November 12 - Singapore
The television has ESPN. Not only that, but there's a TV guide in the room that screamed one thing: SUNDAY FOOTBALL.
Of course, today is Monday in Singapore. But it's still Sunday in the states and there's football on. Poor Jon. He hasn't seen a game the entire time we've been gone. He's still playing in the "Rubin Football League", although a friend of his is running their team. But he hasn't actually been able to watch a game all season. And this is quite an adjustment for him. He's has uninterrupted football-watching freedom for the past 4 years. In 1997 I was studying for the GMATs. In 1998 I was planning the wedding. And for the past 2 years I've been in school. So for four years, he's had complete nag-free television access during the fall football season.
And now he's had to quit cold turkey. Poor boy.
So we spent the entire morning watching Seattle and Oakland duke it out on the field.
After the game was done, we rang Air New Zealand to see if we could get on an earlier fright to Aucklund. Unfortunately, all the flights are full because of an upcoming holiday. So we're stuck here until the 16th.
But that's no problem because we finally got in touch with our friend Allen. Allen is the brother of my brother's wife. So, sort of my brother-in-law-in-law. Sort of. At any rate, his family (The Meeks) and my family (The Marstalls) have been doing Thanksgivings and Christmases together for... oh.... something like 15 years. So we kind of grew up together. Allen plays for the Singapore Symphony and has been here for a few years. So we're psyched we finally got in touch with him. We made plans to meet up with him later this evening.
Quest For Books
We caught the MRT into town to find a used book store someone told us about. We wandered around the "Raffles" area which is basically the nice shopping district, until we found the shopping center with the book store.
Jon in front of the Raffles Hotel
There, as we were perusing through the books, someone called Jon's name. It was our friends Mirielle and Alberto from Koh Tao. They took the Rescue Diver course with us, and left soon after to go to the west coast. What a small world! They had also just arrived in Singapore and were wandering the streets looking for inexpensive things to do. Not an easy thing to do here. So we chatted with them for a while and swapped stories of the past few years.
We also wandered upstairs to another book store, where we found a used New Zealand guide. It's not a Lonely Planet, but for $5 who really cares at this point? As we were checking out, a girl behind us in line asked us if we knew anything about Malaysia. We didn't, but we ended up chatting with her for a while. She was on her way to Thailand and wanted some ideas of where to go. Through talking to her, we asked ourselves - yet again - why we left Thailand.
Scuba Shop
We walked back to the Concourse to see if the scuba shop was open. It was, and we looked around it for a little while. The man at the shop talked to us for a while about the different kinds of dive computers, and dive masters get 10% off the merchandise. Of course, we don't have our cards yet but I think he would have let us slide. It doesn't really matter because we didn't buy anything. They're very expensive and we don't know if we'll have dive jobs in Australia so it might be wasted money at this point.
Then it was time to go meet Allen for dinner. We walked to the nearest subway stop, but realized that we didn't know which stop Allen lived near. So we took a cab to the address he gave us.
Allen's Apartment
Allen's is an adorable corner apartment on a little street that dead-ends at a canal. It's peacefully quiet and quite spacious. We haven't seen him since last Christmas, so the 3 of us sat around and talked and shared stories about our respective families. He had pictures of our new niece, Samantha, who was born a week ago and who I haven't seen yet. It was great to see them!
We had an interesting conversation about prostitution in Singapore. This, of course, is because we're staying in the Red Light District which is amusing in and of itself. It turns out that prostitution is legal in Singapore. But not only is it legal, but it's also tightly regulated. The woman that work are tested on a regular basis, and must have permits in order to be "in business". This actually makes perfect sense to me. I mean, it's going to happen. So why not make it legal and safe, instead of illegal and risky? Singapore seems to be proof that it works.
So we talked about this and other Singapore-related stuff. Allen has a great life here. He gets paid an expat salary, has a fun group of friends, and has all sorts of culture right at his doorstep. Regardless, he's been here for 4 years and is ready to move on. But he has a nice setup while he's still here.
Jon - being a stereo junky - wanted to hear Allen's slick new sound system. So we turned on the surround sound and watched a scene from Fantasia 2000 (the one with the whales). Then we listened to some Pink Floyd and Radio Head, and just hung out. It was a great way to spend an evening.
Mexican Dinner
We walked down the street to have dinner at a Mexican restaurant nearby. Allen's friend Michelle came to meet us and the four of us had a lovely dinner together. The food was great, and it was nice to hang out with someone who's practically family.
Michelle, Allen, Jon and me at dinner
After dinner, Jon and I caught the MRT back to our hotel which was only 3 stops away.