Despite the fact that it’s the rainy season here, Christmas seems to be very popular in Singapore. It makes sense. Singapore revolves around shopping. Christmas […] Read More
Author: Shawn Smith
Friday night I went with D and some of her cabin crew friends to a club called Thumper. There were seven of us in all, […] Read More
Last month, Singapore Idol was the talk of the town. In the week leading up to the final episode, I couldn’t get into a lift […] Read More
I visited the Socialist Republic of Vietnam Embassy today to apply for my visa. Last week I bought my plane ticket to Bangkok, and yesterday […] Read More
A month ago, my mom packed up all her worldly possessions and headed west. After several decades in the Philadelphia area, she’s migrated to Silver […] Read More
Doh! Today I went to buy extra memory sticks for my camera, so I can take lots of pictures when I head north to Thailand, […] Read More
I left Thavy a voicemail on Thursday night, not knowing she’s in Japan until next week. By coincidence, her friend Shelly called me Friday to […] Read More
I set an alarm clock here every day. My morning hasn’t been dictated by an alarm clock since I was a schoolboy. Someone – I’m […] Read More
In the Straits Times today, there was an unusual amount of attention paid to the US, and an unusual amount of it was unusually unflattering. […] Read More
You hear people talk about the concept of an identity crisis. Every once in a while I have what you might call a geography crisis. […] Read More
Nearly everyone in Singapore speaks more than one language. Many speak three or four. The “official national” language is Malay, but there are three other […] Read More
From the CIA World Factbook Land Area: Slightly more than 3.5 times the size of Washington D.C. Arable Land: 1.64% Permanent Crops: 0 Population: 4.3 […] Read More
I’ve missed a couple days of posts because I came down with my first cold since I’ve been here. Thavy and Shelly called Wednesday night […] Read More
Early Saturday morning, D called me to tell me she was coming to Bali. She had originally planned to just make a surprise appearance but […] Read More
I saw some beautiful temples and rice terraces (and a few monkeys too)…
You may have noticed I’ve been using UK English lately. I’m not trying to affect a sophisticated, globe-trotter persona. It’s just that on the Singapore […] Read More
Cockfighting is illegal in Bali, but the authorities turn a blind eye during the full moon celebrations. I stumbled into one that was going on […] Read More
The Barong dance is a traditional dance performed daily in Bali. It’s a story of good versus evil – the Barong versus Rangda – full […] Read More
Every month the Balinese celebrate the full moon, and this month it happened on Friday. Women and girls wear brightly coloured blouses, while men and […] Read More
Nyoman dropped me off at my hotel, the Puri Naga Seaside Cottages, at about 1:30, and rather than kicking off my whirlwind sightseeing bonanza right […] Read More
In traditional Balinese culture, there are only four names a person can have, and these are completely dependent on the birth order. Regardless of whether […] Read More
From what I’d experienced of Changi (Singapore) airport, and from what I’d heard about Bali, I expected my arrival to be like going from the […] Read More
Found 15 minutes of free Internet at the Changi (Singapore) airport. Time’s almost up. I’m off to Bali for the weekend. Happy Thanksgiving my American […] Read More
In Singapore, food courts and hawker centers are where the locals eat. They’re where you go to get good food cheap. A food court is […] Read More
From the booking process on the Singapore Airlines web site. I only wish I’d seen this in time for Tracy and I to travel as […] Read More
Yesterday, for the Hari Raya holiday, the Istana (“palace” in Malay), the official residence of the President of the Republic of Singapore, was open to […] Read More
I haven’t watched a lot of tv in Singapore, but the other night I saw the end of an episode of Singapore Idol, and it […] Read More
So, shopping and more shopping. The Hari Raya celebration, too, was all about shopping. Geylang Serai last night was basically a big clearance sale. It […] Read More
On the subject of incredible customer service… This is a potentially delicate topic, but it makes a difference that I’m caucasian. It seemed to make […] Read More
It’s time to revisit my earlier first impressions of Singapore. I mentioned its reputation as a “boringly sterile” land of laws. I left that quote […] Read More
Here’s one last look at my view from the 30th floor of the Conrad: Yesterday, I moved ino the serviced apartments at Fraser Suites. The […] Read More
The other night a small group of us went to see a play called “godeatgod” by local playrwright, Haresh Sharma. On our first or second […] Read More
Last week, the team pitched in to get me a tailor-made shirt for my birthday. Skip and Darrell took me to Dave the tailor for […] Read More
One advantage of being on this side of the dateline is that my birthday went on for 42 hours. I got lots of in-person birthday […] Read More
Singapore, of course, is notorious for being being a boringly sterile land of laws. I’ll have to get back to you on that, but in […] Read More
So, everything they say about Singapore Airlines is true. The level of in-flight service was far beyond anything I’ve experienced. The food was excellent, the […] Read More
For some reason we can’t remember, we decided to fly Singapore Airlines out of LAX instead of SFO, which meant we had to create our […] Read More
Monday. That means all-you-can-eat dim sum style pizza tonight at Goat Hill Pizza! Basically, that means they serve all their regular pizza varieties, but they […] Read More
A couple of weeks ago, I went sailing with Mike Casey for the fourth time. We had a nice steady, strong breeze that never reached […] Read More
I bought a kayak yesterday (mine’s red – better pic coming soon) so that I could ride herd on the Alcatraz Invitational. My friend Tracy […] Read More