Much later in July 2007

Ah, life at the equator....the teeming tropics...teeming with strange
unidentifiable bacteria that is. Hail to the lovely rotavirus that
made me so sick I was either sweating out the chills, doubled over
with stomach cramps or sitting despondently on the throne. Glass
half-full: Lost 8 pounds. Glass half-empty : no dairy products in my
immediate future.

The contingent of 3 sisters, 2 brothers-in-law, 1 nephew and 1
nephew's buddy descended, converged, dissembled and then departed. It
was thrilling to hug my biological sister P. again after 8 years
apart, and to watch her interact with my kids for the first time ever.
That thrill quickly turned to horror as she and my husband sat down to swop notes
on my idosyncrasies, character flaws
and crabbiness. Lies! Infamy! Fabrications!

My family spent 3 weeks wandering around Singapore,shopping, eating,
bickering and trudging up and down Orchard Road in search of a
Starbucks. (There's one on almost every corner). We did have a great
time together, however my mother gratefully saw everyone off after 3
weeks of hoping they would leave earlier.

P., her husband B. and S. and I embarked on a 'Night Safari'.
It's a special attraction at the Singapore Zoo.
http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/
I was awestruck seeing so many nocturnal animals in action. The zoo
keepers like to scare the visitors, and during the animal show we
watched, they 'found' a 15 foot python stretched out under the bench a
bunch of Japanese girls were sitting on. Can you scream in Japanese?
Ha ha ha, very funny.

We walked through a netted aviary that held hundreds of bats. It was
COOL! I was literally so close to a fruit bat that I could have
touched it (ill advised, of course, rabies- fleas etc.). Sensing
chiroptophobia (i had to look that one up), a bat swooped over our
heads and peed on my brother-in-law. P. and I told him that it
was good luck in Asia to be 'blessed' by a flying creature. B's
response : Ha ha ha, very funny.

A different kind of nocturnal creature inhabited Bugis Street in olde
worlde Singapore.

Bugis (pronounced Boo-giss) Street was infamous street in the 60s and
70s. It was where you went for after hours people watching - bars,
transvestites, cross-dressers, local mafia and seedy gambling dens.
The 'girls' who worked the bars (and the streets) were (according to
my Mum, who went to Bugis for the famously good food) breathtakingly
beautiful, and it was sometimes hard to tell they were really boys
unless you glimpsed an adam's apple under the glittering dress or
(dead give-away) a too prominent clavicle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugis,_Singapore

The government swooped in during the '80s, chased away the
undesirables and Bugis became a sanitized and boring place to shop,
eat and wander around. The old markets were razed and an
air-conditioned mall rose in their place. Old buildings were gutted
and only the veneers were kept and painted gaudy colors, while the
insides became thoroughly modern malls - replete with escalators,
Macdonalds, cell phone shops and touristy trinkets.

Wandering through Bugis now, I was astonished to find that it is
quietly schizophrenic. One portion is incredibly clean, full of shops
with orderly merchandise, restaurants with clean seats and menus...but
the other part! It felt like Singapore had returned to its tawdry
roots. A covered street market with aisles of shops so closely
packed, you had no choice but to elbow your way through the crowd or
be paralysed forever by sweaty armpits and Blaring Chinese opera
music. EAR SPLITTINGLY AWFUL - listen at your own risk:

http://www.btinternet.com/~xiangxing/music/BeijingOpera
BOP16HatredSeedsInHeart.mp3

The sights are overwhelming --- mountainous piles of yellowing
t-shirts, too-shiny shoes, jade jewellery heaped on tables. I loved
the piece of torn cardboard relying heavily on the power of the
exclamation mark proclaiming "Extra! Special! One! Time! Sale! Price!"

There were food stalls jammed elbow to elbow, and several very smelly
stalls selling fresh cut fruit on ice and local desserts made from
yam, mango and guava. I also found some odd shops tucked away under
the glare of buzzing neon. Like the Goth clothing shop staffed by a
tiny Chinese girl, her face glittering with multiple piercings. Like
the intriguingly named "CONsex" shop (consensual? conditional?
conceptual?) with windows draped in black velvet, advertising novelty
condoms and 'quality mens and ladies lingery' . The window display
stopped me in my tracks -- there were half a dozen little
penis-shaped toys hopping to 'Putting on the Ritz'. Uh-huh.

Just so you can quote random facts when people pester you about your
knowledge of Singapore, because I know they will.... : - ) , it
might interest you to know that Johnson County is 477 square miles in
area has a population of 500,000. Singapore is 400 square miles in
area, and has a population 4.5 million. The Singapore government
wants the population to grow to 6.5 million in the next 20 years. Holy
elbow room, batman!

Singapore hopped three other cities to become the 14th most expensive
city in the world to live in, and the 5th most expensive city in Asia.
A new studio apartment (out in the suburbs) measuring 650 square
feet costs S$1.2 million or US$800,000. Gas is approximately $3 a
gallon. A new car, let's say a Honda Accord, costs US$65,000, which
includes 150% import duty, a certificate of entitlement which gives
you the right to have a car, and road tax. However you can eat a
really delicious lunch at a food center for US$3. A postage stamp
still costs Singapore 10 cents (about US 6cents). And a visit to a
family physician is capped at S$35(US$23) per consultation. So there
are compensations.

Now, dear artist friends, and parents of aspiring artists, please read
more about Sophie and Wonder Art. She is so passionate about what she
does and teaches art in such a refreshing, experiential way. Here's
one class I love - she evokes for the children the feeling of being a
blind creator as Monet and Matisse were in their later years. Her
English is lyrical -- she calls this 'the adventure of the senses,
leaving sight aside.' The photographs of these very young children
creating so freely with their eyes tightly shut is something to
behold.

http://web.mac.com/sophieandthegang/iWeb/Wonder%20Art/Eyes%20shut%21%20%28clay%29.html

We have been bitten by the dragons...dragon boats, that is! We went
to watch dragon boat races on Sunday and were hooked! Cheering for the
different teams we found that the Candadians had the winning crews and
decided to sign up.
http://www.canadiandragons.sg/ A drummer sits at the stern and taps
out a beat for the paddlers, and someone else stands in the bow
steering the rudder like a gondolier. With 10 people in the boat the
bladework is clean and precise. It looks like hell on the back but
we'll find out as our first practice is this weekend. Their social
calendar looks a little like The Hash House Harriers, whom I used to
run with many years ago. The Hash called themselves "a drinking club
with a running problem".