SINGAPORE

If this is Friday, this must be Singapore.... Chris and I flew in from Denpasar today, and are still getting over a bit of culture shock. Singapore (which for you geography buffs does triple duty as an island, a city and a country), is the exact opposite of Indonesia in many ways--it's modern, clean, and affluent, especially by Asian standards. And they speak English here, which strikes me as very strange for Asia! The large majority of the population here are of Chinese descent, although there are a large number of Indian and Malay inhabitants, with a few westerners thrown into the mix as well.

Singapore has been described as kind of a microcosm of Asia itself, as the city has a number of ethnically distinct districts, including Little India, a large Chinatown, Kampung Glam, which is the Malay quarter, and an area called the Arab Street (which does include an actual street with that name, and which someone told me was the origin of the term "Arab Street" thrown around so much by pundits).

All these mini-countries, along with Singapore's obsession with order and cleanliness, its futuristic architechture, and an insane number of stores and shopping malls make the city a little reminiscent of... EPCOT Center!

Okay, it's not exactly like that. We're staying in Little India, which is definitely a little grittier than most parts of Singapore. It's fun, though, with lots of restaurants, jewelry stores, flower-garland peddlers, and tiny shops and markets, and the constant smell of incense burning. For whatever reason, a number of backpacker hostels are here, too--we're staying at the spotlessly-new Fragrance Hostel, in a six-person dorm (none of the hostels seem to have a private room). But that's been fun, too, because we've met more people--including one guy from Marietta, Georgia. Go figure....