Singapore: Overpriced and Overskanked

In S’pore, sweating in an Internet cafe with at least 50 grime-ridden PIIIs, no USB ports and a Buddhist shrine on the wall, I started this MySpace account. The ceiling fans of Heaven City wafted incense over us as I mused on how far networked computing has evolved. Back in the BBS days, when my sife was born, the PIII was the shizzle, now the PIII is shite. Paradigms change. Expectations change.

One night we were treated to chili crab by my friend Isaiah, who I met at a ryokan in Tokyo in 2004; afterwards we walked around Clark Quay, the former waterfront-whorehouse-godown area of seamen’s lore. Now it’s modernized with an atrium that would put Fremont Street, Las Vegas to shame.

In the Joo Chiat/East Coast Road neighborhood we found a Pilipino kitchen, Kusina de Pinoy, and ate letsyon (pork) for the first time since we departed Cebu City 3 weeks ago. We returned their a couple of times. Also on this corner, we tried a dish unique to the neighboorhood, a firm tofu filled with ground meat, onions and chilis. Very good.

After a week in a roach-walkup backpacker’s hostel, we were excited to leave even though we had to spend a whole day in Changi Airport. There we found an ethernet port and a Cat-5 cable in a gift shop.

June 26, 2007