Singapore!!

Singapore is amazing. It is... perhaps... Utopia... yesterday I decided I would wander aimlessly and let fate decide what parts of Singapore I saw. As I walked, I decided it would be fun to look for pollution and dilapidated buildings in the downtown area. I found one building that had obviously had a lot of posters put up and taken down over a few months... and one patch of one building with peeling paint.... for the first half of the day I counted 4 things on the ground that weren't tree leaves and flower petals that had fallen that day... during the latter half it picked up a bit, which I suppose means the streets are cleaned nicely. At one point I saw some dirtiness in the water and thought that I had finally caught Singapore's dirty secret, only to look up and see someone netting out of the water at that very moment...
It's unreal. All the best parts of every city I've ever been to have merged in Singapore... Excellent public transportation that uses it's advertising space to promote earth friendly living instead of ipods and whitening cream. It's clean and beautiful. Every where you turn you see beautiful art installations and amazing architecture. The skyline is breathtaking from every vantage point I've seen it from.
Singapore now ranks with my favorite cities in the world... and is certainly the best of it's kind (although Chiang Mai, San Francisco, and Asheville are very nice for totally different reasons).
So, yesterday I wandered the streets for the morning, including Fort Canning Hill Park. It was beautiful, and had tons of informational plaques to inform me of the history of the place. I spent a good bit of the afternoon in the Asiatic Cultures museum. I probably saw less than half the museum, focusing yesterday on Singapore and the Vietnam special installation. I hope to go back... although time is at a premium. Today, the Art Museum and the national museum have free entry at specified times, so I hope to hit those up.
in the evening I ran into a very nice local who decided to vie me a tour of the Buddhist temple in China town.... A very nice place with 5 stories including a museum and a rooftop orchid garden.
As I said, I'm staying in little India, which last night really lived up to its name. It was absolutely packed with south Indians... Truly, just like being in Channai, only very very clean. I stayed at a place called "Inn Crowd" which has a lot of hip backpackers and free wifi, but everything else about it leave alot to be desired. 12 beds to a dorm room and only one bathroom for the whole place (there are at least 6 dorms). Although the communal area is much better, I've decided to go back to the other place tonight because it had only 6 people per room, you could keep your bags in your room, and the bathrooms were very very nice. It's only $2 more... but no wifi... perhaps I'll come back here for my 3rd night?
Today, as I said, I hope to hit the two museums, hit the merlion statue, and have dinner at the China town night market... which looked great last night but I'd already eaten... I have to say I've been disappointed with the food, so far. I've had Indian food for every meal, and none of it has been very good. Hopefully I'll hit paydirt soon...

Singapore!

Well, I had my first night out in Singapore (and probably only)... it was pretty successful... and ridiculously expensive... I ordered a drink, and he held up his hand with some gesture, i was in an agreeable mood so i just nodded without thinking.... then he put 2 pitchers on the bar and started pouring booze into them... i was like, whoa... and he said 2 for one... then I got to thinking, "this ain't Thailand... if he's giving me two for one, how much must one cost?" Low and behold, 40 bucks! 30 american or so.... jeeze and crimminy! I ended up just putting one on a table and drinking the other... deciding that being able to walk home was better than making the most of my money.

Otherwise, I danced, chatted and had a good time. I talked to some Cubans and grew increasingly frustrated as my Spanish kept coming out as Thai. Halfway knowing two languages will take some getting used to... Singaporeans are a world apart from Thailand. So far my impression of it is that it is very much like New York City... only that it is very clean and all of the various ethnicities are replaced by asians of different types. Everybody speaks flawless well-educated English, which is an interesting experience after being in Thailand for so long. I'm staying in little India and liking it so far... just checked into a little hostel that seems to have a pretty cool crowd, although it's got some inconvenient rules (I can't bring my bags to my room?) Not sure if I'll stay here, but the free wifi is nice...