I don't know what this photo's about, looks like a lunch break. What interests me is that I still have that shirt.

So apart from the crap weather and the lack of things to do, it's still probably worth a quick visit (definitely less than four days!). If you're a veteran of Asian travel, you'll be amazed at how clean and organized the place is, and how hassle free the whole experience is. Everyone speaks English (especially the taxi drivers, who love to talk and talk and talk) The superefficient airport gets you into your hotel about 30 minutes after your plane has landed. And all the stuff about it being boring may be changing soon. They recently opened a big arts complex along the river which is pretty stunning, and two mega-casinos are on the drawing board. So it may become more interesting, although probably not in the way most tourists come to Asia to experience. Well, there's always shopping...

We were in Singapore for about 4 days, which honestly is a couple days too long. There's a decent collection of colonial buildings just across from Boat Quay, and Little India is a colourful walk, although much of the colour comes from the disneyfication of the area in the same vein as Boat Quay. Really the main action here is shopping, with Orchard Road the main shopping strip, but really I'm pretty sure you can walk the entire island without ever leaving a mall. They're all interconnected via a web of passages themselves lined with shops, so it's pretty disorienting but if your goal is to shop until you drop without breaking a sweat, this is the place for you.

This pic looks interesting, no? Unfortunately it doesn't mean there are ancient walled villages for you to discover in Singapore, it's a tourist trap named Tang Dynasty Village I think. It subsequently went bankrupt, as you could have predicted from the large expanse of empty parking lot in the photo. Inside is a mini-disney of ancient China, with some lame historical recreations. I think we were the only visitors that day, and only went as a last resort as we couldn't think of a thing to do by day four in Singapore.

This is Somchai in front of Boat Quay. It's probably the main tourist attraction in Singapore, basically a long row of shophouses converted into bars and restaurants. It's best as a background to a photo op, since up close it's just a row of very average restaurants, but it can be fun in a frat house sort of way at night. The main competition as the iconic tourist sight is the Merlion, which is really pathetic. It's a cross between a mermaid and a lion, made of plastic and sitting forlornly in the water spouting a bit of water out of it's head. Very unimpressive, but tourists dutifully line up to take its picture. The real reason I included this photo was to show you Somchai's groovy denim shorts. Very '80s, although this was taken in the '90s.

2. Singapore, Oct '97

Well, the fact that Singapore is boring is probably not news to anybody, but over the years I've visited the city state often and have grown to like it more and more each time. But these pictures bring back memories of my first impressions, and all the things I don't like about the place.

First, it rains all the time, throughout the year, but remains incredibly hot. So you get the grey overcast skies combined with the bleached colours of overheated locales, such as in this photo of the CBD. The bridge is a pedestrian only bridge, and in back is what I believe was an empty building at the time. It used to be the colonial post office, and subsequent to this pic was converted into the Fullerton Hotel, which is probably my favourite in the city now, although definitely not without its faults.

We stayed at the Shangri-La, an enormous hotel complex in the shopping mecca of Orchard Road, although inconveniently located up a side street. The lobby has all the charm of an airport terminal, the main restaurant is an enormous buffet style place that manages to be constantly bustling and tired looking at the same time. The rooms are fine corporate style accomodations, and the gym is ok (and had a major upgrade several years ago). In fact the entire hotel had a major facelift a few years ago. I remember their advertising campaign, which showed their royal suites as the preferred home of royalty and presidents when visiting Singapore, and the photo came complete with a crown and sceptre plopped on the desk, as though the Queen had just taken them off to hop into the shower! Very stupid. Anyway, no amount of facelifting will hide the fact that the hotel is just way too big. We usually took pictures of the hotel we stayed at, but I guess that tradition hadn't been formed at the time of this trip. I've stayed at most of the top hotels here, but I think Singapore pops up again later and if I babble too much here I won't have much to say later.