Sweating out of every pore of my body...

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And I do mean every single pore. Being outside here in Singapore is like walking into a sauna, only it's outside and not in a tiny room you can choose to avoid. Singapore is a truly beautiful city. Really it's a city planted in the middle of a geranium. Not only are there plants and trees everywhere, but it's all well manicured. They actually call Singapore the Garden City. Every year they observe a national planting day, similar to our Arbor Day, but the people there actually do something about it and plant something. Hell, I don't even know when Arbor Day is. Or what an arbor is.

If I could to choose another city to live in, it probably would be Singapore. There's just an amazing amount of variety of things here, and as you all know I do love variety in all forms: food, music, shopping, women, it doesn't matter. Well, Singapore has all of that. Food-wise, I've been eating non-stop Indian and Chinese food, but they have everything imaginable, even McDonald's, which lacks any kind of imagination. Shopping here is off the hook insane. People thought that Americans are the worst consumers, umm no, Singaporeans have us beat with the malls and the shopping. They have one road that is packed with malls and shopping centers. One whole street! Even if I work my "nice" work clothes here, I would feel embarrassed compared to the other guys in their sharp threads. I know. I shouldn't feel embarrassed for the clothes I wear. I should be embarrassed for many other things.

The only thing that really sucks, aside from the ass-melting humidity, is the walking. Quite a few people do drive here, but the vast majority don't and have to rely on mass transportation. The rail and bus systems here are great. That's what I've been doing since coming here, and my feet are dying. It's no wonder why no one here is overweight; it's because they are walking everywhere. Seriously, I don't think I've seen one obese person since getting off the plane.

I did walk by a foot reflexology place and got a massage by a blind lady. For a little, old blind lady, she sure tore my feet apart. After my massage with her, I was reminded by the joke of the blind prostitute; you really have to hand it her. The other really minor annoyance, is that all of the Chinese people here speak to me in Mandarin, after which they just shake their heads in disappointment once they learn that I don't speak a word of the mother tongue. By the way, there are three major ethnic groups here: Chinese, Malays, and Indians. But the nation's common language is English. No surprise.

So today for lunch I did have Indian food served on a big-ass banana leaf, but I didn't eat it with my hands like Indians really do it. I've been lucky that for two years in a row now, I've been in countries where they celebrated their national independence days. So for two years, I've seen fireworks. Last night's was pretty impressive. Now I've said this last year: even though I got to experience a lot of fireworks and loud bangs, there were no fireworks or loud bangs for yours truly. But this is only the fourth day of my trip, so I remain optimistic. Just like have for 32 years now.

Hmm, nothing really exciting or bad has happened to me so far. No propositioning for oral sex by transsexual hookers, no shakedowns by cops, no sit down pictures with live man-eating tigers, no getting kisses blown to me by a teen boy on a bus, and no close plunges to my death from 12,000 feet. Oh, I did actually go on the Singapore Flyer, which is the world's tallest observation wheel. After a few minutes on it, I started freaking out over the height. The whole trip took about 37 minutes to complete, and I was trembling the whole time with a heart-rate going hundreds of miles an hour. I might have crapped in my shorts a bit, too, so the next people who took my capsule got a nice little surprise. But it was all worth the view and experience.

So what does tonight have in store for me? Well, I plan on dressing up and go to a trendy riverfront area for tapas, then go to a bar that's 60-something stories high in what was at one time the world's tallest hotel. Maybe fireworks will happen two nights in a row. Probably not. Just self-starting sparklers as usual. I'm so f-ing tired, sore, and sticky. Just to clarify sticky from the sweat. Okay, I'll stop now...

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