OK, now we’re really gearing up for the holiday. The crowds at the malls are bigger, and outside the new mall near us they’ve got a lion dance stage all set up. I tried to post video of this, but it wouldn’t play, alas. So I’ll paste in a link to a great lion dance […]
Well, Christmas has come and gone. The western baubles and decorations that were all over the malls and Orchard Road have been retired, thank goodness. It’s a bit grating to see giant plastic gingerbread men and Santa Claus under the palm trees; to hear songs about silent nights in a land where road noise and […]
Let’s talk about the weather. There are supposed to be two monsoon seasons in Singapore: one now, November – January, and the other in May or thereabouts. All the other months are pre-monsoon, which means basically it’s supposed to be wet and raining nearly all the time, as far as I can make out. The […]
If you’ve been following my adventures since I arrived in Singapore in July, you’ll know that my wallet was stolen about four days after I arrived here. Well, I was in Bugis Market, which has a subsection called the Thieves’ Market, so fair enough. But this time someone entered our apartment and swiped my cellphone […]
Singapore has certain things it wants its citizens to know, and signs are one way it alerts them. Our university is located next to a secondary-growth rainforest, which also is a live firing range for the Singapore military. So if you venture near the borders of the university you’ll see a sign like the one […]
OK, I’m not just crazy about the Jurong Bird Park; I like the Singapore Zoo as well, even though it’s a longer trip to get there. Again, it’s beautifully landscaped and has a lot of shade built into it. There are all kinds of meandering walkways and trees. And sometimes if you look up into […]
The Bird Park has an enormous aviary where there are about a thousand lorikeets, of about ten different varieties. Here are the most conspicuously fancy ones who tend to hang out near the entrance. That’s where visitors can buy a little cup of nectar to hold in order to lure them onto your wrist. These […]
These guys are at the Bird Park, where they greet visitors at the tram station, preen on a chalk wall in Parrot Paradise, and engage in formation flying at the Bird Buddies show. That’s really glorious to see. Many of these specimens come not from their native South America, but from New Zealand. They […]
There are several types of kingfishers to be seen on the NTU campus, and this is the most common one: the King White-Throated Kingfisher. If you go for a walk at 7:30 a.m., you can see up to five of them lining the trees and fence along the drainage canal near the National Institute of […]
You can get a foreign maid to take care of your house and/or children, and there’s a complete set of laws to protect both you and her. The maid earns $300-$400 a month, but it costs you about $1,000. This is because you pay for her airfare from the Phillipines (both ways), three thorough medical check-ups annually […]