18 December 2011 - Conference in Singapore

This small Buddhist temple was right next door to my hotel in Singapore.  Though small, it was in a fairly residential area and thus was quite busy.  Consequently, the hotel smelled a good bit like incense from the many daily prayers offered.

The conference was actually held at the Hotel Fort Canning, a few subway stops up from the hotel I stayed in.  Fort Canning was a British military headquarters for much of the 1800s and 1900s until the Japanese conquered Singapore in World War II.  Though Singapore was returned to the British after World Ward II, the Fort was turned into a hotel and within a about a decade, Singapore became its own sovereign nation.

You've heard the rumors about Singapore......well......they're true.

The Hotel Fort Canning is a very classy place.  It is a popular place for weddings, galas, and even geeky computer conferences.

On the grounds around the hotel (Fort Canning Park), I found this sculpture with the inscription: "Love and Kindness are Never Wasted."

Here's a bit more traditional sculpture at Fort Canning, part of a fountain that was off for cleaning and repair.

Here's a view of one of the conference rooms.  I didn't have someone take a picture of me during any of my presentations, I get nervous enough as it is.  So I took a pic of an empty room during one of the breaks.  My talk and several discussions about my forthcoming data mining book went very well.

As part of the conference, we got to take a bus tour of the city.  I found Singapore to be somewhat like Houston in terms of its downtown -- there wasn't really one downtown, there were several clusters of high rise office buildings.

This building is a combination of hotel, shopping and business.  It is on the harbor front.  The bridge across the top of the three towers is called the Skywalk.  We were supposed to get to go up there as part of the bus tour, but when we got there we got some lame explanation from our tour guide about why we weren't going, so I only got to take a picture.  The white balls floating in the water are peoples' wishes or prayers for Christmas and the New Year.

When Joanne and I were in London about nine years ago, we rode the London Eye, which at the time was the largest Ferris wheel in the world.  It has now been surpassed twice, once by a giant wheel in China, and then in 2008 by the Singapore Flyer, seen on the left side of this photo.

Like any good city, Singapore has a Chinatown where cheap goods are hawked to tourists anxious for a good deal.  I did my part, bringing back ear rings for all four of my girls, and Angry Birds pencil cases for the younger ones.

We went to a Buddhist temple during the bus tour.  I liked this Buddha.  He presides over the fifth circle of Hell, where children who are disobedient to their parents are sent to be punished.

After a week in the Orient, it was time to come home.  It's a 24 hour trip, so I did a lot of sleeping and watched a number of movies.  I also had some grading to get done and worked on my writing a bit.  When I arrived home, the girls had decorated our tree.  This year we went with a live tree, a Douglas Fir in burlap.  The goal is to keep it alive in the house and then plant it in the backyard after it has served its Christmas purpose.

We wish you all a wonderful and restful week leading up to Christmas.