Stormy Sunday bits & bites

There *is* litter in Singapore. It just gets washed away by the buckets and buckets of rain every day. And people do jaywalk, but only in groups.

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Scale is very different here. Last night after dinner, Tanya and I asked our waitress where the closest MRT (subway) stop was, and she said, somewhat horrified, “Clarke Quay! Take a bus.” Tanya said “What? But that’s right near here!” And the waitress said something like “Oh no, too far to walk.”
Tanya: “Well, if we wanted to walk, which way would we go?”
Waitress: “Over the bridge and catch the 51 bus.”
Tanya: “How many bus stops down is it?”
Waitress: “3.”
Tanya: “How long would it take to walk?”
Waitress: “10 minutes! Much too far to walk!”
Deb: dumb silence.      

Seriously, it was about a 7 minute walk, and that’s only because I stopped to take photos. I guess since it’s a small island, everyone’s perceptions of walkability shrinks down to that scale?

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OMG TOO MANY PLASTIC BAGS. The pumpkin bun I just bought was triple-bagged before I had time to say no bags please.

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The fresh pineapple is SO good, the stuff we get in the US is crazy-tart by comparison. And the juice stands just chuck handfuls of it into a blender then dump it in a cup…mmmmmm, piña.

Also, ya know how Tapioca Express chicken comes in a little bag with wooden skewers for eating on-the-go? Well, here they do the same with fresh fruit; you buy some slices of pineapple (or melon or apple, etc.), and they cut it up for you and put it in a bag with a wooden skewer.  Despite my aversion to plastic bags, I must admit it’s much easier to carry around and nom than the rigid/boxy fruit salad containers I’m used to.

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My new favorite drink is fresh lime juice! Like lemonade (US-style, sin gas), but less straight-up refined sugar. Very refreshing for these hot n’ humid afternoons.

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Recycling seems to only happen in office buildings. We’ve been separating our trash at the corp apartment, but I’m pretty sure it all ends up in the same dumpster.

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Locals exercise way late at night! On the night I first arrived, I saw people going for a run at 11:30pm. How the heck do you get to sleep after that? And last night I walked by a basketball game at the Novena mall (court right outside the mall) that looked like it had just started, at 11pm. And all but two of the players were playing barefoot — no idea why.

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Everything is a mall. Zoinks.

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This may be Merry’s version of nirvana. C.f. above comment. And there’s bread everywhere — bakeries, bun places, a shop called “Bread Talk” (pumpkin bun!) — and store after store of really cute clothes and shoes. I haven’t looked at the prices in detail yet, but I am going to make sure we stay faaaar away from Orchard Road. (Novena is $$ enough.) You can walk miles and never leave the mall zone. (Maul zone?) The only thing I haven’t investigated in the Merry-nirvana-trifecta is the public restrooms; if the ladies’ washrooms are as clean as the subway trains, line up the realtors now and sell that girl a hole in the Singapore sky.

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One surprising thing is that no one seems to eat on the subway or in subway stations, even though EVERY SINGLE STATION has food/bread/snack stores right outside the fare gates. There are signs threatening $500 fines for eating, but what other country’s population actually obeys those signs?

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The best weather you can hope for in Singapore is apparently gray/overcast, a slight breeze, and no rain. Sunny = tooooo hot, no breeze = suffocating in your skin, and rain = yeah.

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Saturday night Clarke Quay “airshow” — zoom zoom! (Forgive the crappy quality…my camera + picasaweb video = siiiiigh.)

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