Singapore

we arrived in singapore finally, after an insanely long day of travelling. two days actually...chicago to phoenix to san francisco (where we almost missed our flight due to weather delays. the people at singapore airlines were SO nice, staying open late for us and escorting us through a special security so we could sprint and make our flight. we got on the plane at 1:00am and it took off at 1:05!) to hong kong to here. strange and wonderful singapore. we are staying at a fancy hotel in a fancy and not so fancy shopping area. shopping is some sort of national past time here. there are malls everywhere, even in our hotel. designer malls and cheapy malls. we couldn't avoid going to both. back to yesterday, we got to our hotel around 3pm and wandered around the neighborhood, finding a hindu temple and methodist church with a little hidden bistro behind it where we got refreshments, and then found a vegetarian noodle shop where we got some sort of bland noodles...we went back to the hotel where hillary was napping to pick her up for dinner around 7pm, but ended up falling asleep for the whole night, skipping dinner and waking up this morning at 8:00am finally feeling refreshed. we walked outside and tried to find a breakfast cafe, but learned that things in singapore don't open until 11am, so the city was strangely deserted, it was twilight zoney. we did eventually find a place and had eggs and coffee outside in this atrium area with a crow. after that we came back to the hotel and took a dip in the rooftop pool and then explored the arab district, where the calls to prayer were broadcast over speakers and it felt so different and exciting. there were all sorts of silk and textile shops, lesley would have gone crazy. also small buildings, all painted in bright colors, with shutters, and mysterious insides. and a weird hip shop with plastic round radios and phones from the 60's. right now we just finished having high tea in the international club, where they have computers. we payed 100 bucks to join this club but it seems worth it, because we get free breakfast, high tea, internet, and other things that i forgot. tomorrow we leave singapore for kota kinabalu, malaysian borneo. it sure seems like we didn't have enough time here, but i'm glad we got to explore. oh tonight we are meeting up with hillary's journalist friend here for dinner somewhere and then going out with some austrailians. that should be fun. bye for now. i'm glad i'm here on the other side of the world, it's pretty freaking fun. the end.