Another 24 Hours of Fun!

I continue to explore and enjoy this remarkable city. Yesterday, we ran out of underwear, so instead of doing the laundromat thing in the hotel ($16), I took the whole pile to the Washy-Washy down the street.

While Bill slept, I took a shuttle to Orchard Road, the fancy shopping/lodging/dining section of town. The sidewalks were teeming with tourists, not my favorite atmosphere, even though I'm a tourist myself. I did some wandering around Lucky Centre, the Filipino nexus. Then I found my way to Tang's department store where the real fun was!

There was one whole floor devoted to handbags. They do love their purses here, and the scene at Tangs was like a parody of sale-day at Macy's. Women playing polite-but-firm Tug O' War with totes, clutches and shoulder bags, everyone racing from table to table, trying to snatch up the "bargains."

Downstairs was kitchenware and appliances, all being demonstrated by enthusiastic Asian versions of "Vince ShamWoW" and Billy Mays on TV at home. I was treated to demos of food dehydrators, vacuums, Bento-Box thermos units, mixers, knives, rice cookers, rotisseries, and food storage covers.

I was completely enthralled with the silicone bowl covers and expressed mild interest. "Wait, don't answer yet!" said the girl (I'm not kidding). "You also get two jumbo size for free, today special only!" She switched effortlessly between Mandarin and English to sell her product simultaneously to me and the Chinese couple standing next to me. I blinked first, and walked away with a set of 5 for just $18S. I felt like I had won a prize drawing!

While looking for my shuttle bus, the sky opened up and the rain poured down. But it was like rain in TN in the summer; it didn't really cool anything off, just added to the humidity. I queued up for a taxi and the driver kindly took me to the Washy-Washy in time to pick up our clean clothes, and I walked back to the hotel in the rain.

When Bill awoke, we went on our nightly hunter-gatherer routine for dinner. Walking up to Great World City, my sneakers took one last sigh and completely fell apart. I had dinner barefoot under the table, then Bill took me to Bata, where I bought a pair of sandals with arch support. I've never had a pair of shoes fail so suddenly and dramatically, except for the time my gym shoes in Junior High had bleach spilled on them, literally flying off my feet when I kicked a ball in gym class. I guess I just wore out those poor sneaks by walking them to death here in Singapore.

We walked along the river coming home, and stopped in for a beer at the Grand Copthorne piano bar. Bill's musician friend Victor wasn't due in until 9:45, so we moved on, Bill hoping to get a nap before catching the bus to work at 11:15.

Good news this morning: Juli is out of the hospital and on the mend. Sometime last night, "another hole" was found on Bill's ship, necessitating another two weeks in dry dock (meaning another two weeks in the hotel), so we don't have to find new lodging or move before I leave next week. Bill swears he was nowhere near that part of the ship at any time...