First night away

Finally left Adelaide today. Have been anticipating this trip for months - much was prepared to support my Chinese scholarship application. Said many goodbyes in the past few days - will not be returning until July. Currently feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, but not enough to stop me having fun, or as much as one can have in Singapore after exhausting all the classic tourist activities (Night Safari, Jurong Bird Park, and so on, all excellent).

Had a pleasant (7-hour) flight here on Singapore Airlines. Not much to say - excellent service as usual. Despite leaving a bit after 1pm and arriving a bit after 5pm (local time), you get two meals on this flight, which is nothing unusual, but the second was noteworthy for the oddly-shaped pie:

It was quite nice, if a bit difficult to handle, and a great excuse to make the first image of my entire trip one of food.

The strangest thing for me about arriving in Singapore this time was that it didn't feel like another country. It's not hard to imagine yourself in bizarro Brisbane instead of southeast Asia when taking the taxi from the airport - the most noticable difference is the font used for road signs. This has probably come about because of the mixing of cultures here from all over Asia, together with the British - were I from Shanghai, or Colombo, or San Francisco, I would probably have the same feeling here.

The hotel I'm staying at is in a convenient location, near the Paya Lebar MRT (a train station). It would be possible to take the MRT to the airport when I leave (should be at the airport at 6:15am), which is purely academic as I will be taking a taxi for convenience, but is rare in a cheap Singapore hotel. The area is not flashy, but that's a good thing - plenty of cheap food and interesting things to look at nearby.

Met a good friend, Winnie, after getting settled into my room, and had dinner in the more central Bugis area. She advised against my plan of seeing the Body Show, an anatomical exhibition, after going herself and being disappointed ("They said they had 500 bodies! Not even 100 there!"). Despite this, I had nothing else to do tonight (and she had to go home to Malaysia) so I decided to go anyway.

Winnie showed me on a map where to find it. However, my search was fruitless. I walked around most of Clarke Quay, which was full of interesting restaurants (Mongolian?), but saw nothing of the show. I was probably looking in the wrong area, but no matter - walking along the quay is nice. Not enthusiastic about cooling myself down in one of the pubs full of loud expats, I bought myself a Milo Dinosaur (milk, ice, and more Milo powder than can possibly dissolve in the milk, leaving a mountain of powder on top) and headed back to the hotel.

My battery and prepaid time on the hotel wireless is running low. Tomorrow I plan on visiting the Science Centre, which Winnie suggested is a good place to spend half a day, with air conditioning (and a better collection of bodies). I have many more photos to share (mostly not of food), but those will have to wait, probably until I arrive in Harbin. I won't be able to recharge my laptop until then as I have no adapters for the power sockets here - fortunately Australian plugs are broadly compatible with Chinese sockets (and universal sockets are common in China).