Man, in Singapore there sure are a lot of...

Really Expensive Cars – In the 12 days that I’ve been here, I’ve seen a couple Lamborghinis, several Ferraris, and BMWs (even the 7 series) are as common as Fords are in the US.

Fast road-workers – I was walking home last night, and they were tearing up the road in front of my apartment. This morning, I left & there was no sign that anything had been done! The asphalt was all back down, and the lane lines were re-painted. MNDOT needs to come over here for a seminar.

Luxury stores – Singaporeans love their shopping. Orchard Road is one of the premiere shopping areas here. In just a few blocks, you will find 2 Prada Stores, 2 Versace stores, 3 Gucci stores, etc… (I checked on the Internet, I haven’t been shopping for purses). :-P

Cars with little yellow signs in the windows… you know, the ‘baby on board signs’. Except, there are lots of different versions here. I thought they stopped making those about 20 years ago. My favorite was ‘This is a dumb yellow sign’.

Another thing that I thought went out of style 20 years ago – break dancing. I saw a bunch of kids doing it in one of the underpasses yesterday (They have tunnels under busy roads, connecting buildings, and around the subway stations. In fact, they have an entire underground mall near the hotel that we stay at when we come here on business).

I got a lot of questions about cable skiing. Yeah, it’s tough to describe. Next time I’m down there, I’ll take some pictures (or, hopefully someone will take pictures of me doing it!).
But, for now, here’s few links to the cable-ski web page. :-)

http://www.cable-ski.com

I have met a couple of people here. During my first week here, I went out to lunch with a couple of co-workers. We went to the University, which is pretty close to work, and ate at an outdoor café. This girl comes up & sits down with us, and my co-worker introduces her as his daughter. During the lunch I found out that they used to live in Minnesota, near Macalestar college! My co-worker’s wife is from Minnesota (he’s from China), and his daughter was born in Minneapolis. Small world.

Then next weekend, their family took me out to Dim Sum. The food was good, and it was fun to talk with them. Afterwards, Lish (that’s her name) & I went walking around Chinatown & then to the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Too bad she’s heading back to the US for college this Friday. Guess I have to make some more new friends. :-)

Yesterday was Singapore’s National Day (like the 4^th of July), so I didn’t have to work. So, I have 2 2-day weeks this week. I spent the afternoon wandering around - I walked over to Little India & back, taking pictures along the way (still haven’t got around to uploading those!).

In the evening, I went down to watch the ceremony. The actual ceremony takes place at their National Stadium, and I couldn’t get in (sold out). So, I went to the Esplanade – the Theater by the Bay. I heard that you could see it from there. So, when I got there, I went where the crowd was – on the bridge watching over the bay. You couldn’t see the stadium from there, but I figured the locals knew what they were doing. After an hour, the ceremony started. The helicopters flew past with huge Singapore flags hanging beneath them, and the fighter planes buzzed past. Then more waiting. Finally, the sky lit up with fireworks over the stadium – but we couldn’t see them. They were behind the building! What?!!?!?!? I thought the locals knew what they were doing? There were tens of thousands of them there! I left extremely disappointed.

Remember kids… it’s not always cool to follow the crowd. If your best friend was going to sit on a bridge & watch fireworks behind a building, does that mean you have to?

I guess I'll watch the re-broadcast on TV this weekend.