Back in Singapore

We did indeed get back Tuesday evening, and have been back for two entire days now. Wednesday was fairly fallow for me, as HWMBO was going to be with his parents the entire time. So, I decided to take the MRT someplace I’d never been: Marina Bay, which is the end of the North-South Line.

Well, it’s barren. The park over there is nice, and there is a public toilet which is probably cruisy when there are people around but no one except me was there at the time and I had real business to which I needed to attend, but I had to walk back to the station as there was construction going on that kept anyone from going anywhere useful. I went to the next station up, Raffles Place Interchange, but that’s the business and financial district. Nothing of interest there except tall buildings. So I walked to a very old bridge that went over a canal of some sort and got pics of some monuments and the like, until I finally discovered the underground passageway from there to City Hall and Raffles City shopping centre. Got a sandwich for lunch and also a book called The ASBO Show, by the same gentleman who wrote Refusal Shoes, which I enjoyed immensely. The book was so funny that I finished it that afternoon. I recommend it, especially to British readers, who will appreciate some of the political takes in it.

Then off for dinner with Yawning Bread, aka Alex Au, premier of the gay community in Singapore, edgy mover and shaker, and all-round nice guy. He and I are contemporaries, so it’s always nice to compare notes. We had dinner together at an Indonesian/Thai restaurant which had absolutely delicious rice, salads, green beef curry, and chicken. We then joined HWMBO and his brother for coffee, which was terribly difficult to find a place to get at 9:30 pm on the main tourist drag. Very troublesome, as HWMBO would say.

Thursday was a busy day. HWMBO and I had lunch with our friend T.H. downtown at one of a local chain of Chinese restaurants. I had some delicious dumplings and beef brisket over noodles. Very nice. Then we wandered around in bookstores. T.H. is a Chinese teacher here, and he convinced me that I should buy two books and start learning Chinese again. We will see whether HWMBO will talk with me in Chinese at home. Anyway, I bought the books, so he’ll have to try.

This evening I participated in a most interesting event. Alex Au is a photographer, and he is doing something called The Kissing Project. Singapore has in the past banned erotic photos of same-sex affection. What Alex is going to do is to take pictures of same-sex kissing and try to get a license for an exhibit. Otherwise, he will post them on the Internet or give an illustrated talk (for which he doesn’t need a permit), or both. There was one male couple there, and two other guys besides me, both of whom were much younger than I. Xavier and Lester were very nice about being photographed kissing someone twice their age. I, of course, viewed it as a Platonic event (play for them, a tonic for me). It’s edgier than usual as Xavier is Muslim, Lester is Chinese, and I am (natch!) white. So all of the picture Alex took of us three are interracial as well as inter-generational. No spit or tongues were swapped (at least between myself and the other two). I bought Xavier a bratwurst and beverage afterwards and we shot the breeze for a while. He is a philosophy student here and I encouraged him in that as Singapore has too many capitalists and not enough philosophers. Every bookstore (and we went to several today) has a large business section devoted to parting people from their money in return for a book that promises that they will be able to become rich by following the example of the book’s author. The bratwurst stall on the Food Street in Chinatown is run by an Austrian who has been here for 10 years and loves it. More power to him. I’m glad I asked whether he was German or Austrian before talking to him as the wrong answer would definitely have offended.

I happened to mention that I am a Freemason, and Xavier turned out to be interested in that from the point of view of a philosopher. So I’m hoping to get Alex to give me Xavier’s email address so I can chat with him further about it. Off home (stood all the way, almost) and now to bed.

Toe update: It looks better than it did and it seems to be weeping much less. I hope that it’ll be completely dry and healing over by Sunday.

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