M&M Holzmann

Today, about 40 Marines and Sailors headed out to Paula Ubin to do a beach clean up. The island was a quick boat ride, ~15 mins, from Changi Village. We then spent a good 3 hours cleaning up the beach, before stopping for some lunch, and heading home. The island had a cute little village with a dramatically different feeling from the island of Singapore. It was far more laid back, absent of technology, and only a few motorized vehicles…none of which we saw in use.

After the beach clean up, we headed back to the ship to clean up. Then, we headed out to Sembawang, another Singaporean military base, for a unit function. I was able to ship off some gifts & holiday cards. We had some lunch/dinner at the Terror Club – named after the HMS Terror, an old British vessel.

Johnson and I promptly headed out of there for less militaristic climes. We headed down to Marina Bay, a bad choice since there’s NOTHING there. Then, we hit up Raffle’s Place…um, cool if you need a gym or a mall. Then, we headed toward Boat Quay (pronounced ‘key’), where I had a beer or two while catching up on all this Internet stuff. Pics have been posted on my Facebook account.

Singapore is clean & fun, but very far from what I thought an authentic Asian experience would be.

We’re in Singapore. It’s great to be off ship. I can barely type right now because my hands got totally thrashed during the obstacle course that we ran today, on the Sembawang School of Infantry base. I ran the course 7 times, which was 6 times too many. I’m now missing much of the skin from my right hand and a decent chunk from my left hand.

Tonight, I posted a bunch of pictures from our float on my Facebook. If you would like to get regular updates via email, then please email me at holzmannmj@11meu.usmc.mil. 

I miss you all an wish that we could all be living it up in Singapore, because it seems to me that this is either a place to make your name in international business or party like a college kid.