so-so singapore

so we got to singapore on friday afternoon, after a blissful journey on the NICE bus (they aren't kidding about the name!). the bus took exactly 5 hours (almost to the minute) and we were seated in sprawling leather seats, with delicious green/peach tea and chicken satay sandwiches, watching GI Jane. it was great. at the singapore customs, our customs agent appeared to be a tranny, as he was wearing mascara, blush and had very long nails. YAY! he was the nicest one yet, and let me into singapore for 90 days, but tim could only stay for 14. HA HA. transvestites LOVE me!

however, i don't think we would have even wanted to stay for 14, because singapore is no KL. first of all, there was no one to buy us dinner every night and take us to the cool local places. boo. second of all, our hotel was no ritz. we were upgraded to a suite, but it was still only ok. (man, am i a brat or what?) third of all, the FRIGGING RED SOX BLEW IT in singapore. fourth of all, THE YANKEES FORCED A FIFTH GAME in singapore. fifth of all, i kept smacking my head and hands on things and it was not very fun.

the city itself is terrifically beautiful, and perfectly manicured. there are lovely flowers everywhere and no trash anywhere. the girls in KL told us, cracking up as they said it, that singapore is a 'fine' city, because people are fined for everything. i can believe it. no city is that clean under normal circumstances.

we stayed on orchard road, which is perhaps the biggest shopping street i have ever seen with massive huge malls up and down the road. i have never seen that many people do that much shopping in my life. no joke, throngs of people everywhere. all the time. it was scary. and, no one bought me anything, so it was just bad.

we mostly used our time there to recover from our terrible victimization in borneo and to seek psychological attention for our trust issues. ok, no. we slept a lot. on friday night, when i was v grumpy about our hotel not being the ritz, we walked down orchard rd to get some sushi. the place we chose had a giant cartoon of a grumpy face--how perfect!! (i also bought a mug, for posterity's sake, of grumpy sushi house). the sushi came on a conveyor belt, and while not quite as good as the place james and jeff took us to in SF, it did have some weird-looking sushi, for which i created new names. two of the new names were "things your dog would cough up if he had worms" and: "cup o' vomit". TASTEEEE! on saturday, we walked to raffles and then went to the asian civilisations museum (a tremendous museum, which i highly recommend) and then got the v efficient and immaculate MRT home. for dinner, we went to little india to a restaurant called the banana leaf apolo. it was maybe the best meal yet. joy, thank you for introducing us to banana leaf love! we had all kinds of veggie curry and rice and poppadoms, and at the end of the meal, tim was ready to jump into his plate of spinach potatoes and i had virtually drunk the raita. mmm, delish.

on sunday, we slept. and we went to dubliner's, a pub around the corner for lunch. it was good, but spendy. then i made tim walk around for 100 years looking for t-shirts. i found only one. then we posted the blog, and went home, meaning to motivate and go to the night safari at the zoo, but guess what? we're lazy. but you already knew that. so instead we went down to the food court and then went to bed. again. the hotel was only ok, but the bed was wicked comfy. hooray!

we got up this morning at 5 to fly to hanoi, where i write to you now. more on that tomorrow.