Hundred Acre Woods

Many wild things here in Singapore, land of Chinese, British, and Malaysian influence. I have included pictures of a few of things I have eaten. I will update as necessary!

This is dried silver needle fish–you can see their little dried up eyes! It tasted pretty good, once I got past the idea of them watching me.

This was called, ahem, “Grass jelly with tadpoles.” I was feeling adventurous, plus it was a dessert. It was like gelatin with a slightly earthy flavor (the grass jelly) with little tapioca balls–they were NOT tadpoles, I checked! served over sno-cone ice with a little brown colored sugar syrup. It was ok.

Today I went to Sentosa island. I took the cable car over.




The island has several things to do, but I chiefly hung out in the butterfly garden.

Then I hung out at the insect museum….



Yes, those are real scorpions! Their legs tickled!

I took the bus/tram all over the island. I would see signs saying “Monitor Lizard Crossing”, “Slow Down for Baboons”, “Watch for Peacocks”. I thought it was a cute way to advertise for the ‘Meet the animals’ exhibit. WRONG! A monitor lizard actually DID cross the road and we had to stop the bus! I didn’t have time to get a picture, but it was quite funny. I didn’t see any baboons, though.
I did see the infamous pink dolphins. I have never seen anything like it! As these dolphins mature they turn from a light grey to a pale fleshy pink. They looked undercooked!




Here is a picture of ONE of the famous merlions (the one on Sentosa, anyway.)


I included a picture of the legend…you might be able to read it if you enlarge the picture.

Okay, I really only experienced the first two…but it is early in the game, you never know–just a joke, Mom, don’t worry. Oh, and by the way, I have NOT caught the Asian Bird Flu…yet.
Steve, Scott and I went to China town the first night so I could go to the tailor for some new clothes…real clothes, not the Emperor kind. WOW! Now that was an experience. We walked in and Steve was immediately recognized and rushed by Mr. Paul, the tailor. He ushered us in and plied with drinks. Scott tried to be all, “no, no thanks. None for me.” He was given Chivas Regal and told to drink and buy, er, be quiet. I just had some Tiger Beer. We spent over an hour and a half there looking through books to pick designs, picking out materials and getting me measured. I think they measured every possible distance- shoulder to waist, shoulder to top of boobs, shoulder to aureoles, shoulder to under boobs, shoulder to hips, boobs to waist, boobs to hips, under boobs to waist, aureola to aureola, etc. That was just the first few measurements. Guys get only 7 measurements for a suit. Lucky them! We finally decided on 1 dress, 1 mandarin style blouse, 1 french style blouse, and one cool jacket.

After having breakfast at the hotel — a typical English breakfast affair ( wet scrambled eggs, baked beans in a tomato sauce, sausages, quick breaks and dried pastries, etc.) but also having fried rice, noodles and dim (gimme) some..er.. sum. it was quite good. After that I took off for the day after getting basic directions from Scott on where to go shopping.

I found out though that nothing opened until 11.00 AM or so, so I just walked around. I was accosted …. naw .. too strong of a word .. what would you call it when a native person rings a bell at you? He was trying to convince me (I *think*) to take a ride of his small side-car bicycle to find cheaper shopping in India Town. I extracted myself from his grasp when in seconds yet another native man approached me about seeing a tailor. I explained that I already had an appointment for one that evening, but I would take a card. He took my hand and lead me across the street and into a building. I was a bit nervous, but it was yet more shops. He introduced me to yet another man, who was the actual tailor. By now I realized they must pay people to hang out on the streets to find easy marks like me and bring them into the shops. The tailor, trying to be smooth, showed me a picture of a blonde women of Delta Burke size. He then proudly informed me that if he could make clothes to flatter her size, he could certainly make some to do the same for me. Gosh, lucky me! After that I wised up and didn’t respond to all the comments and questions put to me by people on the street.

All along Orchard Road (where we are staying) are high end shops and hawkers. Hawkers are individual food sellers congregated in Hawker Centers–in this case they are in the basements of the large shopping centers–selling food the locals eat. Since Singapore had been a British Colony for so long and is so close to China and Malaysia it has a very eclectic mix of curries, dim sum, seafood, rice and noodle dishes (not to mention Mc Cafes-an upscale offshoot of McDonald’s, Burger Kings, and KFC’s.) The shops themselves are ultra posh high end designers like Hugo Boss, Prada, Ferragamo and DKNY. There was also one block that had three Rolex stores! All the sizes carried are small sizes to fit the locals. The accessories like purses and scarves were georgeous. I finally bought a few hair clips. The woman helping me was truly half my height. She was doing up my hair in different ways with the clips–while I kneeled on the ground so she could reach the top of my head! She kept buttering me up with compliments–you have such a beautiful face, your hair is perfect for this, yes, now you look sexy for your husband, etc… All her charms worked except when she said a chubby face was good luck in China! Goody for me! Now I know where to go to get lucky!

The flights were fine. I slept most of the way to L.A. In L.A. I had to partake of my last Starbucks….um, until I reached Singapore.

I read an entire book and watched 1 1/2 movies on the way to Tokyo. I couldn’t sleep at all. Everyone else did. Sigh. I did have a great meal on the flight–
It was the Japanese dinner.

As usual we got the funky little travel bags with essentials in them in the business class area. I love that!
I slept almost the entire way to Singapore from Tokyo. I missed dinner but they warmed something up for me. Nothing special.

We arrived at the Le Meridian (hotel) around 2:15a. After settling in we finally got to sleep around 3:30. I awoke around 6:00a convinced Scott was ringing the doorbell outside our suite. It was this insistent raspy single tone rung out repeatedly. I swam to consciousness and made Steve get up to answer the door. Strangely the sound stopped as soon as Steve woke up. No one was at the door. Steve checked the actual sound of the doorbell. It was a pleasant chime. Nothing at all like the grating rhythmic sound I had heard. Hmmmm, could it have been a certain someone snoring?!