Random Observations and Lessons Learned

Singapore is a country where they play "Closing Time" by Semisonic and Wiener Waltzes when the library closes. They sell fishballs on sticks, almost a taste of home, really - fiskeboller i karrisaus. Alcohol is overpriced, but readily available at both the 7-11 and gas station. People eat durians, preserved eggs (preserved in horse piss, apparently) and fish porridge, but when it comes to western food, variety does not extend much further than a hot dog marketed as sausage or other food indifferentiable from each other due to the level of blandness. In Singapore you can eat dinner at 4 am in the morning, but the library closes at 2 pm. The MRT runs until mindnight, but they turn off the power on half the escalators at 10 pm. If you're male and want to go swimming, you technically have to wear a speedo. Calling people fat in different ways seems to be a favored pastime. Girls can drink as much as they want for free in many bars, while guys have to fight if they're under 25 or exposing shin skin. If someone you don't know asks you if you want to meet his "sister" - he probably means prostitute. Bacon is made from turkeys here, and a taxi driver responds much better to "uncle" than anything else. This is a nation where the daily humidity index is generally comparable to that of the average sauna, but you will get a cold from going to class because the air conditioning makes the classroom easy to confuse with a walk-in refridgerator. Shopping bags are carriers, and lineups are queues. There are a lot of queues. a lot. Landscaping is big here, I don't think wildflowers are legal. Maybe they just abide by the laws like pretty much everyone else.

Overall - different, interesting, fun, weird. But I like it here.