joe_haldeman @ 2011-10-24T08:09:00

Yesterday I had a long interview in the morning, at the hotel here, with a reporter from a local paper -- actually a freelancer who flew down to Singapore from Malaysia to cover the conference. I was well-read in the Haldeman ouvre -- does that mean eggs In Chinese? -- and had an hour's worth of good questions.


Gay and I had had a large breakfast and went out for a little exploring before the interviewer came. There's an arty neighborhood just behind the hotel; an art museum a couple of blocks to the left on Orchard Street and a large art school to the right -- I mean REALLY large, a futuristic building with an entrance of towering slabs forty feet high, all strange angles and forbidding textures. Not a place where art students might hang around flirting and drawing each other. But a block away, perpendicular to Orchard Street, there's an appropriately funky neighborhood, with coffee houses and not-too-clean cheap tea houses and rice places. I want to wander around there a bit, perhaps this morning.


One restraint on free-wheeling touring is the remarkable breakfast that's included in our rather pricey hotel bill. It's a buffet that combines American and European standards with pretty odd Japanese, Chinese, and Malaysian stuff. I'm not tempted to go out for breakfast, with a free cornucopia of such variety waiting here. (I should say "free.")
We decided to try out public transit, and followed the concierge's directions to a place that sold bus and subway tickets. Gay had studied the map, and we got on board a bus headed in the right direction, which of course turned and took off for parts unknown. No big problem , since everything is new, and Singapore is a pretty safe city. (Violent crime is rare, but purse snatchers are a problem, so we keep our bags close.) We rode for a few minutes and got off and tried to get our bearings.


After wandering a few blocks we found one of our destinations, the absolutely huge shopping mall (I think Paragon), about a large city block square and seven stories high, each floor the size of a large American mall. We sort of wandered around sightseeing. Most of the stores were not that interesting, because they were too high-scale -- I don't have to come to Singapore to buy Prada, Gucci, and Mont Blanc.


But we followed directions and found an awesomely large and varied stationery and book store, the size of four or five Borders merged on one level. I was looking for an art department so I could buy a small watercolor blank book to paint some travel notes. I managed to leave behind my little watercolor box -- I remember tossing it into the suitcase, but must have taken it out, repacking. Got a little spitbox for about thirty bucks, and a pair of the same kind of waterproof drawing pens I use at home. A really good Moleskine-type drawing book, "monologue" brand, for about ten bucks; I bought two.


We went into a little fast-food joint for lunch, where I got a strange combination of crispy fried chicken and spaghetti in a spicy sweet sauce, actually very good. We walked around a bit more and then hit the bricks. Humid but not unpleasant. We were about a mile from the hotel, and started walking in that direction.
Walking is a visual delight, moving through a sea of attractive Asian women. I'm sure there were probably some boys among them. We stopped to rest at a bar with outside tables. With my pomegranate soda, I did a little watercolor of Gay having her iced coffee.


Partway home, we came to a gigantic theatre complex, and on impulse bought tickets to a movie and went in. It dwarfed the huge Cinerama complex on Central Park in New York. Escalators going this way and that, dozens of screens on a half-dozen levels. We took an elevator to the sixth floor and waited for our screen to open -- we had assigned seats and an assigned time. Meanwhile I went down to the fifth floor and got us a small box of popcorn and an orange drink, ten bucks. Probably not much more than a city in the States.


We watched a large-screen explosion of special effects and car chases, Killer Elite, a routine thriller with Jonathan Strahan and Clive Owen, with an extended De Niro cameo. Rotten Tomatoes gives it one tomato, but I wasn't disappointed; didn't expect all that much. Could do without some of the writing, though. Tough-guy De Niro gets into the face of a new tough-guy wannabe, and tells him, "Killing's easy. Living with it isn't." Maybe acting is the same way.


Back at the hotel we put our feet up for awhile and then went off in a new direction for dinner, no plans. We wound up at a big food court with about thirty stands, not too noisy. Bright and full of delicious smells. Gay got some noodle soup and I got a whole fried fish with a rice ball and some hot and smoky sauces on the side. Absolutely delicious, and fun to dissect with chopsticks.


Staggered off to bed exhausted.


Joe