when we finally arrived at the hotel for tonight, the Marina Bay Sands. This 57 story, three-tower hotel, with a single boat-like structure straddling the tower as in a wicket, is one of the defining landmarks of Singapore seen in every single iconic picture of the city-state. The OC had formed the great plan to shrimp a bit on the other hotels so that we could afford one night here, at the mere price of 180€/person provided we shared rooms. They had approached Luís and me several weeks in advance to ask us if we, or rather our research groups, would be all right with that; for the other participants it was meant to remain a secret until the last possible moment. I personally had never heard of the place before they asked, but after having taken a look on the all-knowing internet, how could I possibly resist? The same for Luís, with whom I would therefore be sharing a room for the night.

Surprise!

The Singapore way

While waiting for the group checkin to be arranged, we had time to gape at the inside of this amazing structure. The three towers are not monolithic blocks of concrete but consist of two curving opposite walls meeting each other about 20 stories up, so that there is a cathedral-sized space inside, with inward-facing balconies of rooms on the inside. Better to have an outside view though: indeed, such turned out to be our luck when Luís and myself found our room, on the 16th floor.

No time to enjoy the view properly, for with all the delays it was actually high time for the pre-arranged dinner. We were ordered to get back to tie and jacket. Another surprise awaited us here, for as it turns out, this hotel features one of Gordon Ramsay's very own restaurants, The Bread Kitchen. That is where a table was set out for us, outside, with places no wider than ourselves. We thoroughly enjoyed a three-course meal, supplied with generous quantities of wine or ale. Midway some rain started falling for the first time during our stay in Singapore, somewhat unfortunately since this was the first and only time we were dining outside; however, a solution was routinely applied which I don't think would be possible anywhere in Europe: five waiters were positioned around the table to hold up umbrellas for the duration of the (fortunately neither very long nor very heavy) rain. Later, when it started to drip again, space had become available elsewhere in the restaurant, under a proper roof.

Infinity pool at night

Infinity MISC

After dinner, it was high time to get out of our constricting suits and start exploring the high point of the day, or indeed the whole week and possibly the entire tour: the Infinity Pool on top of the hotel, 200 meters in the air, with breathtaking views all around. The pool is designed to give the impression that it continues right up to the edge, from where maybe you could swim into the void. Though in reality a safe 2 or 3 meters separate the edge of the pool from that of the building, the effect is truly sensational. We were also able to follow the light shows conducted every hour or so at the waterfront next to where we had been eating before, point out other landmarks and speculate about their function - is that a football stadium down there? Is that tiny figure the water-spouting lion that protects the city? Are those lights boats waiting to be guided into the haven or buildings on the coast? Is that island over there the first sign of Indonesia?

Birthday boy Max Kerkers

Cocktail time!

At 23:00 the pool closed, but our day was not yet done by a long shot. The final event consisted of a few cocktails, back in formal dress, in the SkyBar at the stern of the wicket boat, partially to celebrate Max Kerker's birthday. One more time the views. After a Honey Rose Daquiry, a Padua Handshake and a Morning Margherita it was bar closing time, and my personal body shutdown time as well. Not so for many of the students, who preferred the idea of spending our last night in Singapore not sleeping at all and getting back to the Infinity Pool at six, in time to see the sunrise. I optimistically programmed my phone to wake me up in time to join them, then fell into a very deep sleep.

View from the SkyBar

Day 3: I to Zoo Experiences

TheyExperience

Today's programme was to be more relaxed than yesterday's. This was reflected in the start time, which allowed a breakfast as late as 8:30. Too late for me, apparently, for my body decided to wake up at 7:30, leaving my brain no choice but to follow. Understandably, there was no one else at breakfast. I took advantage of the time to get some blog writing done (though not nearly enough).

Wating before entering IExperience: It's been a hard day's night...

A good moment to explain the buddy system, as promised. Every student is assigned two others to watch out for. When the call "buddy check" goes out, you put up your hand, to lower it again only if and when you have located your two buddies. Any hand that remains in the air points to an absentee, whom you then know by name. A nice, distributed algorithm. Its effectiveness depends on the predefined buddy connections, which I think should constitute a fully 2-connected graph for maximal fault tolerance. That is, you should avoid unconnected clusters: for instance, if Aede has buddies Mart and Marnix (say), while Mart has buddies Aede and Marnix and Marnix has Aede and Mart, then these three could go missing together without anyone noticing. A graph is fully connected if everyone is connected to everyone else through a sequence of buddy links; it is 2-connected if it remains connected even after you take an arbitrary person out. Though a simple fully connected graph (everyone has a single buddy, and they are linked up in a cycle) would be sufficient to ensure no-one stays behind, it is not robust against inattentiveness: what if someone is lazy and lowers his hand too quickly? With two buddies you can double-check one another. The only shortcoming in the system is that Luís and myself do not have buddies, though we are on someone's buddy list. I believe this means that the buddy graph cannot be fully 2-connected. Plus, I don't know whether the person who put it together was a graph theorist. But so far it worked!

Education on the Smart Nation of Singapore

Our only company visit of today was to another exhibition, called IExperience. Quoting from the web site: "The interactive and engaging exhibits are designed to provide visitors with hands-on experience and educate them on the possibilities, including possible Smart Nation services leveraging Smart Infrastructure such as networks of sensors, Smart Nation Platform, Heterogenous Network, that will make our lives more convenient". Operative word: educate. From the mouth of government, this is equivalent to "propaganda"; and so it turned out in this case. With obviously very little money spared we were shown a sequence of idyllic scenarios where ICT was a key enabler, from home appliances to infrastructure and health services. Sensors of all kinds were involved; the only time the word "privacy" fell was when we were told that the microphones installed in the park benches and traffic lights would only record the noise level and not the actual conversations. Yeah, right...

Intelligent street lighting

Both the exhibition itself and the guide were technically a lot less informative than the ones at A-star yesterday. To me, the interest of this visit lay not in the content but in the context: what does it mean that such a show is put up taking a lot of prime office space, how does it address visitors, what message does it convey? Once more concern for the aging, who have deserved a "fulfilled life". Family life unabashedly depicted as working Dad (travelling through green parks in his self-driving car while happily connecting to the world all the while), child-caring Mom (shopping from home because she is pregnant of her third) and bright, smiling kids (fascinated by this brave new world). No doubt but that this is a paternalistic, planning society.

Skeptical, me? What gave you that idea?

OK, things are never black-and-white. An enlightened dictatorship is sometimes said to be as the most beneficial form of government, I believe: it combines decisiveness, rationality, consistency, and long-term planning. A drawback is that you have to get your citizens to subscribe to your enlightened vision (which they are working at very hard, hence IExperience) but more seriously and ultimately damning, that it isn't stable. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and history shows that even the most enlightened dictator is eventually succeeded by a repressive one.

Actually, the comparison may not even be fair. At least nominally, Singapore has a democracy; but then, so do Russia and Turkey, and I have no idea which flavour they have here.

Leaving the zoo hand in hand

We were done at IExperience pretty quickly. Questions were neither invited nor volunteered; I think it was clear to the guide that many of the group were less than fascinated (a largish subgroup broke off to play a Wii-type game meant to keep the elderly physically fit), and to all of the study tour participants that questions would not get a proper answer anyway. It was better this way: we now had time to get back to the hotel, change into casual wear (casual casual) and get some lunch before heading to the afternoon+evening destination: the Singapore Zoo!

Again a bus ride. This may be a small country, but it has a surprising amount of terrain nevertheless, which is not at all completely covered by skyscrapers as I always imagined it to be. To the zoo it was almost an hour's ride, mostly through green and wooded areas. The zoo itself also covers an extensive outdoor area, with a lake that may double as fresh water supply - it did look somewhat artificial, or at the very least well-kept. There is actually not one zoo but three: there are separate areas called River Safari and Night Safari; however, it was to the zoo proper that we first went.

Elephant show

Alligator turtle

Chimpansee feeding time

Stingray, before dinner time

The mythical firefox

A panda gathering points

I associate zoos with childhood, partly because they all feel they have an educational mission and the level at which they pursue this is typically primary-school. The Singapore zoo was certainly no exception: warnings about animals going extinct, the many ways in which humanity negatively impacts the ecology of our planet, poaching and illegal ivory sales, shrinking habitats all around us. It's all true, and used to make me feel vaguely guilty - still does, in fact - but I now know I will never be that saviour of wildlife that I might have imagined myself to become when I was at primary-school age; so I have hardened myself against that message by a shield of boredom. It's still nice to look at the animals though, and here they had an extensive collection of mammals and reptiles large and small, spread out rather widely in a properly tropical green setting. Feeding times and shows were also programmed and kept us walking with some purpose. It was not very busy: as usual in amusement-type parks, the paths were laid out artfully to maximise the capacity without giving the place a crowded feel, but here it was positively quiet at the time of our visit. The month (low holiday season), day of the week (Thursday) and time of the day (second half afternoon) probably helped.

An hour before the scheduled end of our visit, I remembered that there were these other areas as well. The plan was that we would visit the Night Safari later, but the River Safari was not on our plan, whereas our ticket stated that we had access there as well. With a small subgroup we hastened there and just had time to make a tour, which complemented the vertebrates we had seen so far with (mostly) fishes, lots of them, in rather enormous aquaria. To our surprise and delight, moreover, the River Safari also included some panda bears: red pandas (also known as firefox, I thought the browser was called after a mythical animal, but here it was!) and even more surprisingly a couple of giant pandas. Though we were in a bit of a hurry, we just had time to catch a glimpse of one of them moping among the trees. Those of the readers who know what panda points are might be interested to learn that pictures of these iconic animals drew a lot of comments on the group app, directed especially towards one of the students who is approaching Panda of the Year status (but whom I will respectfully leave unnamed).

We were back exactly in time to join the rest of the group in going towards the final item on today's program, the Night Safari. This included dinner (a quite reasonable buffet at the Ulu Ulu restaurant), a Creatures of the Night show (owls, and other nocturnal animals), and a train ride across another large spread of land where many of the same animals we had already seen were on display, but this time in subtly lighted enclosures throughout the now completely dark forest, and observed from the relative comfort of our train seats. Well done, all in all. Being in a large group and having reservations to the restaurant was a serious advantage, as seats were reserved for us in both these follow-up activities: we did quite some sanctioned queue-jumping.

The funniest thing though was Wybren Kortstra being picked as a volunteer to "catch" a snake during the Creatures of the Night show: he is 2,05 meters tall (nomen non est omen, in this case) and so attracts quite some stares anyway, but having him on stage towering over the presenters of the show was really a laugh.

Wybren as a snake charmer

I think I heard some snores on the way back to the hotel. Every morning I have to catch up with a lot of group app comments and fascinating pictures and film fragments, continuing until very deep into the night; so there was definitely a lot of lost sleep to be caught up on, and what better time for that than a bus ride?

Day 2: A* and USTD

Escalation

No more excuses! Today's schedule started at a harsh 6:30. If there was any moment at which the jet lag would start making its impact, it should be now, after this much too short night. Surprisingly, there were no signs pointing that way, neither for myself (I've felt worse on ordinary weekdays) or for the students, many of who had probably also prudently decided that, maybe, just this one time, the whiskys should be kept to a bare minimum.

The organising committee has negotiated an early breakfast, which ordinarily (surprisingly) would otherwise be available only from 7:30. At the appointed time of 7:45 the whole group was once more ready to go, tieless (the dress code had changed at the last minute from Business Formal to Business Normal, a one-letter change that subtracted one tie, to the regret of no-one) but otherwise much the same as the day before.

First destination of the day: A-Star. I had mentally interpreted this to mean the heuristic-driven state space search algorithm used in Artificial Intelligence, but that turned out to be completely off the mark: it is an acronym that stands for the Agency for Science, Technology and Research. This in turn was presented at our pre-visit briefing (conducted each day by a couple of students charged with fulfilling that task for that particular visit) as a kind of Signaporese TNO, bridging between academic research and industry.

Agency for Science, Technoloy and Research

The daily schedule turns out to allow ample time for transportation: wisely, given the often unpredictable nature of public transport in foreign cities, but so far unnecessarily in the case of well-regulated Signapore. With half an hour to spare, there was time for coffee before we were lifted to (again) floor 13 of the building. There we were exposed to an exhibition-type presentation of some mildly interesting technological innovations, several of which brought Dr. Mark's yesterday remark in mind: the Signaporese are not very creative, but they know how to shop. Picture and voice recognition are of course nothing new, but the use to which you put them can still be. Our guides were not the type of persons you could ask what type of algorithm had been used for the implementation, or whether it ran server-side or client-side. More interesting I thought was to ponder the question: which of these innovations would be acceptable in the Netherlands? So many of them involve making private data public, and have potential security issues. In this way you can see tech innovation in a cross-cultural light, providing additional interest to an otherwise somewhat dull exhibition.

Max Brainwave

Another of the innovations was chemical rather than information technological: reclaiming acrylic acid from de residue of the oil palm after palm oil has been extracted. (I confess I was thinking of greased handpalms before I understood that one.) This is especially interesting for Signapore because they suffer a lot from smog caused by the burning of the 80% residue of the current processes in the surrounding countries of Malaisia and Indonesia.

On the 11th floor of a neighbouring tower we were treated to a presentation about the state of the art in detecting spoofing attempts against security measures: things like holding up a photo in front of a camera to fool a face recognition system. Questions could be asked but were in most cases not answered, or rather answered in the evasive way typical of non-confrontational countries where admitting you do not know the answer is shameful. It transpired that the research that had been presented had not been carried out by the presenters themselves.

Back to tower one, where we were treated to a demonstration of a couple of ongoing robotic development projects by two more research-level staff members of A-Star. Both were framed in terms of caring for the elderly: apparently Signapore is anticipating an even larger "gray wave" than the Netherlands - or maybe they are just more aware of it: this is a rather controlling, planning-type nation. The projects themselves did not appear to be very state-of-the-art or mature, but at least they were shown off by the guys who worked on them so we got some more enthousiasm and insights than before.

Half the group gathered together for the final presentation

The final item consisted of a presentation of funding opportunities for visiting PhD students. This was more interesting for myself than for the group, though a nice side effect was that I overheard several students say that they now realised getting good grades can actually help them in their career - the presenter had stressed that their scholarships are quite competitive.

After lunch in a hawker center vertically in between the building complex and the metro station, a rented bus brought us to USTD, the University of Singapore for Technology and Development - the place where Chris Poskitt works. Though Singapore is not that large and well-provided with modes of transportation, not all parts of the island take equal part of that. The eastern corner, where USTD is located, is not connected to the metro, and it's an hour by bus at the legal speed to which, of course, everyone is sticking.

Lecture by Aditya Mathor, Head of Pillar at USTD

We were collected in a lecture room and subjected to a series of presentations about USTD (5 year old university, aiming at 4000 undergrads eventually, no lack of funds) and some of the research carried out there. The name of Pieter Hartel was mentioned prominently: he has set up a long-term cooperation with this group, which is led by Aditya Mathur, our host of today. He explained that, rather than being organised according to disciplinary departments, the USTD has chosen a structure they call pillars, which broadly stand for application areas. He himself heads the pillar of Information Systems Technology and Design. In practice, this means they have essentially abandoned the idea that it is best for researchers who work in the same area to actually share an office: instead, different disciplines are mixed up, ostensibly with the idea that this fosters collaboration. This confirmed what Chris Poskitt told me yesterday; but from him I also learned that this fails to work in his case, the only effect being that he doesn't know any of his fellow office workers and he prefers to go and work in the library where it's quieter. I have to conclude that here is another ideal that belongs on the rubbish heap of history, alongside the notion that teenagers deep down love learning and will do so by themselves when given the chance.

3D-printed T-Rex

I hastily add that of course I subscribe to the idea that multidisciplinary research is useful and necessary, lest I be accused of ivory tower-inhabitation! It's just that, in order to be able to carry it off, you do have to have identifiable disciplines first, otherwise progress comes to a grinding halt.

Wall-climbing humans at USTD

Be that as it may, Mathur certainly has some fascinating projects going on, such as the development of a reconnaissance robot with different modes of locomotion: walking, but also rolling and climbing walls. They took their inspiration from the antics of a particular species of spider, and a very large, four-legged spider was definitely what the thing looked like. The most impressive facility we were shown is a small-scale, functional water cleaning installation, built to system test cyber-physical intrusion detection measures. All of it had either just become operational in the past year or will do so in the near future, which brought it home vividly to us that this place is indeed just getting going. Mathur seemed very very competent; with money to attract and hold people like him, this place can easily join the top.

 Chinese house donated by Jacky Chan

Although the bus was waiting, we still had a tour of some of the buildings awaiting us, which we could not now skip, at the risk of offending our proud hosts. We'd rather offend the bus driver by being late. The buildings included a fantastic 3D printing and construction workshop, a few 400-year old Chinese buildings donated by Jackie Chan, and a library without books (who needs books?) but with a collection of physical material samples so you can look at and feel the stuff you want to put into your design.

The bus driver was indeed less than pleased. Some ponderings about culture and time later. For now we were glad to get back to the hotel in reasonable time. For me, this meant I had the evening available to finish my contribution to an urgent outstanding deliverable that I had no time for before the trip, to make some dent in the collection of unread or unanswered mails, and maybe even to decrease the blog backlog.

Day 1: From embassy to Clarke Quay

A wee break

The official program of the study tour started this afternoon. The morning could still be used to our own preference, either by giving in to jet lag and sleeping out, or by doing some personal touristy stuff, or even by getting rid of some pesky work-related actions, as was the sad fate of yours truly.

Still, there is the physical body to be maintained - in fact, doing so is by many of our fellow humans seen to be a prime cause for doing everyting else. Eating is always an adventure in a foreign place, doubly so in a plce as foreign as the one in which we find ourselves. For the initial meal of the day, the risk is mitigated by the fact that hotel breakfasts have standardised on a bland average that is very similar all over the world, with a very few local highlights. In our case those highlights consist of bread and butter pudding (sweet, faintly reminiscent of the Dutch wentelteefjes, for which the omniscient Internet does not have a proper English alternative but in France and Belgium is called lost bread), and cocunut jam. For lunch there was no choice but to go down to some stall at some minutes walking distance, where indeed one could get very decent take-away food for even more decent prices. I made do with a lamb roll, worked down with some effort because no part of my body except my head believed it was time to eat something.

Signapore is a fine city (as they say); but what's the penalty for durians?

At 12:45 we got going. Today's dress code was "business formal", meaning the full monty: suits and ties. Going consisted first of all of getting down to the Dutch embassy. Good choice to start the routine of company visits, seen as a strategy to leaven the culture shock. Every member of the 5-person organising committee acted as mother duck for a group of 4 or 5 others. After negotiating the very well-regulated Signapore metro, drawing stares from all other passengers because of our climate-unsuitable suits and metro-unsuitable heights, one mother duck discovering that it is indeed possible to get into the wrong train (but that this mistake is easily set right at the next station) we first cooled our heels as well as other parts of our bodies downstairs before re-entering Dutch territory.

On the 13th floor we were welcomed by the vice-consul, Hans Akersboom, who filled us in some more on the history and culture of the young city state of Signapore, as well as the true reason to have an embassy (to make money). Then Mark van Staalduinen took the floor, representative of the Signapore office of TNO, who confirmed that they, too, are here for the money, this time in the form of apparently limitless funding for R&D projects. Signapore being the only country in the Asian economic region ASEAN that is acknowledged to be non-corrupt, everyone wants to invest here, rather than in some other place where the money is likely to end up lining the pockets of whoever is currently in power. Consequently these 1600 square kilometers are overflowing with money for innovation and technology.

Business formal, minus jackets

All this was an interesting insight in the local economy and culture. There was another session planned, in the form of a workshop under the guidance of "Dr. Mark", where the students were given an hour to investigate the most promising Blockchain application (Blockchain being best known as the technology underlying the Bitcoin currency), the risk involved therein, and the potential impact of that risk. This assignment was carried out in groups of 3 and 4, whose findings were then pitched back to the whole group. Quite impressive to see how quickly this was picked up and how well the students were able to collect material and turn that into a coherent story in such a short while. As a nice touch, the reward for the best 5-minute pitch consisted of a cold beer for the best-performing group. (Well, I say beer, but it was actually Heineken.)

More public art on the Signapore streets: a pattern emerges

We had gone a bit over schedule. Not a problem, since this sort of session is exactly what we're here for; but for this particular night I had arranged to meet Chris Poskitt, whom I know from my visits to York University. After a stint at the ETH Zürich, he is now in Signapore for a year as a postdoc. In fact, I had only today realised that the university he's staying at is actually the target of our tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon visit! Well, nothing to be done about the delay: the internet still worked, and 45 minutes were quickly added to our meeting time. I might have been able to make it at the original hour, but only at the price of not returning to the hotel to shed my suit: not an option, really. In fact, after being physically confronted with the consequences of walking for a stretch through the truly tropical heat, I had decided to follow the advice of wearing a cotton undershirt after all: as Matthijs Koridon was so kind to illustrate, sweat spots appearing all the way through your suit are not a nice sight for your host.

Signapore skyline at dusk

An hour or so later we pretty much bumped into each other at the selected destination: the Telok Ayer Market. This is a so-called "hawker centre", appearing rather unexpectedly as the only two-story old-style architecture buulding amidst the highrises downtown. A hawker center, I had myself be explained and could indeed see around me, is a regulated eatery where the government provides the buulding, stalls, tables and cutlery, which are enclosed by food stalls, which are separate small businsses run by individual entrepreneurs much as they would operate a cart on the streets, of the type so common in, say, Indonesia. I suspect this will turn out to be a very Signaporese solution unknown in Kuala Lumpur.

Fish stall (stingray center stage)

The choice here was very varied: many national cuisines were represented, though they all somehow managed to look the same and exude the same atmosphere, even the grillhouse. With the help of Chris I chose a stingray, which I would certainly never have selected on my own, as well as some more ordinary-looking noodles from a non-fish-type stall and sate from a vendor approaching us as we sat. Drinks were to be obtained at yet another stall: beer, at a price which after yesterday evenening I considered to be reasonable. It was all delicious, even the stringray about which I would almost certainly not have said that as little as a year ago. It seems my personal programme of broadening my palate is paying off.

Erdinger on Clarke Quay

From the hawker center we chose to go on foot to Clarke Quay, a popular area on the waterfront, by way of a shopping mall where I could buy some undershirts. These turned out to be priced in the order of one beer each, which induced me to buy some regular short-sleeved shirts are well. I think there is room in my suitcase. Clarke Quay was lively but not too much so. I had half thought to meet some of the students there, but (judging from the dozens of messages and pictures on the group app) they had opted for either more high-brow places such as Marina Bay, or more seedy ones where alcohol was to be had at more affordable prices and/or female company was more abundant. Just as well, maybe: this way, Chris and I had time to chat in relative quiet. I was regaled with some further anecdotes about life in Signapore, as well as about the USTD to be visited tomorrow. Not too late (but too late for the metro, which ends at midnight) we took a cab back, which dropped me off at the hotel. Taxis are on the affordable side of this strangely priced country; moreover, it seems to be a regular saying that in Signapore you can trust even the taxi drivers.

Though it would have been wiser to opt for the bed at this moment, wisdom had gone out at some point when the Erdinger kept coming in, so I decided it was a good moment to investigate the rooftop terrace of the hotel. It had by this time cooled down to 28 degrees or so, a reasonable temperature at which to distil some of the day's events into blog text. I had to turn down an offer of some whisky from our dear - some vestiges of wisdom were still clinging. After a pleasant hour, without too much blog progress, I decided that I had better take advantage of the six hours of bedtime still remaining.

Underway

Waving off in style

When arriving at the University, where the bus was scheduled to leave at 15:00, there was a surprisingly full parking lot and a group of 50 or so students and (once more) parents and partners, for a second round of the long goodbye. The fill degree of the parking lot turned out to have more to do with the football game of FC Twente taking place at that moment: waves of sound rolled over us from afar - impressively loud in fact, given that the stadium is 1500m away.

Bus exit at Schiphol

After a first halfhearted practice of the buddy check principle, a protocol that I might explain later in more detail, we all got aboard smoothly for an uneventful bus trip, enlivened by the uncensured version of Julik's questionnaire (in which he himself won a suspiciously large number of categories) arriving at Schiphol with a mere 45 minutes delay due to major roadwords near Muiden. Never mind, with a departure time of 20:55 we had quite a bit of leeway - though it must have been irritating for the batch of wavers-off waiting at Schiphol for the third and last opportunity to say their goodbyes.

MISC queuing at the bagage drop-off

The remaining leeway was actually fast used up by the usual queues, for bagage drop-off, passport control, hand luggage scan and (slightly less usual) MacDonalds - some of which were longer than I have seen before at Schiphol, and all of which were aggravated by the well-known law that a group moves slower than any individual member therein. Nevertheless, all went without a hitch, and though due to our delay we didn't get to meet Sander Bannink at the airport, who is taking a different approach via Dubai as he also visits a friend there on the way back, no actual winner of the "first to get lost" or "first to be late" categories materialised as yet.

Sander, having taken the Dubai route

A flight of 12 hours requires a sleeping strategy. For the last few long-distance trips, mine has been to sleep as little as I could, on the principle that I would then be so tired upon arrival that I could sleep at any time and so get into the right rhythm straight away. I was not sitting very close to the rest of the group, as a consequence of my attempts to get the best seat possible during checkin, but later I heard that many of them had gone for the other extreme of maximal sleep, in some cases chemically induced. We'll see how that works out for them. With the in-flight entertainment you have nowadays, you can actually pass the time rather pleasantly: after a fruitless attempt to join Sytse's multiplayer Texas Hold'em game I decided to catch up on some films I missed in the cinema and successively made my way through Carol, A Man Called Ove, Alice through the Looking Glass, The Hateful Eight and part of Angry Birds. From time to time there were minor inerruptions such as servings of water or toilet stops. Midway through the fourth film I did doze off for half an hour or so.

Colourful: 101 GB (100GB for the first 5 days, 1GB for the next 2)

Landing brought no more than the usual disorientation. So far I call my sleeping strategy a success. It is 6 hours later here, meaning that our bodies want to wake up only when it's around 2 in the afternoon. We were picked up according to plan by a bus that brought us to the hotel, but not before we had stocked up on local money and (much more importantly) internet GBs. Many of us, myself included, fell for an offer of a 1 GB sim-card good for 7 days, with a promotional offer of another free 100GB in the first 5 days. That is such a ridiculous number: you could stream a continuous live HD video for those 5 days and still not reach 100 GB. It corresponds to my normal data usage for the next for 8 years.

Emily Mount Hangout Hotel

The sedentary ride from the airport to the hotel gave us our first impression of the city of Signapore. Very clean, as befits its reputation. The motorway from the airport to the city, which doubles as an emergency runway, is lined with majestic trees called 5 o'clock trees, or also rain trees, because they close their leaves at that time of the afternoon, and when rain threatens. At some point the famous items of the Signapore skyline came in sight, about which I'll have occasion to write more later. Fifteen minutes later still we were in the hotel, where we were somewhat later joined by our luggage which had been transported in a separate van that promptly suffered from a breakdown.

A different layer of humanity on the streets

The final activity on this very long day (if you had tried, like I did, to pretend the night didn't exist) was a collective dinner in downtown Signapore. About half an hour's walk, a good opportunity to sniff the atmosphere of the darkening city. It is of course a metropole and as such full of Starbucks, MacDonalds, KFCs and 7/11s, but those are superficial similarities. The inhabitants are a mixture of Chinese, Indian, Indonesian and Malayan, making for a very different layer of humanity on the streets. Signs can also be found in all those languages. On the average the people you pass are a head shorter than a Dutchman, so they reach no higher than my breastbone; let alone the breastbones of Sander Gieseling en Wybren Kortstra, both of whom surely span over 2 meter. Streets are wide, but with a lot of green also. Almost all shops are open at 19:30, and there are plenty of shoppers. The slow-moving, very well-behaved traffic drives on the left of the street. We managed not to cross the street while the pedestrian light was red, despite minutes of standstill on all sides, so avoiding potential heavy fines and criminal records. At some point, birds appeared to be twittering all around us, though none were in sight.

Seated and ready to order

The restaurant we reached was well-prepared for us. Outside in the very warm, humid air, seated at a long lable fanned to some coolness, we enjoyed a very good Indian-type meal. The local beer is Tiger; when they ran out we transferred to the Indian Kingfisher. This managed to keep the spiciness of the food to a bearable level. Afterwards, though a lot of participants were up for some more exploring, I myself and my colleague lecturer, Luís Ferreira Pires, decided to call it a not-so-very-early night and returned to the hotel. There will be other evenings to take advantage of the local night life. All in all, a very promising start to the MISC study tour!