Greetings to anyone coming to this site via the mySingapore Twitter stream! To provide you with some context, my name is Geoffrey Long and I’m the Communications Director for the US side of the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab. In early December 2008 I flew from chilly Cambridge, Massachusetts to sunny Singapore to help our Singapore lab present at SIGGRAPH Asia 2008 and to see Singapore for the first time myself. Armed with my trusty Canon PowerShot SD890 IS, I decided to keep a running videoblog of my experiences there and the results are below. You can also find still photographs from my trip in this Flickr album.
And now, the links:
- SG0801: The kickoff! Wherein our hero gets things going from the tarmac at Logan International Airport in Boston.
- SG0802: Heathrow. Wherein our hero reflects on the pug ugliness of Heathrow Airport’s new Terminal 5, which looks like the Airport That IKEA Built – and not in a good way.
- SG0803: Singapore! Wherein our hero reaches Singapore at last, and realizes that the key to creating an airport that feels welcoming, as opposed to industrial and cold, is a combination of color and foliage.
- SG0804: iHotel. Wherein our increasingly-exhausted hero sets up camp at the hotel in Singapore, and reflects on what he’s learned in one bewilderingly long day of travel.
- SG0805: Hiking in the Park. Wherein our hero makes the boneheaded mistake of scaling a set of steps up a huge hill at around 11AM near the Earth’s equator. *cough, wheeze*
- SG0806: The Spice Trail. Wherein our hero reveals his secret foodie nature and miraculously refrains from making a Dune joke.
- SG0807: 360 Degrees of Singaporean History. Wherein our hero does his best iPod commercial impersonation while literally surrounded by Singaporean history.
- SG0808: Christmas on Orchard. Wherein our hero reports from one of the biggest, most impressive stretches of shopping space he’s ever seen.
- SG0809: Geekville. Wherein our hero, lost in one of the biggest malls he’s ever seen, discovers that days spent in meetings and setting up show booths are bad for blogging.
- SG0810: @SIGGRAPH. Wherein our hero reports from the expo floor, remarking on the apparent state of computer graphics in Singapore.
- SG0811: Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain… Wherein our hero, weary but happy, relaxes outside the mall to the lovely sounds of a Christmas typhoon.
- SG0812: Digital Trees? Wherein our hero reports in after the Lucasfilm Singapore party and marvels at a canopy of towering structures serving double duty as public art and public function.
- SG0813: Illuminated. Kites. Wherein our hero is awestruck by the simple ingenuity of putting lights on kites.
- SG0814: After Lucasfilm. Wherein our hero speaks briefly about his time visiting the Lucasfilm Animation Singapore offices. (Apologies for the sound quality, lighting quality and lack of content due to NDA – most of you can probably skip this one.)
- SG0815: At the Night Zoo. Wherein our hero pays a visit to Singapore’s famed Night Zoo and then discovers that his camera really doesn’t take video in the dark worth a dang. This footage of the fire show was the best I could do!
- SG0816: Night Zoo, Lucasfilm and the Last Day. Wherein our hero provides a recap of the Night Zoo and the Lucasfilm visit, sends a shout-out to Eddie Wong, and contemplates plans for the last full day in Singapore.
- SG0817: Malls and Circuses. Wherein our hero expounds on the Singaporean love of shopping malls.
- SG0818: The Asian Civilizations Museum. Wherein our hero explores, among other things, a video triptych entering the Asian Civilizations Museum.
- SG0819: The Merlion! Wherein our hero successfully completes his pilgrimage to the (in)famous Singapore Merlion.
- SG0820: The Esplanade. Wherein our hero introduces the audience to the arts and shopping center that is Singapore’s Esplanade (and reveals that he’s not entirely sure about the preferred pronunciation of the word esplanade).
- SG0821: Signing Off from Terminal 5. Wherein our hero brings this entire adventure very nearly full circle by signing off from London’s Heathrow airport, and begrudgingly revises his opinion of the earlier-maligned Terminal 5.
Thanks for stopping by, and let me know what you think!