Up early, as Adam had forgotten his bike keys on the set of keys he’s given me for the weekend. Not a major problem, as I was more or less awake anyhow. Gathered myself, and headed out the door, hoping to take in Chinatown and the Colonial District of Singapore.
While most of the time in China I thought “This could be Chinatown in any city anywhere”, the truth is the real thing and Chinatown are quite different. Singapore has a huge Chinese population, so it seemed odd they’d even have a Chinatown, but I had a wander through regardless. Other than a street market, and a fancy Hindu temple, it wasn’t all that exciting. I was expecting it to be a lot hotter in Singapore, so I have to admit I’m at least happy that the heat isn’t overwhelming.
Grabbed lunch in Chinatown, and managed to find the one spot in the restaurant where the falling rain would actually land on me. I switched seats, and faired much better. Lucky lucky, the rain also wrapped up just as I finished lunch, so I didn’t need a raincoat or umbrella (not that I had either on me, anyhow).
More interesting than Chinatown was the Colonial District. The older part of Singapore has a lot of nice buildings, some more churches, monuments, and statues, and seems a little more tourist-worthy than Chinatown did. Also got closer to the water, but it wasn’t particularly nice.
After a long walk through the Colonial District, I made my way back to the condo and lounged about for a couple of hours. Jill got back from work soon after I arrived, and invited me out with some of her friends. Her friends are playing professional volleyball in Indonesia, and have to head to another country every month to renew their visas. Only a fool to turn down an evening out with professional female volleyball players, but that’s exactly what I did. As it turned out, I had other plans for the evening.
My mother’s friend, Peter, lives in Singapore, and had offered to take me out for dinner. We had plans to meet at the gates to the condo at 6:30, so I headed down a little early, and arrived just as he was pulling into the parking lot. Also in attendance was his daughter, Priscilla. They asked what I felt like eating, and I decided to leave it up to them. We drove across town (although how far I do not know) to Peter’s club, the Raffles Club. He’s retired, so he’s got lots of free time during the day, and has been a member of the club for a long time. We had a very nice gourmet buffet – great seafood (both cooked and raw), excellent meat, and some good salads and desserts. After dinner the three of us sat and talked by the club pool, and before I knew it, it was time to get home. I was a tad reluctant having dinner with a complete stranger in strange country, but it turned out to be a very nice evening and I didn’t mind so much missing out on the volleyballers (although I am sure the volleyball players would have been fun too).
I thought Jill and Adam would have been home from dinner, but they were still out (St. Patrick’s Day, after all). Adam leant me his hard drive with a bunch of music and movies, so I copied some of the stuff I thought looked interesting to my own hard drive, then I read (I want to finish Adam’s book before I leave), and they arrived not so much later. Chatted about our respective evenings briefly, then went to bed.
