Just a reminder that today is Saturday. Tune in to Channel 6 (ChannelnewsAsia) at 8:00 if you want to watch the Japanese tourism show, one of my favorites. See the middle-aged couple on the train! Behold the special hot bath ingredients at the traditional inn! Linger over the local specialties the couple eat after their […]
A few weeks ago, faithful readers may recall, I posted a few blog entries whose titles intertwined prurience and celebrities, wondering if that would create a spike in my audience. Tracing back the slight increase in hits, I found that two people found this site by googling Zhang Ziyi, and one via Stephen Chow. Celebrities, […]
Here’s the sign on our local bus telling us not to carry durians aboard. You can’t carry them on trains either. I guess you either have to eat them where you buy them, or take a taxi. Unless you own a car, in which case you’re welcome to stink out your own property.
The rain began about a week ago, and look what the trees produced! I imagine the mosquitoes will resume their reign very soon, but in the meantime it’s very lovely.
We don’t have cable so we get the six channels that are freely available on Singapore TV. There are two Mandarin language channels – their soap operas have subtitles, so I can follow along if I really want to know what that woman is doing with the sword, or why on earth that guy […]
This week’s news from California is that, four months after the 2008-9 fiscal year began, the California legislature has managed to pass a budget, one that will try to cover its $42 Billion deficit. The reason for all the delay is the legal requirement from Proposition 13 (1978) for a 2/3 majority to pass any […]
Yes, Singapore has been hit hard by the worldwide credit crunch. It started when taxi drivers and other workers lost their shirts when AIG went under – so low are the interest rates at Singapore’s banks that people are encouraged to buy insurance policies with pay-out plans, and annuities, and many people had trusted the […]
Americans are pleased to say that free speech is their national birthright. Well, in Singapore that’s not necessarily the case, but at least everyone has access to cheap fresh fruit. And considering what use a lot of Americans make of their free speech rights (hate speech [including ideological and religious ranting], porn, lobbyists, the Ku […]
Pretty bright, eh? These are indigenous to Singapore, and a few pairs of them live on the NTU campus. They like the palms in front of our apartment block – the ones with fruit on them – but also seem to enjoy zipping around the higher trees nearby. My neighbor and badminton partner Mary says […]
I was observing to a friend that people seem to get referred to this blog mostly from their searches for information on Chinese New Year or different birds. So we thought we’d try an experiment. You guessed it – this posting has nothing whatever to do with the charming Mr. Chow, but is actually a […]