S'Pore

So I am in Singapore right now! I arrived a night ago and knew almost nothing about the place or what to expect and now 24 hours later, I have walked around it multiple times! I arrived at night and was a bit intimidated and the next morning, I met two girls while eating breakfast and ended up wandering around with one of them, an English girl named Claire. Singapore turns out to be quite a schizophrenic city, it has so many different districts that are drastically different. There's Little India, Chinatown, a very modern business district, old-style parks, and then a colorful mall-esque area with tons of crazy structures. It's weird to see a place that's run down and looks like it could be in India and then 6 blocks later, you're at a high-rise with fountains. I am currently staying a hostel with a mosque at the corner so you hear blaring prayers at 6am every morning.

Claire and I went to Little India and had a meal, which was nifty considering my greater knowledge now about the indian culture so I understood a bit more about what I was doing. So we ate with our hands on big trays with different cups of curry and random bread bits, it was delicious! That turned out to be the most delicious meal, since the rest of my experimentation turned out to be quite an "experience". There was the bowl of brown sauce with noodles that was called the "Brown Rice Box Set" (my friend continually was saying, "where's the rice?"), that was tasteless, yet spicy, explain that. Then there was the picture that looked refreshing and cold called "Papaya Dessert" which turned out to be steaming hot and with some strange clear cabbage-esque thing (not the most delicious to my palette either). I really don't know the names for most of what I ate, so that'll have to do.

The crowning winner for the Strange Food Award, was a shaved ice dessert that had fruit syrup, milk, and fruit. Sounds delicious, but the fruit was durian which turns out was banned on trains since it smells like rotting socks. And it had a mucusy texture, but was quite hilarious to try since we had no idea what we were embarking on when we ordered it. I'm leaving tonight, but more strange food experiences are sure to come today!

Last thing--it's hot and rainy here. The humidity is ridiculous, it constantly feels like it will downpour, and when it does, there's about an inch of water on the ground. It's supposedly ridiculously safe, but at the same time, they like to remind people everywhere that "Anything can happen" and on the trains, they have videos of the past train bombings in other countries. Nice. Oh, as well as an acted scenario of what to do if you see someone abandon a bag, ("oh no, we're in trouble!"). I thought the States were paranoid, but this was impressive.

Other fun facts about Singapore:
-An execution takes place ever 9 days
-Spitting and chewing gum are illegal with strict consequences
-Air conditioning takes up 1/3 of the electricity usage
-World's third biggest port
-There is free speech as long as you are Singaporean, register with the police ahead of time, aviod topics like religion and politics, and don't offend anyone.

Fun Foods I've seen in Singapore:
--Pig Organ Soup, complete with different types if you prefer Pig Liver, Pig Kidney, Pig Stomache, and so on.
--A storefront called Fishball Minced Meat Noodle. No idea.
--Sweet potato milkshakes