Pardon the Interruption...

(Singapore.)

Howdy.

I have stolen the remote control. The transmission has been hijacked to great pain for all those who are now reading this. With brief inspiration borne from 3 beers, a dark room and an odd series of boring moments I am compelled to share my latest adventure. That and I am able to bore the most people with the least amount of effort. A burden it is explaining two weeks halfway around the world when you know no one cares. To overcome the deadness in their eyes I focus on their forehead and soldier on. Here. None of that. Liberation.

As M referenced, I was in Singapore for a couple weeks. I went for work. I do a job that is mostly meaningless and even more boring to hear about so I won't begin to detail that part of the trip. So onto the fun things.

I live in wild and wonderful, which is near DC. This is a great place. This is also very far from my chosen destination. 26 hours far. Do you know what you can do in 26 hours? You can watch almost 13 movies. You can listen to Dark Side of the Moon about 28 times. You can even, possibly, come up with the answer to life (42!). This is a long time. I do not sleep on planes. I would rather be acutely aware of my upcoming death than be shocked out of a delicious dream by the sound of the plane splitting in two. So I watched the same movies, all 8 of them, twice. I still had more time to kill - so I peed and then watched year old episodes of Desperate Housewives.

I had a lay over in Tokyo. This is me in Tokyo eating sushi.


Riveted yet? We're not even in Singapore yet. Just wait.

Singapore is a city created on a little speck of dirt that is off the coast of Malaysia. It used to be part of Malaysia. Singapore quit the federation, Malaysia says they kicked them out. Singapore calls the space between the island and the Asian mainland a causeway. Malaysia calls it the ocean. This is important. I'll tell you why later. Suspense.


I stayed in a part of town called Bugis. It's nice. It's downtown. Near China Town, Little India and Arab Street. I was a block away from the SMRT (Singapore Mass Rail Transit!). Making my travel very easy. You buy tickets and when you return the ticket you get a 1 singapore dollar back as a return deposit. So most travel is around 1 - 2 Sing Dollars.

Singapore was established by Mr. Raffles. A British guy from the old Imperial days but after the founding of the United States of America. This is notable because Singapore is very young. Even old things are not old. This is OK. Old things are great. So are young things. In many ways....

China town is pretty. Go here for a good deal on silk, junk and good dim sum. Dim Sum is a southern Chinese cooking style. Its like a bunch of appetizers. Very good. You better like it. It will be your breakfast for your time here. Or. It won't so you'll be eat Kafa Bread and soft boiled eggs. Don't.

About 50% of the country is comprised of multi-generational Chinese. The other ethnicities are Indian and Malay. There are four official languages. Chinese, English, Malay and Hindi. Everything is in English however. If not English, then Chinese. Not as helpful. Everyone speaks broken English. I was with a Chinese national. That was very helpful. Language, this way, was never a problem.

(notice the transport ships...)

So outside of eating and drinking I also went to an island. It was renamed to Sentosa Island in the 70s. Why renamed? Because Singapore wanted to turn it and the fort on it into a marketing and tourist destination.

(AHHHH CRABS.)

Cause it wouldn't be Singapore if it could not be sold, marketed or turned into a mall. These are the cool island pictures. With an aquarium and this odd statue called the Merlion. It's their national symbol now. The statue actually is just a wire frame with concrete. An elevator goes to the top for 10 Sing dollars. Totally marketed. Total claptrap. I loved every minute of it.

(merlion. National Symbol. Marketing Tool.)

Oh. The reason why causeways v. oceans are important. Its because the most southern point of Sentosa is called the "MOST SOUTHERN POINT IN ASIA!". Amazing. Remarkable. So remarkable I did NOT take a picture of the sign pointing this out nor did I actually even go there. It was 5 minutes out of the way. That was determined to be a hassle. Why. Because there is another sign. Somewhere in some touristy location in Malaysia saying the SAME thing. Why. Because they think there is OCEAN between them and Singapore. Not a causeway. Therefore, Singapore is not part of the Asian continent but some random island in the sea. Compelling and totally childish. For this, I hate countries.

(I would be FACING the most southern point...)

See. Singapore is on overdrive. Nothing is sacred. They turned a monastery/church into a mall. For true. Not just any church but one of the oldest, largest and most beautiful ones on the island. That's OK though. That is how they roll. Bless'em for having no economic morality.

I also ate a whole bunch. Not a shocker. I took pictures of my food. These will go to the other blog. Which I may or may not post to. I've stolen the crap out of this one. Rambled. Completely ruined any sense of intelligence M may have tricked everyone into thinking I had. It halloween. Time for the masks to come off.

(cheers!)

Enjoy the photos. If you made it this far, WOW.

I promise not to trouble you again.

-t.