Inaugural Activities

The Fullerton Hotel where I am staying sent a letter around saying that the bar would be airing the live inauguration and offering specials. Two mini burgers and a beer for S$28 and also a Presidential Sling for S$16. Being the crazy American that I am I decided to go downstairs to watch the event - bear in mind that the inauguration occurs at 12 PM which is 1 AM in Singapore.

I met a co-worker in the bar for dinner and after we ordered a manager came over and asked if we wouldn't mind being interviewed as Channel News Asia was coming in to cover the celebration. I figured what the heck. We were then brought over the Presidential Sling as they wanted these to feature in the coverage being filmed. So now in front of me I have a beer, a sling and a glass of wine (we had ordered a bottle before ordering dinner) decisions, decisions, decisions.
We have our dinner and then about 30 minutes later the news crew shows up we get moved to another table and since our slings were not fresh we were brought new ones as well as new burgers. They took shots of the food and drinks alone, then they started directing us:

• Eating I don't eat burgers so I just went for the fries.
• Talking and looking at the TV coverage (the inauguration wasn't on at the time).
• Toasting with our Presidential Slings

After these shots were taken we were interviewed. I was asked what I thought of Obama's election, what I wanted to hear him say during his speech, what I was hoping he would bring to office and a couple of other things as well which I can't remember at this point. My co-worker was asked as an Australian what the inauguration meant to him. It was a lot of fun and being given free food and drinks was a nice little benefit.

I stayed up to watch the speech and at 1 AM (Noon eastern) there was a round of applause after Obama was inaugurated and the bar passed out free champagne. My co-worker texted me in the morning to let me know that he had just seen me on the news I missed it unfortunately, I keep checking the website to see if they post it and the hotel has said they will try and get me a copy of the clip as well. The web does have videos posted and I may be in 1 of them but my computer can't show the video clips :(

In case you were wondering what is exactly in a Presidential Sling - Jim Beam, Gin, Southern Comfort, Pineapple Juice, Blueberries Grenadine and some other stuff as well.