Reflection on our travels

I just got home (0545h) and am waiting for my ride from NAIA. Below is the log I kept before Alecon and I left SIN:

My feet are very upset with me. Alecon and I have been walking all day around the nearby shopping district at Orchard Road. She found one of her hard-to-find dolls at a shop in Wheelock Place and she got me an iPod at the Lucky Center where we were attended to by this sweet old lady who also offered the lowest prices.

It's just about 1700h and Shuyun will be picking us up to witness some kind of changing of the guard ceremony and dinner before graciously bringing us to the airport. She has been such a charming and generous host. What a sweet girl.

It's Sunday so there's a horde of Filipinos on Orchard Road, especially at Lucky Center where a lot of services catering to Filipinos are based, similar to World Trade Center at Central in HKG. Singapore on Sunday you can see a dazzling display of skin colors, a cosmopolitan city much like HKG. In HKG one can meet a lot of French-speaking Africans who I haven't seen at all here.

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Wow, this changing of the guard is a big deal here. There's quite a crowd that turned up at the Presidential Palace gate where the gurds will pit on a show after marching down from Orchard Road. As can be expected, it's quite a mixed bag for such a cosmopolitan city. I see whites in their summer getups, Hong Kongese and Koreans glammed up, Filipinos on furlough, Mainland Chinese, Indians, Malay women alled covered up in bright gold fabrics, babies in strollers, and us.

I think the crowed swelled 20% more in the time it took to write the last paragraph.

The show was quite fascinating. The Military Police put on a skillful display of martial rifle juggling. I remember those miserable days back at CAT and ROTC not without some nostalgia.

We had dinner at this Japanese restaurant where they had good shake sashimi and a mean katsu curry. I had sweet cold sake and got to be loud, talkative, and personal (in sharing stories). Afterwards we took a drive through Little India which was so bright and festive due to the Deepavili celebration (festival fo lights). The Chinese here regard Indians as too shifty when it comes to money, and they're treated as third class citizens in Malaysia and in the Philippines as well. The Chinese think Malays are lazy, even in Malaysia the local Chinese feel the same way.

In the Philippines the Indians are most known for usury. The loan shark reputation has cast them as bogeymen used to scare children - if they don't behave the Bumbay will take them away.

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It's only 2130h and we're already queued ad the check-in counter at the Budget Terminal. Departure time is 0040h, past midnight, but these Filipinos who like us have nothing better to do are already jockeying for good seats. The thing is, the plane has t exits so being stuck in the rear may prove to be fortuitous - as it was in KUL. However, I think NAIA will use a tube thingy to alight the passengers so it really does pay to get seated in front.

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It may not be the Grand Tour, but I do feel a great broadening of perspective after this current trip. Too bad there wasn't enough time for Thailand, but it's really good to discover young Asia (HKG, MCU, KUL, SIN) - nations/cities that haven't been around for too long and yet possess so much character if not vitality.

Here ends our international Honeymoon. This stop has been the best yet. We went to 4 interesting cities in less than a year's time and met and bonded with a lot of interesting people. I certainly feel that I've discovered so much about people and how the world works and doesn't. I would then ask myself what good I can make out of this learning, but for now, having discovered, seen, touched,heard, and tasted is good in itself.