Rants and raves about stuff happening in and around my life in Singapore

Monday, November 02, 2020

The US Election

When Donald Trump entered the race to become the president of the United States, the world looked on and laughed. No one expected him to win, no one took him seriously. And when he did win many like me thought what the hell is wrong with America. 



He has not disappointed either. His term in office will be looked back on as probably one of the worst presidents in the Americans history. There are so many things you could say about the man, about his continual bending of the truth or simply out right misrepresentation of the facts. He is so unqualified to hold the office its simply boggles the mind.

And now he is running for a second term, and make no mistake the people who voted for him last time will continue to do so despite his terrible handling of the Covid-19 situation there, or his pandering to the white supremacists and more. And the sad fact of the matter is, if he doesn't win (which is highly unlikely in my view) he is already on record that he will not accept the results. This fact alone is enough to disqualify him for the very office he is looking desperately to cling onto, after all the shame that goes with a one term president is something that he clearly wants to avoid.

And of course, when he is no longer protected by the office he now holds everything will come out of the woodwork, something clearly that must also be on his mind.

*UPDATE 8th November*

So now that the saga of the American election is over and Biden becomes the 46th President, American holds its collective breath and waits for #45 to give his concession speech. The question remains if he will show any level of graciousness in the last moments of his shameful single term in office or try to hold onto power by any means necessary plunging the country into even more chaos. If I was to answer that question myself I would say based on his character alone it's going to be a bumpy few months indeed!


Sunday, November 01, 2020

Hong Kong Travel Bubble

With the first travel bubble opening between Singapore and Hongkong on November the 6th, without need for quarantine at either destination. But travellers will have to undergo mutually recognised testing for Covid-19 that show they are negative possibly on departure and arrival at both destinations although that is still unclear.



They will also have to take dedicated flights that do not accept transit passengers and the number of these flights can be raised or lowered, depending on the pandemic situation in both cities. Air travel bubbles will be for general travellers and they have no requirements for a controlled itinerary (as is the case with some of the current green lane travel options), which is good news!

Of course, as is typical given the demand the cost of air tickets between Singapore and Hong Kong increased over night since the announcement and no doubt as demand increases, given that many people have felt trapped on this island of Singapore since the Covid-19 pandemic, we can expect the fare to continue to increase too. 

But on the plus side, it's a start of returning to normal and shows what the future of travel has in store for us. Until such time as a vaccine becomes widely available we can expect Covid-19 tests to become the new norm as more of these travel bubbles become available. And you can expect to pay a premium price for those travel options too. 

Let's keep fingers crossed that more and more countries manage to successfully control the spread of Covid-19 domestically, and that more and more people take personal responsibility for doing the same. There has been too much loss of life already with this virus.