Ramble
Quest - Singapore Swing.
Fighting off the effects of a clogged ear I fly to Singapore and stay with Prince Henning. I make a quick plan to go to northeast Thailand and Cambodia for a month and then return to climb Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo with Henning. Sounds good, but I have major problems with my flight out to Bangkok with Biman (Bangladesh) Airlines. They postpone the evening flight so that I would be arriving in Bangkok around 1am. Then they aren't even able to reschedule me on another flight at the airport. They have an office there but I've learned that they don't actually do anything at this office.
So, to make a long story short, I wind up stuck in Singapore for a few days longer than I'd planned, certainly not the worst thing in the world. I go with Henning and Justin to Holland Village, the "western" section of town and a spot I rarely frequent. It has changed since the Bali bombings and the main drag is now blocked off from traffic. It's actually better now. We catch a late night rock band at Walla Walla who play everything from the 50's to modern hits, some of them not at all badly. We also go shopping for electronics (for them, not me) at Sim Lim and Funan Center.
I go with Justin to Sungei Buloh nature reserve and the Kranji War Memorial, two old favorites of mine, but places that Justin, a native Singaporean, has never been. Henning and I jog at MacRitchie resevoir, which has been greatly improved by the addition of lots of boardwalk near the water.
I do my usual rounds of buying white tea (Bai Hao Yin Zhen) at my favorite tea shop in Bugis. I eat at my favorite stalls at Zhujiao and have fresh longans for dessert, buy groceries at Mustafa's, get curry puffs, jog at the botanic gardens and Fort Canning, go to the movies and stop by the library to browse through travel books. Oh, and I also catch up on the badly neglected journal.
The Little India MRT station is finally showing signs of opening soon. They are doing massive MRT work in front of the museum and in a few other spots. High rise building continues to go on everywhere.
Constant change, but same old, same old in Singapore.