SINGAPORE IS AWESOME!

Well, you do get fined for chewing gum and jaywalking, BUT it was genius nonetheless! Really clean and shiny, and organized too which makes it so easy to get around, especially in the airy metro system.

I did Orchard Road, Chinatown, Little India, the Esplanade, saw the rather small Merlion statue and got lost in countless giant shopping centres. These places are partly underground and lack signs to draw you in, but most of the time it is just relieving to get out of the heat and wander aimlessly around shoppers' paradise.

Chinatown was disappointingly bland, because it has been rebuilt and tamed by the government who frowned upon such things as prostitutes and gambling and opium houses. So now it feels like a museum, except for one street full of stalls and a square where old men were gathered playing a game with stones on little tables.

Little India was the complete opposite, an attack on the senses, and most of the time I had to watch my feet while walking because of the open storm drains which were deep and merciless.

I met Eric and Annie Milne for dinner, we went to Clarke Quay which reminded me of Las Vegas with the sheer volume of restaurants pubs bars and clubs from all over the world! It was all done up with trees and lights everywhere. There was even a bar called the Clinic, and the customers sit in wheelchairs and hospital beds. We ate at an Indian by the river, it was beautiful!

I saw something really weird there. It was an ad in the subway for multigrain milk, high in calcium, low fat and now with 12 kinds of grains!

In milk?