My task is to get air tickets for an upcoming New Zealand and Tasmania swing. I've already priced this a bit on the Internet, but now want to check out some travel agencies. As I've said before, there are many travel agencies in Singapore, but finding a good one is a bit of a challenge. My plan is to wander at random through the Peninsula Plaza and Peninsula Shopping Center (they are across the street from each other) checking out prices at the many travel agencies that can be found there.

As is all too often the case, I get all kinds of conflicting information as to possibilities concerning ticket validity duration, flight connections and price. It's really amazing! Either a lot of these places are crooks or they themselves are getting conflicting information. I'm going to be kind and guess the latter. In any case, it greatly pays to shop around for air tickets.

I wind up getting the best price quote at TravelAbout in Peninsula Plaza, which happened to be the first place I went to. However, when I return later in the day to pick up my tickets, they've made a mistake with my name's spelling. The owner later makes good on his promise to send the corrected tickets over to Henning's.

I have lunch at my favorite Singapore fast food chain: Komolas. However, dinner will be the real treat fo the day because Henning and I are going out with Justin.

First, since Henning is in charge here, we must have a chat over wine and cheese. Justin, who is one of the biggest Europhiles I know, surprises me by admitting that he has the typically Asian detestation of cheese. Justin claims this stems from a childhood incident where an uncle held chedder cheese over his nose as a punishment! He was revolted and the memory keeps him away from the stuff. Henning and I are quite the opposite. We like our cheese running, stinky and fungi infected.

Justin pulls out his PDA and relates the exact details of when we last met, a few years ago in Chicago. He says he once gave a friend a present of a spreadsheet detailing all of the time they had spent together. I admire his sentiment but suggest a low tech solution where friends simply reminisce about old times, much as I just did with my high school pals.

Despite his over-fondness for gadgetry, Justin's a quintessential people person, even more then Henning actually, and he shares Henning's sanguine personality. So, I'm in good company as we follow Justin's convoluted directions to Serangoon Gardens. Some of the turns are so bizarre that Henning compares it to traveling to Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books. Our goal is to find a hawker center without Muggle tourists!

I'm a bit dubious about Segangoon Gardens Hawker Center when I see it, as it is surrounded by cafes and karaoke bars. To my mind a proper food court should be attached to a wet market and with nothing around it except for some HDB flats.

Fortunately, as soon as we enter the place a huge cockroach pounces on Justin's head and explores a third of his body before I knock it off. Then we notice a large rat near the lone empty table in a far corner, unafraid of the many stray cats nearby. So, it really does have ambience!

Two other main factors contribute to the perfect hawker center: fresh looking food and cheap prices. (One must think like a Singaporean to properly eat hawker center food.) This place scores high in both catagories. The two bellwethers are: clear eyes on the fish at the seafood stands and cheap prices for the fruit juices (only S$1 here).

Despite the fact that I can understand all of the Chinese Justin speaks to the food vendors, he can order things in a fifth of the time it would take me. I guess I need more practice. Our feast consisted of: red snapper, black pepper crayfish, spicy stingray, carrot cake (if you think this is dessert you need to read my Singapore Journal), kwah teow noodle (the black kind), chili sambal squid, and dou maio (Taiwainese veggie), all washed down with lots of rock melon, soursop, or pineapple juice. Of course we ate too much but it was great.