Singapore International Water Week Opening Ceremony

At about 5:30 the three of us (Henry, Meghan, and I) arrived at the opening ceremony and dinnerfor SIWW  at Suntect Expo Center.  This "lounge suit" event turned out to be a pretty neat event.  All the way from the United States, Linda Reid UW-Whitewater professor, mentor and friend, met us along with a number of other folks from a Milwaukee contingency. 

The guest of honor was the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugarantman.  Yes, that is a very hard name to say.  Entrances and statures are very important here in Singapore. So the Minister arrived 30 minutes late to Star Wars like fanfare music - I'm serious.  The gentleman next to me to whom I chatted for a good while explained to me that these were just normal cultural proceedings, meaning the lights and fanfare entrances and status queues such as this were common in Asia whereas some western countries e.g. the US, find this a bit silly.  That aside the speech went very well and included a specific name drop to my organization and the opening of our ceremony for our aquatic science center tomorrow.  We were one of only two or three organizations to be referenced in the evening so it was quite a nice piece of publicity.

My estimates held a few thousand delegates present at the opening event.  I will let the following pics show you all a bit of what it looked like at the event.