from the far side of the planet

Hi,
guess where I am?
Right now Marshall & I are sitting in the business class lounge of the Changi Airport in Singapore. How cool is that! I knew you'd never guess so I just thought I'd go ahead and tell you anyway.

We are at the end of a wonderful week of sight seeing, shopping, eating and meeting new friends in Singapore. I'm about to start my long ride home to Philadelphia, Marshall is traveling on to China for the rest of this week, back home by Friday.

Singapore is a city/state that is 4.5 million people in on an island smaller than the whole of Calgary, Alberta. It is spotless clean everywhere, easy to get around and totally quirky. Everyone speaks English, usually with a heavy Chinese accent. Road signs are in English and some Malay. You hear a lot of 'Singlish' as you walk around the streets. A combination of Chinese, Malay & English. It's entertaining to try and figure it out sometimes.

Once I figured out how to get off Orchard Street (the main drag filled with malls and high-end shops) I found Singapore to be quite interesting. Chinatown and Little India sections of the city are charming, full of small merchants and great food stalls. We spent time with K.H. Chen, who works at Tyco and his wife Jennifer. They are native Singaporeans and they showed us their neighbourhood of laksa stands, open air markets, prawning spots, local Indian temple complete with high priests, the eastern beach full of huge shipping boats... all the stuff that is truly Singapore.

Cara has a friend who lives here, Super Dave, and he really was super. He took us to the zoo for the day and was a wonderful guide. I think he was just as thrilled to have a fellow Canadian to spend the day with who he could talk about Toronto with. We did love the Singapore Zoo. It's a wonderful facility, well laid out, very interactive with the animals. You haven't lived until you've been nose to nose with a friendly lemur or within arms length of a very large simian.

As for food... well, I haven't stopped eating. There is a mix of Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, Japanese and Italian... they throw it all together and call it Singaporean. Laksa is my new favorite food. it's a local mixture of fish broth, coconut milk, noodles, cockles, tofu, lotus root, chilies & spices that is so yummy. The other local favorite is spicy crab, a large crab stewed in a spicy sauce/broth and served with small butter buns for dipping in the sauce.... it's all good. The outdoor food stalls are the best place to find anything to eat and once I figured out how to get to them there was no going back to the over priced western style restaurants. For $3 to $4 Singapore dollars you get a huge bowl or plate of excellent food. Don't ask what it costs on the main drag, it's criminal!

Now it's time to head back to reality but I'm planning to learn to make laksa and spicy crab at home.
Anybody hungry?

xox
m