Singapore....2 weeks ago!

Hey Blogosphere,
what's good?
Me and Jin have now made it from Singapore to Phuket, around the South end of Thailand, back to Phuket, and now are back in Hong Kong! I figured it was about time to put a little bit of effort in to the blog again, and catch up all the faithful 2 and a half (to steal a line from mitch in the morning of seattle sports radio fame) on what we've been doing.
Singapore.... what can we say.... police state, no..... over the top angry govt looking to beat people in to submission, no. soul less, materialistic, rule following, goody 2 shoes, perhaps.
We didn't see or hear about anyone being caned, or even see that many cops on the streets, but that doesn't mean that singapore is anything less than by the book.
The city is basically like a really clean version of China, or perhaps a China town(SF but flat?) Tons of "wet market" line every corner where you can go get a panda express style buffet for 3 to 10 dollars, depending on if you want 2 vegetables, 1 meat with your rice, or 2meats, one vegetable, or 4 meats, or 4 vegetables, or any other combo you can think of with your white rice.i'd talk more about the other food, but that was about the only thing we could afford to eat... The town is sooo expensive, it made me long for manhattan and a 1.75 plain slice! A pint of Ben and Jerry's ( i know, not exactly local, but still available all over for at least semi insane prices) is $14.85 singapore dollars! Ok, so its really only 11 or 12 dollars, but OMG!!! skittles, 2 dollars, coke 2 dollars(ok 1.50 US.... but its 45 cents in thailand!) Peanut butter, 7 dollars, prego 7 dollars, cereal 8 or 10 bucks! So i guess you get the point, its expensivvvvveeee! i actually saw 3(that is 1, 2, 3....yes 3!) Bentleys parked in a row, with a poor lowly ferrari behind them(i'm honestly not joking!)
Our first couple of days in the city, I was just in total shock. After having spent a month in the seemingly expensive world of Indonesia, It was a bit surreal to be exposed to US or more prices. Although after spending 2 months in Thailand, basically everything is expensive.
The city is really clean, and really nice.... We ended up spending our fisty night in the neighborhood of Geylang, which is where the cheapest hostels are within shouting distance of center city. Later on we found out from basically everyone that it is the "red light district" of Singapore. However, you would never know during the day, as it is really nice, upscale, with lots of restaurants, stores, basically everything, and i guess only gets red lightish late at night, which we never even saw... So yeah, even the ghetto of Singapore is a nice clean neighborhood.
I was surprised, there really is hardly any cops, or that many cameras watching you, or much of any security presence, but what there is, is tons and tons and tons of goody two shoes, ready to cast a scornful look or a ruffled brow if you happen to Jay Walk, stand on the wrong side of the escalator or moving sidewalk(this is a huge deal in uber efficient, fast paced S-pore.), or eat on the subway. Everyone looks like they are the thought police, ready to turn you in for any wandering moment of minor mischief. it was a little surreal.
After 7 days of eating chinese fast food, I got sick of it, and decided to go for some McD's! you have never seen a more motivated, serious group of McDonalds employees. They were running in all directions, running each other over to fill ice cream cones, efficiently doing everything, freaking out about their seconds count on each customer. I felt like I needed some kind of anti psychotic pharmaceutical after ordering my big mac meal. Just watching the employees freak out trying to move as fast as possible stressed me out!
After day one in the not so dirty dirty of Geylang, we began the first of our now fairly regular couchsurfing adventures. We stayed with a really cool and easy going guy named Dhougal, an Australian Expat, who has travelled extensively, and now lives in Singapore doing some kind of IT work. He is a really awesome guy, and knows tons about Psy-Trance techno music, has the same Canon 550D camera as me, has awesome taste in movies(and tons downloaded on his comp for us to watch on his flat screen TV!), and travels around the globe trying to make it to as many Total Solar Eclipses as possible! It was awesome hearing his stories of travelling around Russia, Europe,China, etc... and his descriptions of the 3 total solar eclipses he has witnessed! We have defintiely been inspired to head to the next total solar eclipse, South America, November 13, 2012....although we will then have to boogie to make it up to Chichen Itza for the end of the world just 5 weeks later!
Anyways, Dhougal has an awesome place, just a few subway stops from center city and basically all of Singapore, and had a really nice little bedroom for us, a comfortable living room, cable TV(OMG!!!), WiFi, a kitchen(yes!!!! we can cook!), and basically anything else you would ever want in a nice 2BR city apartment. He was a really gracious host, and gave us full reign over the Apt during the day when he went out. We took full advantage of this, and cooked breakfast and lunch every day, watched tons of his awesome foreign movies. Most notable of the movies we watched were The Castle(classic Australian comedy), In Bruges(really good!), Run Lola Run, as well as some other US classics like Repo Man, Borat, and Ace Ventura. So, we basically had a great time, and got to have some awesome late night convos about music, partying, travelling, and generally just life. It was amazing to relax in an actual home and we really enjoyed his hosting us and the company.
The rest of the time, when not watching movies, we went and just wandered around downtown, looking in the thousands of shopping malls, staring at the fancy buildings, gawking at rich people and their cars, getting hated on by the Thai embassy, and seeing the sites of the Singapore such as the Big Durian, the merlion statue, The Raffles Hotel and its Long Bar, and scoping out the scene of the Formula Street Race.
On friday, after a few days in town, we went down to pick up our F1 tickets, and see about maybe going to the practice race that night. After getting our tickets, we found a guy outside the hotel where the ticket office was, and bought 2 tickets for 30 US dollars, or roughly the price of an iced tea. The practice round was cool, and we got to see the cars drive around a little and scope out where we should hang for the actual race on sunday. By far though, the highlight of the friday practice round was seeing Missy Elliot perform at the Padang Stage for free! She came all the way from the US, and was obviously excited to play somewhere totally different from her scene. It was really cool to see her up close, in front of only a few thousand people, and although I never owned any of her CD's or really liked her much, seeing her live in Asia really was cool and made me miss the US a little. It was also by far the most american thing i'd done in months, and was kinda fun to just forget all about Asia and just see some good ol fashion US hip hop music!
Saturday, we chilled and watched the qualifying on tv, which was good, because we really got to see all the angles of the track and the great views of the cars driving through the city that are hard to see when you are standing on the sidewalk watching them blast by at 200mph. There are definitely ups and downs to seeing a street course F1 race as opposed to a normal track. In a normal track, there are viewpoints everywhere, where the stands are built all around the track with views all over. However you also have to stand significantly farther back and never get within 100m of the track. The street race is just the opposite. Almost all the standing room only seats, besides a few small super crowded platforms, are right on the sidewalk, but you are standing often times, within just 5 or 10 feet of the car, and can feel the air rush by as the pass you, and sometimes even feel the dust or dirt they kick up as they drive by! It is hard to get a good overall view of the track, as you are usually just standing on the street corner/sidewalk, and simply see them rocket by you as you rubberneck trying to catch a glimpse of them. But both experiences, street track and track track are awesome and both have their advantages.
Luckily, during our friday reconassaince mission, we accidentally snuck in to the Singapore Racquet club. It really happened by accident as their security measures included a ten foot gap in the back part of their fence we just happened to wander through. Knowing this place existed, we went there again Sunday before the race, snuck in once again, and managed to have a totally uncrowded corner seat all to ourselves, with just a couple hundred people spread over 150 meters of sidewalk. We even had a neighbor spectator with an Ipad continuously updating the race news and times for us! towards the end of the race, we snuck in to the roof party at the racquet club and watched the race from above, while watching the action on a giant projector tv!
After the race, I cheered myself up after Lewis Hamilton(my new favorite race car driver as of 6 hours before when i decided I needed to root for someone) dropped out because of gear box problems, by going and seeing Mariah Carey for free at the Padang Stage. Learning from our friday show, we went before the race and got special wristbands that let us in to the first 70 feet or so of the show, instead of the back section where nearly every one else of the 5 to 20,000 people who wathed stood. We basically stood in the 10th row for the Mariah Carey show, and got a lot of really good views of her in her current not so hot state. We completely missed her falling down, but we didnt miss her constant talking about how normal she was and how she was was so "down to earth" because she poured her own water from the bottle in to her champagne glass! needless to say, this really impressed me.... but the show was pretty good, and she did actually sing, which was a surprise, and her voice is really amazing... So it was fun to see a real legend, who is a million times more famous than phish, and someone i'd never go see in the states, for free, and standing just 20 or so feet away. It was pretty cool.
Well, that is about it for Singapore. for the .5 of you that made it through this, congratulations, you are now 2 hours older!
Jin has just posted some pics, so be sure to scroll down and check them out, and more writing to come on our last 2 weeks in Southern Thailand, from Phuket, to Krabi, Railay, Trang, Songkhla, and back to Phuket, plus more couchsurfing updates!

oh..... and my DUCKS are #2!!!!! Boo Ya!
and more importantly,
GO GIANTS!!!!


... sorry philly(i rooted for you every other time, and the Gmen havent won a WS since Brooklyn in 57!)..... its about time!!!