SSO

I haven't been up to much exciting recently. Finals week is bearing down and I'm frantically throwing assignments at it hoping it will pass painlessly.

Last night I went to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. I've never been to "the Symphony" before, but I liked it. Tickets are only $12 for the cheap seats. It turns out a lot of people like that price, because the second balcony where all the cheap seats are was sold out and the good seats on the floor were empty.

pictures from Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore

eeehhhwwww

I took three months, but the wildlife here is finally getting to me. There was the cocckraoch, first alive, then dead, in my bathroom. Tonight's encounter was closer to home, but not as gross.

I decided to go running. I took off my shorts and picked up my running shorts off the hook. There was a leaf inside. Oh wait, it's actually a lizard. I jumped, it jumped and hit under the frisbee. I got a picture before it ran under my door into the hall.



PS There is a large winged ant thing under a coke can on my desk. I keep forgetting and moving the can, so I don't know if it's still there. I'm not going to check.

The Right Honourable Tony Blair

This afternoon I went to the public lecture by former Prime Minister of Britain Tony Blair. I went with a British guy, so it really saw a very "Anglo" experience. Tony (we're buddies now - first names only) talked mostly about "The Crisis in Global Governance: Challenges and Solutions." But I thought the most interesting thing he talked about is how isolated he was as Prime Minister. Until he left that job this June he did not have a cell phone. He had also never sent an email.

I was pretty far away

There was a Q&A session after his speech. I went up to one of the mics with a question, but they ran out of time and didn't get to me. I wasn't too disappointed, because right after that there was a reception in the foyer with free food and drink that was actually really good.

Cockroaches

I walked into the bathroom this evening and found my nemesis vanquished.
See the spot in the middle of the floor? That's how tiny my nemesis is when it's not running on walls...

I am convinced that the several cockroach sightings in my bathroom were all the same roach, which is now dead. I am ecstatic.

GO DUCKS

I spent Wednesday through Friday of last week in Hong Kong with my parents. It's beautiful city - I later learned that Hong Kong means fragrant harbor. And it really is. Soft green hills rise out of the ocean and the mist in a very Chinese way. The city proper is built right on the edge of the harbor, where the hills meet the water, creating a wonderful crescent of skyscrapers. The weather reminded me strongly of a foggy summer day at the Oregon coast - very tiny raindrops, a flat gray sky and flat gray water, with a pleasant (not too cold) breeze. It was definitely a change from the tropical heat and humidity of Singapore.


My parents seemed like they had a very good time in Asia. I'm glad; I feel somehow responsible for how it behaved while they were here. On a related note, I thought it very funny that their hotel in Bangkok was in the middle of the red light district...

On an unrelated note, this Friday I'm going to a public lecture by Tony Blair here at NUS. This confirms that NUS is filthy rich. Not that I'm complaining. George Bush spoke here last year. I've met three students who were invited to stand on the stage with him and got pictures taken with him. I don't know anybody at home who's met George Bush. I guess world leaders just like Singapore.

Short choppy sentences. Time for bed.

GO DUCKS

Guest Author, Tom Bode Sr.

(Tom Jr. is looking good and in fine spirits, the Singaporean life style has not dulled his wit)

‘Little India’ is a section of Singapore, alive with people, vehicles, and goods-for-sale. Every street corner is unique, generations of building and repairing has let its concrete identity organically grow.

We stroll the tourist stalls near the main streets. Small cakes, trinkets, postcards, and plastic Buddhas. Tom Jr. is guiding us past the tourist area into where Indians live, work and shop. We walk in front of, in back of, and through stalls of everyday street food: headed fish wrapped in banana leaves, grilled lamb and beef kabobs, and little plastic bags of who-knows-what. Aisleways are so cramped sometimes you just stop and reverse course. All around is the aroma of the flower threaders mingled with pungent incense and the general commotion of venders rushing for the day.

Under Tom’s persistence, we cross a bland alley and enter a concrete covered area curiously known as a wet market. Why? It will be explained later. The narrow lanes between the venders are even more crowded than the street and crammed with small frame Indians. The eldest of them showing the imperfections of life in their faces. Here a hardened man deftly trims his beef and lamb, there another hacks at unknown flesh. Now whole fish are neatly displayed side by side, cold on the ice. The smell, the noise, the faces all blend. We crisscross ourselves to the tropical vegetables. Sellers with overflowing buckets of cabbages, okra, long beans, their hands hard at work trimming. Here we are, finally near sweet eats, a bowl of dragon fruit, purple with scales of leave, creamy flesh with small black seeds. Bananas of all varieties hang from hooks, here on the floor giant pods of jack fruit. Another cut open to release the smooth yellow finger of meat. Coconuts trimmed to sit upright, and provide its milk. Swirling sounds and color and aromas and commotion. This is Asia! Intense, never ending, always working.

We snack on lime juice, coconut and jack fruit. Why wet market? Because after the trimming and cleaning the owners hose off their goods and the shaded concrete floor is sloppy with water.