Singapore, Day 1 - August 29 2007

Arrived bright and early in Singapore this morning.  In fact due to a beefy tailwind most of the way, we rocked up an hour earlier than we were due to (and we were due at the unholy time of 5:45am).  Too bad Celine (slacker!) wasn’t as early as the plane…

Also my cunning plan to get up the previous morning at 6am, stay awake all day and then pop a sleeping pill to ensure an unconscious plane trip was a total failure.  There’s just no way I could find to fold this lanky frame of mine into those little ecconomy class spaces and actually be comfortable enough to fall asleep.  If only they showed big brother on the flight, that might have done it…On the plus side the food was pretty bloody good.  Breakfast of chicken & noodles, fruit, yoghurt, breadroll & jam and a pastry was about 12x as good as the vita britz I normally put myself through.

Keeping on the food theme for a moment, those of you who know me probably won’t be too surprised over the first thing I’ve learned to say in chinese here.  Ordering an iced coffee - my caffeine addiction needs satisfying dammit and it’s way too hot here to drink a regular brew.

Anyways after finding the backpackers it was off to wander the city.   First up we found some sort of Indian temple with colourful statues all over/in it, including a rather disturbing Indian god of some description:

I’m not sure who this guy is but he was kinda hidden around the back of the temple - one can only assume the other gods get a tad upset over his apparent delight at enviacerating what appears to be a young child.  I guess this is the bloke you pray to when someone has keyed your car and you want a little Karma action…

Next temple was even more ornate, I was waiting and waiting for the couple of people milling around outside of it to leave and get a clear shot of it when a damn tourist bus pulled up (bloody tourists!).  Best shot of it was when Celine grabbed my camera off me and took a snap of part of the roof, so that’s the one I’ll post here:

After wandering around a while We headed back to Celine’s house where I met her maid.  Never thought I’d be rubbing shoulder’s with the kind of people that actually have a full time maid!  I tried to help her clean up after lunch but with Philipino being her native language and my accent it took a minute or two to convey that I was offering help and not asking (as she thought) for her to wash my clothes. After lunch Celine had a job interview so I went for a wander over to the Chinese/Japanese gardens.  Bad timing as only the Japanese section was open, the Chinese one being closed in preperation for some big water festival.  Sucked as the Japanese ones were quite zen, the minimalist kind of zen that is, ie nothing much about.  So I had to be content with some shots of the Chinese pagoda from across the river:

Comments

[Celine]

Haha! I got the best shot of the temple. Photographer in the making....:) Maybe the student will be surpass the "master" someday. And yes it is in "" coz he's nobody's mater but he's own. After all, it's only Ben *scoff*

[James Quinn-Hawtin]

Bwahahaha... love it