Sweating in Singapore

Whew - it's HUMID here! Good thing my time in Florida has trained me well for it.

I arrived here from Hong Kong on Monday afternoon. It started off rather inconveniently, as I signed up for a shuttle bus to the hotel that I had to wait 40 minutes for. No big deal, except that it left 10 minutes early and without me! So I had to wait for another 30 minutes for the next one. Luckily there have been no further snafus.

I checked into the Le Meridien hotel that I had booked with my Starwood points and within seconds had the contents of my bag strewn about the HUGE hotel room. Okay, it wasn't huge at all but when you're used to a bunk bed... I had dinner at the Irish pub across the street, hoping to meet some other people, but it was dead, so I headed back to the hotel to do my laundry in the bathroom sink. As most people do on vacation in Singapore at the Le Meridien hotel. I had to take advantage of being able to take over the bathroom! And in this humidity the only way to get things to dry is to give them at least 2 days to do so.

Tuesday I headed into Chinatown which was perhaps even more adventurous than skydiving. I stopped at some food stalls that were covered and arranged around tables, like an outside Chinese food court. I tried Hainese Chicken Rice and a watermelon juice slushy. Ordering required a lot of pointing, but it all tasted delicious and cost me a whopping 5 Singapore Dollars (around US$3). I decided to splash out on dessert and pointed to a colorful, ice cream looking photo. For my 2 Singapore Dollars I was presented with what I suppose you could describe as a sno-cone with mango goop on it in a bowl. It was good, although very sweet, and about 10 times more than I could ever eat.

After dropping off the remains of my sno-cone mango bowl (called a Mango Ice Kacang), I crossed the street to the local massage place. I was going to get a pedicure, since my heels are now so dry and cracked that they never get clean (aren't you glad you know that now?) but the "pedicure lady" wasn't in, so I settled for a foot massage. After I requested it, I thought I should have gotten a shoulder massage as they've been really sore lately, but the receptionist had already summoned the guy from his lunch. During the foot massage (which is really reflexology) he commented that I "much walking" (by my lower calf muscle) and that my shoulders must be really tight and sore (from the outside of the sole of my foot). So he threw in a shoulder massage for another S$10, bringing the grand total to S$26 (about US$16). I was also asked "you do yoga?" because my shoulders are so flexible. I don't know that going twice a year constitutes "doing" yoga, but I'll take the credit anyway. He ended it with pressing his knee cap into my back and cracking it. It was LOUD and a little discomforting, but felt so great. He showed me his diploma and I found it rather funny that I was getting a Japanese Shiatsu massage in Chinatown in Singapore.

That evening I tested the 6 degrees of separation concept. My college friend Aileen introduced me to my friend Susan in Chicago who introduced me to her graduate school friend Olivia who went to Hong Kong for two years and met Polly. When I went to Hong Kong last week, I stayed with Polly, who is originally from Singapore. When she found out I was going there, she contacted her cousin Zannie who was born in Singapore but moved to Canada at a young age and had come back to Singapore 5 years ago. I went out to dinner with her and her French boyfriend and one of their friends. We had mango margaritas at the local Mexican restaurant while we waited for a table at Jumbo Seafood so I could try the famous Singapore Chili Crab. Everything was delicious and the guys paid for everything. We stopped for one last drink at a bar with a local cover band where I could at least return the favor by buying everyone a drink. It was so nice to go out with locals and I so appreciate them including an almost perfect stranger! Zannie also gave me great tips on Thailand and Anand (who has family in India) gave me some more tips for there.

all ready for the chili crab! helping out the DJ in the bar later

my hosts Nick and Zannie

Today I made the big switch from the hotel to the hostel, but there's free internet here! I won't be spending much time here anyway as I spent today wandering Little India and leave tomorrow morning for the airport. I had a great but unusual lunch again today, at a "Thai Muslim Seafood" restaurant where I ate chicken. Go figure. I had no idea what to order and the guy was so nice, I told him to pick out his favorite. For S$5 I got rice with almonds and raisins, fried chicken and a freshly hacked open coconut to drink. I'm glad I tried it but can honestly say coconut milk is disgusting. The food was amazing though, and I kept eating long after I was full. The guy who hacked open the coconut kept looking at me, so I tried to drink some of it, but it was warm and made me feel a little naseous. Weird since I love coconut. I finally broke down and bought a cherryade which was as sweet as it sounds but helped with the spiciness of the meal. Such a cheap, fun adventure though!

(here's the place...)

In a few hours I'm off to the Night Safari. I know nothing about it other than the name, so descriptions will have to wait for the next post. Also, I haven't been able to load pictures at any of the places over the last few days, so I'll be going back to some previous posts and adding them when I can.