Chinatown somemore

It seems to get hopping after dark.

Esplanade Plaza

Front door of the durian joint.

Best D#mn Newspaper. Period.

This one you should download the fullsized image. (It's also a self-protrait, of sorts).

[Partial] CBD Skyline

Singapore's famous Central Business District skyline from the west bank of the Singapore river.

Singapore Chinatown

is located next to the Central Business District. They wiped out a lot of Chinatown during the skyscraper frenzy over the last 15 yrs apparently. Then they realized they were losing something, so they tried to stop and recreate what was there. It's a lot more antiseptic, but still colorful and a good cruise for your average tourist.

What's up with the Fox?

You might ask--looks like not much to me. It's too bad, because these days they're booking the Paramount a couple times a week, week in and week out. JB just played there in fact. If the Fox were available too, the 19th Street/Broadway area of Oakland just might be...ROCKING!

Got Hair

?

Pulau Ubin

This is an inhabited islet across a channel from the main island of Singapore. The cops have a training base there, there's an Outward Bound compound there, some old quarries, and one small village. It's a 10 minute ride from Singapore, in a bumboat, for S$2 a head (you wait until there's a dozen people wanting to go, no schedule otherwise).

You can rent mtn bikes and ride all over the island on a network of paved and dirt roads (plus some undocumented singletracks that we explored). We saw wild boar and a monitor lizard (sorry no pix). There was a large selection of bikes, but few frames that fit me.

World Famous Chilli Crab

We had to try this, so we consulted the food guide, and found this place, out in the red light district of Geylang. It was the best crab ever, bar none. That sauce is spicy, thick with egg & crab meat; the crab, fresh and massive. This particular claw probably weighed in at 1500 g :)

Bird Park Part Deux

They have a mess of Macaws, that participate in a show and then hang out after for photoops with their fans.

They also have an excellent, huge walkin aviary called "Lori Loft" which is new and is home to one thousand of these babies. They love to be fed, are tame as rocks, and swarm everyone.

Dragon Boats

They were having the National Championship Dragon Boat races downtown on the Singapore River 11/27-28/2005. This is one semifinal heat.

Flip Flop

From an art installation currently on view in the lobby of the Esplanade. We were there Sunday afternoon, along with a bunch of little kids who were having a blast running up and down the stairs around these pieces.

The Esplanade is a newish civic arts center, featuring a concert hall and a theater, and distinctive architecture inspired by some sort of tropical fruit. (NB: it smells quite pleasant inside this building...)

Vanishing Point

This is the Swisshotel Singapore (formerly the Westin), the world's tallest hotel, at 70 stories. They worked in a nice moire in there up at the top too.

Call me Lucky

This Hyacinth Macaw, named Lucky, was adopted by Carl Zeiss the very day we visited Jurong Bird Park. For a mere S$5000, Carl Zeiss gets to call Lucky family and put up a sign near his perch. Lucky seems pretty happy about it all too.

Actually this park is great and well worth a visit.

Batman's down for christmas

in Singapore. They do have some awesome bats in the Night Safari, including massive Fox Bats, which can achieve wingspans of 150 cms.

You can also see Batman's got a nice wingspan himself. Here he's trying to get his hands on some of those new furbys before they're all gone.

Getting Around

The MRT bekons. They use RF proximity cards, which is great because you can leave the card in your wallet/purse. They do charge a S$5 'fee' and a refundable S$ 3 deposit to initial get the card for S$15, which might be a rip off, I'm not sure.