Singapore

Went to Singapore. Didn't die. Went home again.

And the longer version:
Flew to Singapore on Friday night. Got in at 23:40. Looked a bit shifty at the immigration counter. Ate a boiled sweet. Got let into the country. Taxi to the hotel, then taxi to Clarke Quay, then sat by the river with Rik and his wife, drinking Tiger beer from 7-11 and watching blokes on bikes showing off. Eventually, went to a Cuban themed bar, had another drink, then went on a long walk to a place called Cuppage, had another 7-11 Tiger, got back to the hotel at around 4am, having got lost and had to take a taxi about 200 yards.

Woke up at 3pm. Sun was shining, I was wondering why I'd paid all this money for a nice hotel when all I was doing was sleeping. Come to think of it, what was I doing paying all this money to sleep in Singapore when I had a perfectly good bed in Hong Kong? Never mind, I'd got to Singapore now, and I had my bike helmet, shoes and pedals. And no hire bike, so instead I went to Punngol with Rik and we hired kayaks. (Via Ikea for some curry puffs - the great thing about travel is that it opens you up to new experiences. Like going to a Scandinavian flat-pack furniture store.)

I was feeling some trepidation at this point - I can't swim, and I've never kayaked, so I wasn't so sure that this was a wise course of action. On the other hand, what else was I going to do? The sea looked quite calm, so in I got and off I floated. Didn't fall into the lovely oily water, didn't turn the kayak upside down, didn't drop the paddle anywhere. Also couldn't figure out how to turn the kayak for a very long time (a combination of inertia and lack of attention-to-detail, combined with very sloppy physics, made that more difficult than it needed to be) and didn't paddle as far as Rik did (to the other side of the strait, whereas I just went in a very large circle, getting more and more confused). On the positive side, as I went past a man and his son in a boat, the son called out and asked me if I was a professional. He didn't specify a professional what exactly, but no matter.
Got out of the kayak. Realised that a change of clothes would have been good. Stank.

Saw the merlion. Went to Little India for dinner. Freezing cold restaurant, lovely and warm outside. Then a few more beers and Rik and I walked for miles, past a very large frog, some wild dogs and some holes in the ground, to a yacht club where we had a couple of jugs of Tiger, then I went back to the hotel. Fell asleep in the taxi, got dumped at the wrong end of Tanglin Road, walked back to the hotel, went to bed, woke up at ten a.m., stayed in bed for two hours being incompetent.

Then went back to Punggol, went all the way round the LRT the wrong way, eventually rendezvoused with Rik, off for lunch somewhere (couldn't eat because it was too hot that day - clearly I was struggling) and to watch the artificial water-skiing pond. Then back to the watersports centre to watch Rik fiddle with his jet-ski, into another taxi to the airport to check in for a flight that was departing 20 minutes earlier than I expected, got a very funny look at immigration (since I have a beard and hair and blue-grey eyes, unlike my passport) and then onto the plane, and back to Hong Kong. Still, didn't drown.