Singapore swings!

Most of my friends know by now that every now and then in the past six months, I've found myself in a situation so wonderful that I actually got slightly angry at myself for not taking this road in my life years ago. The latest of these occurred on my second full day in Singapore, while sipping on a martini at the outdoor bar in the legendary Raffles Hotel on a wonderfully sunny afternoon. (I thought about getting a Singapore sling instead of a martini, but it seemed too...well, I can't think of the right adjective, but I'm sure you know what I mean.) I didn't actually stay at the Raffles, of course - it's very expensive - but much of it is open to the public and I highly recommend a visit there if you're ever in the neighborhood. Just sitting there sipping and reading and watching the other tourists breeze by - yep, it all felt wonderfully cosmopolitan.

Which is a good way to describe Singapore. It might well be the most diverse city I've ever been to, but unlike some other extremely diverse cities (notably my beloved DC), I got the distinct impression that it wasn't an intentional effort. It was just the right combination of location, history, and a simply great place to live that brought so many people together from so many different walks of life. On my first night in the city, the cab driver who brought me from the airport to my hotel told me he'd met a lot of Americans and Europeans whose companies had transferred them there for a couple of years, and when the couple of years were up, the people wound up looking for other work opportunities so they could stay there. I don't blame them!

Yes, the place is just about as pristine as they say. I did see a bit of litter here and there, but nothing compared to most cities that size. It's also much easier to find one's way around; in three days I never really came close to getting lost. You may have also heard that there are signs everywhere delineating what's not allowed, and sure enough, there are. (My favorite: no durians on the subways. No word on whether or not that ban was inspired by the smell or the fact that they could potentially be used as weapons!)

I dropped by Sentosa Island and did my fair share of window shopping in Little India, and spent a riveting couple of hours touring the old underground British army base, which is now a museum dedicated to the royal army's surrender to the Japanese in 1942. The tour guide was a survivor of the occupation as a young child, and was still quite vocally bitter about it. He had a few choice words for Japanese tourists he'd met along the way who, in his words, "wanted to tell their side of the story." I can't quite condone his attitude, but it was a heck of a tour anyway.

But the biggest draw in Singapore is probably the shopping, and I did quite a bit of that. The prices were better than I had expected and the selection was quite a ways above anything I've found in Taipei thus far. I also finally got to see "Farenheit 911," which was all I expected it to be. I cried along with everyone else over the mother from Michigan who lost her son in Iraq, laughed a bit at the boos that greeted Britney Spears for her "I think we should all support the president" remarks, and was kind of frustrated at the number of my fellow audience members to whom the notorious Seven Minutes in that classroom in Florida appeared to be news. (It's been fairly common knowledge in the progressive community for well over a year.) But at least the word is getting out now.

So overall, it was a welcome injection of Western culture in a still uniquely Asian setting. Actually, perhaps "unique" is a better way to describe it than "Asian," although Singapore is certainly both. I enjoyed it so much that the dreaded GRE I necessarily scheduled for last week was a relatively minor inconvenience. Not to mention a great sendoff for the next part of the trip: it took ten years, two degrees and three tries, but I finally cracked 700 on the verbals. Those pie-in-the-sky daydreams of Stanford or Princeton now seem just a little bit less farfetched, y'know?