Reassurance...

...to anyone still checking here (for which thank you): David and Mandy are still alive and well, just wrapped up time-wise in various other things.

(Some) welcome back

Immigration bloke checking my passport on departure at Singapore Airport: “Did you enjoy your stay?”
Me: “It was brilliant, thanks,”
IBASA: “Then you must come again one day. And stay for longer.... (big smile) and do lots of shopping!”

Immigration bloke checking my passport on arrival at Heathrow Airport: “ .”
Not a word.
He beckoned me silently from the front of the queue to his desk. Took my passport, looked at the photo, looked at me, handed it back.
And I was effectively dismissed.
To the miles of dreary corridors to the dreary bus station on a dreary February morning.

Photo is from the butterfly garden at Singapore Airport.
Yes, butterfly garden. (Tho’ 21h or so not the best time to visit it). The airport also has indoor fish ponds, a lounge with free movies, choice of free telly programmes, showers, toilets so impressive I was tempted to take a photo (but that would’ve been too weird)...

A giant skeleton about to crush a small boy in his enormous hands...

...at the Cuba Street Carnival on Saturday.

Night parade

From the Cuba Street Carnival night parade on Saturday. About 150,000 people turned out to watch the parade, which is pretty much half of the Wellington Region population.

Hedgehog

For reasons unknown to non-Canadians, Canada has a television system that guarantees access to people with no discernible talent what so ever. The example at the link should, if there were any justice in the world, finish Christianity off as a religion.

I found the photographed hedgehog on the road near my folks a couple of weekends ago. It was sitting about 1.5m from the kerb, eating something. Rather than leave it to become road kill, I gave it a nudge back towards the kerb with my foot. At which point the dozy beast rolled up in to a ball. It is hard to move something that doesn't want to be moved, and has built in defences.

Time to fly

Well, it will be in another 13.5 hours.
Feels strange.
Very strange.
Not helped by a fuzzy head from a pleasant night out last night.

Reflection

It has been a busy weekend with the Cuba Street carnival, including a night parade, and a new version of PhotoShop to play with.

I liked the reflection in the window.

Scary, but true...

It seems you CAN have too many shops in one place.

Yeah, I know.

Might cure me of ever wanting to go into a mall again.
Maybe.

Was very tempted by the $25 Obama T-shirts: couldn’t decide whether to get David the ‘hope’ one or the ‘change you can believe in’ one.

Better still was the offer in the street market: the Supreme Trouser Hanger.
Looks like a vaguely elaborate coathanger, but then there is the promise: “the convenience is cool to insolate.”

Pic’s a random instruction to Singaporeans from their government.
Some light reading, if there’s nowt on the telly:

A psychologist is urging people to get off Facebook and other social networking sites, and get a life instead. Dr Aric Sigman says the amount of time we spend with each other has slumped dramatically and in turn is damaging our health.

Better still:
Hamsters in jackets harnessed for energy

Don't look down

So I took the metro to the Harbour Front. Then the cable car over to Sentosa Island. Used a couple of buses on the island, to visit Fort Siloso. Got the monorail back to the Harbour Front, for variety...
Rewind.
...the cable car over to Sentosa Island.
Yeah. Me who has this thing about heights (mostly when I’m out in the open with nothing to hold on to between me and a a long way down). Trusting my life to a swaying bucket (each seats six people max), dangling from a very long piece of string at a very great height.

But it was ok. And there was tonnes to see/do on the island.

Those specks in the photo*? Those are the cars.

* Taken through the glass of the monorail carriage, if you're wondering about the strange tinge

All my own work

My guide book describes Little India, the area of Singapore where the hostel I’m staying in is, as “an assault on the senses.”
It’s amazing the way all the different cultures/religions here sit side by side. London’s a bit like that, maybe, but dirtier and less polite and more spread out.

Singapore is great generally. Today’s main wotsit, I suppose, was a visit to the art museum, which used to be a Catholic school or similar, by the look of it.

Lots and lots of pretentious rubbish: a light flickering off and on was an exhibit, so was a pattern on one carpet I walked over before I realised. I think the fire extinguisher in a cotton bag was just a fire extinguisher, but who knows? There were gibberish texts to justify how this was art and you could've swapped the labels and no one would've known.
But there was some good stuff, inc. a rather neat Korean art exhibition with some seriously cool digital pictures by an artist called Lee Lee Nam (feel free to Google the name) you could sit and watch for ages.

There was also an “interactive” work, which visitors were invited to make their own. So I did. No pix allowed in galleries, but this was in a corridor and it was MY masterpiece (!), so I own the copyright. You can see the result above.

The artist is playing with the perspective...

...and so am I. It is on the side of a supermarket near my place.

Moving traffic

Things are kind of mad at work at the moment. And it doesn't help that my mobile phone is offline and might be for another day or two.

Circus

There was a circus in the Civic Center at the weekend. There were a few professional acrobats, but mostly it was a workshop so that the general public could try out a few circus skills.

Lost in translation

Spotted a T-shirt being worn by a Chinese woman here with “don’t stop chewing” on the back.
Saw one the other day (also a Chinese woman), with a picture of golf clubs and something like “I put down two balls today.”
I’ve always suspected Brits wandering round with pretentious symbols tattooed on their arms or stomachs that they think mean “peace” or “prosperity” or whatever they are supposed to mean are actually a practical joke by the artist and in fact say “king prawn.”

But some things are impossible to translate. Puzzled bloke sought my help in Coles (supermarket) a couple of days ago: “What does this mean, please?”
‘This’ being, on a bottle of shampoo, “for rebellious hair.”
You try explaining that to someone with limited English.

Anyway Australia: it’s been fun, but I have to fly now.