Singapore Sling

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Trip Start Jul 11, 2008 Previous
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  Singapore, Singapore
Saturday, July 12, 2008

Housekeeping from SF: So we were not allowed to carry-on our packs. They have a 7 kilo limit. We were prepared for this and packed hydro-paks that have several large pockets. Everything we need fits in there (including the travel scrabble).
This is not a paid advert for Singapore Air...but that airline ROCKS!!! They have a full entertainement set up at every seat. Movies, games, news, TV shows, language classes, the list goes on. I actually had leg room. The food was constant (if not fantastic). It all made a 23 hour flight mildly tolerable. We did not have to break out our books, magazines, ipods, or Scrabble once. Josh chose our seats using a site that analyses the best places to sit for given airplane models. Ours were perfect as Josh and I were the only ones in our row. This gave me extra legroom, and saved us from the usual climb-overs of a long flight.

Singapore:
Immigration was a breeze. 30 seconds of paperwork, and we walked out with a 90 day visit permit. through the "Nothing to Declare" door for Customs and out to the taxi.

The plan for Singapore. We extended our stopover to give us about 10 hours to get some of the city state's famous grub. Of course we were hitting it at midnite,  but were given to understand that people stayed up late here. They do btw...people were still partying, driniking, eating, and dancing at 3:40am.
Our taxi driver: We caught a taxi and told the driver to take us to the nearest Burger King.  We were in luck because they also have a Carl's Jr. and McDees. Choices choices......but I kid. We asked for a place with hawker food that was open late. We told him we were especially interested in the famous chili crab. Bordain rhapsodised about it on one of his shows. The driver said he knew just the place and then proceedes to offer us a menu of a different type. He said he could, "hook you guys up with any variety of woman you want..Fillipino, Russian, Thai, Chinese." I guess the words "thank you, but we're not interested" were lost on him. He took a detour down a side street that was lined with young women wearing nearly nothing and said.."these girls you don't want...you will have troubles later....but I can get you better at a hotel called Hotel 8. It's a lucky place...you can get lucky."  I looked at Josh with a "is he serious look." Do all American men make a beeline for the massage spas and lucky hotels? I was expecting scenarios like this in Thailand...but in Singapore, where they cane you for tagging, fine you for chewing gum, and hang you for drugs, I guess I was not expecing the first local I spoke to be so energetic about pimping out his own compatriots (among others). We convinced him to leave us to our pursuit of culinary pleasure, and the street he dropped us off at turned out to have many food choice and a deliciously seedy character. Our dinner: chile crab, fish head cury, friend noodles, and tiger beer. So we ate on a very long  and busy strech of outside restaurants, people of the night, cops, blackmarket cig sales, and fake Starbucks. After dinner we took a 20 minute walk around the area and said "no thank you" about 50 times. Our colorful cabbie notwithstanding, I love this place! It's a heady mix of cultures, foods, East, West, and in between. It's a shame we're here so briefly. Another place to come back to. I know that there is a lot more to this city than what we saw and I'm sure that there are many different sides one could see.
My Chinese speaking friends will laugh at this: I have been using Mandarin to communicate in Singapore. Yes me...Mr. One tone...Mr. Struggled-through-one-semester-of beginner-Chinese. I have been using it with the fake Starbuck baristas, the taxi drivers, people on the street. They love it. They actually smile at me...or are they laughing? Never mind that when I say "do you?" it sounds like the word for horse. So to the teacher who tried to teach me Chinese, xie xie, and guess what?....TONES DON"T MATTER! ;)

Maybe more on Singapore later with photos for SF, Korea, and this place.

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