Day 77- Belching, Even In Confined Spaces Is Apparently Acceptable In Chinese Culture. I Wish I Knew That Beforehand.

Since our accommodation budget had dramatically increased since we were no longer in Thailand, Colleen and I made sure to maximize our hotel dollars by sleeping in as long as humanly possible.  When I finally woke up around lunch time, I was greeted by a big wad of some waxy substance on my pillow that had been oozing out of my ear over the course of the night.  I had a (potentially) major ear problem in one of the most expensive countries in the world.  The logical thing to do would be to ignore it and hope it goes away on its own, so that is exactly what I did. 

Seeing as how Colleen and I had not done our research before coming to Singapore, we were ill-informed of the fact that they apparently have torrential rain storms nearly every day.  Thus, we waited out our first "Singapore storm" in our room before we ventured out into the great unknown.  Being residents of Inuvik, Northwest Territories we are fairly limited in our entertainment options, so the idea of being able to go to a movie together was a novel idea to us (we hadn't been to a theater together in over a year and a half).  Factor in that it was only $11 (most things here are far more expensive than Canada) to go the movies and they gave you the option of sweet or salty popcorn, and you my friend have yourself an afternoon date.  I had to play it safe with the salty.  While Singapore has a large population of Indian and Chinese descendants, the official language is actually English, which makes getting around (and going to the movies) quite easy for us Anglos.  With that in mind, we decided to go watch the Naomi Watts/Ewan McGregor film "The Impossible".  Without turning this into a movie blog I will just say it was a great film about a family who is caught in Thailand during the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, although it was a little eerie to be watching it as we were going to be returning to that part of Thailand within a couple of weeks. 



Super tourist!



 

Never one to pass up an opportunity at retail therapy, Colleen took advantage of her first foray into a Western style shopping center in a few weeks and promptly dropped a couple of hundred dollars that afternoon.  Me being the cheap asshole that I am kept reminding her that any clothes she bought she would have to carry along with her for the rest of the trip.  Well that, or she assured me that she could just pack them in my luggage.  Thanks babe.



The lights are so bright.



Later that evening, we caught our hotel's complimentary shuttle over to the local shopping center (Novena Square Shopping Mall) where we hopped on the subway and headed into the core of the city.  Our destination that night was the Singapore Flyer, which is the world's largest observation wheel.  On the way over we strolled through the Marina Bay Sands area of the city where one bar was offering martinis on special at the two-for-one rate of $36!  That's one way to get me to curb my drinking habit.  Due to Colleen's extremely banged up feet, we weren't moving too quickly (and I was no doubt bitching at her), but we eventually made it the Flyer. It was not overly busy, as it was a Sunday night, so we each paid our $35 and away we went.  Before the actual ride on the jumbo Ferris wheel observation wheel, we had to walk through a bunch of exhibits and such so that they made us feel like we were getting our monies worth.  Having navigated all the exhibits, we finally arrived at the loading dock and were hurried into a "capsule" with two teenage girls and a middle-aged Chinese couple.  While there were only six of us in our capsule, they could reportedly fit up to 28 people in the  10 foot x 20 foot capsule, which I am sure they had no problem doing during peak tourist hours.  The ride itself was a total of about half an hour and provided beautiful views of the city.  We also got to see the nightly fireworks show put on by the local casino as we were suspended in our capsule.  We had intended to watch it after our ride, but due to our slow walking we were now watching it from the comfort of our capsule suspended 165 meters in the air.  The other highlight of the ride was the Chinese guy who kept awkwardly belching every couple of minutes and never once thought to excuse himself.  Colleen and I weren't sure whether to be disgusted or laugh are asses off, so we just ended up doing a little bit of both.



Our "pod" right before we jumped in.



That's one hell-of-a-view.



Overlooking the Marina Bay Sands complex.



Sadly, we had to leave Sir-Burps-A-Lot and his lady after our ride.  We ended up going for a late dinner at some Boston sports themed bar/restaurant at the base of the Singapore Flyer.  The place literally had hundreds of thousands of dollars of Boston sports memorabilia and really seemed out of place in Asia.  As with the martini pricing earlier, I noticed the alcohol "specials" to be ridiculous.  They were advertising a tower of Tiger beer for $75.  Again, I wish I had grown up here and I might not have had so many hangovers in my younger days (or public intoxication tickets for that matter).


Hungry little fella?



A Boston-themed sports bar in Singapore? Seems logical.

Having done our tourist excursion for the day, we headed back to the Novena Shopping Center.  Sadly we had missed the last shuttle of the day, but I was certain that I could retrace our route by foot.  In actuality I did not have a clue what the fuck I was doing and before I knew it we were completely lost.  Somehow we ended up walking down a highway that I had never seen before with my unimpressed girlfriend not far behind me (keeping in my mind her feet were in a lot of  pain, it was a dickhead move by me).  I carried this charade on for over half an hour before we finally hailed a taxi and I discovered that I had actually led Colleen and I in the complete opposite direction of our hotel.  What an idiot!  I figured a couple of ice cold beers from the gas station across from our hotel was just what the doctor ordered as far as the antidote for my weary feet.  But alas, I tried to purchase it at 12:01am, and since it was after midnight they would not sell me the beers.  Literally, one minute. One fucking minute!!! 



Mean mugging outside the Singapore Flyer.



 

The moral of the story men: listen to women, they're smarter than us.

~Brentski~