2014...as it relates to 2015

The Akashic Records. Okay, no, not really. It's actually Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. (Photo courtesy of navitascoach.com)

Once again it's time for my customary look back at the previous year, and a peek ahead at what's to come next year. Without further ado, here's a list of the things I accomplished in 2014: 

•  brewed a bunch of beers with the guys, including a lip-smackin' ginger IPA
•  completed The Art of Manliness's 30 Days to a Better Man challenge (January)
•  submitted a query, along with 10 pages of my manuscript, to Ace & Roc Science Fiction & Fantasy in January; sent in the full manuscript in August; rejected in October
•  took a trip to Sapporo, Hokkaido in February
•  rode the train through all the way through Japan (took a full day and then some) 
•  said farewell to Adam in Busan
•  moved to Gangnam-gu in March
•  got my appendix out in May
•  sent my full manuscript to Baen Books in June; rejected in December
•  traveled through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong from July 12 to August 7
•  took the Reunification Express through Vietnam, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City
•  ate lo mai gai, bun cha, banh mi, and pigeon-heart pho in Vietnam
•  traveled across Cambodia by bus, and ate khmer amok and beef loklak
•  drank cocktails at the top of Bangkok's tallest building and watched a thunderstorm
•  took the train from Bangkok to Butterworth, and hung around in the Hong Kong Bar on Penang Island, drinking cheap Tiger beers and talking to Chinese, Brits, Russians, and Brazilians 
•  rode a miserable bus through Malaysia
•  spent a hot, humid, overpriced weekend in Singapore drinking eponymous slings and riding open-top buses (and the Flyer)
•  met up with Miss H in Hong Kong and spent four lovely days there, eating Hokkaido ramen and Moroccan lamb and MSG-laden Cantonese and English beer (and going to Disneyland)
•  saw Miss H go back home before me in September
•  moved into a oneroomtel in Gwangjin-gu that same month
•  finished reading Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina in November
•  read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, The Terror by Dan Simmons, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux, Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks, Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Korean War: A History by Bruce Cumings, Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad, Dune by Frank Herbert, The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut, The Book of Wonder by Lord Dunsany, and some other stuff
•  found the best burger in Seoul (at Bartwo, a beer-and-burger pub in Oksu-dong)
•  ...and the best Mexican in Seoul (Gusto Taco, near Sangsu Station in the Hongdae area)
•  tasted seolleongtang, makchang (large beef intestines), fermented soybean paste, hoe deopbap (raw fish over rice), chicken bulgogi, shrimp gimbap, and barbecued ox hearts
•  ate at the Casablanca Sandwicherie in Itaewon (lamb chili sandwich and a Berber omelette, yum!)
•  completed the shooter challenge at Gecko's Terrace in Itaewon, and now have my name inscribed on a brass plaque above the bar with the following motto: Bibo Ergo Sum
•  discovered Jack White, The White Stripes, Jeff Buckley, Sky Sailing, Cage the Elephant, Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis
•  took up pipe-smoking and honed my appreciation for good pipe tobacco (with a nip of bourbon or rye)
•  completed another NaNoWriMo and took my first steps toward becoming a paperless writer 
• started two new novels and abandoned a third
•  submitted ten short science fiction stories to Clarkesworld, Analog Science Fiction & Fact, Asimov's Science Fiction, Space Squid, Daily Science Fiction, 3LBE, and Fiction Vortex (all rejected)
•  joined Twitter (11 followers so far!) and revamped my blog and Google Plus pages (to build my writer's platform)
•  added some delicious dishes to my cooking and baking repertoire, such as chicken piccata, vegetarian lasagna, penne pasta with vodka sauce, New York cheesecake, and stuffed bell peppers
•  wrote and submitted pieces to ElectRow magazine
•  went to the HBC Festival and drank beer and ate doner kebab
•  rode my bike all the way to Gwacheon 
•  walked from Gwangjin-gu to Itaewon 
•  walked 10 miles in one day 
•  went to the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art
•  hiked Achasan and Yongmasan
•  hiked Namhansanseong, the ninth of Korea's UNESCO World Heritage sites I've seen (out of 11 total)
•  tried the hamburgers at Fire Bell, Libertine, and Left Coast
•  visited the doctor about some heart palpitations, and started taking magnesium supplements for excessive stress
• on a related note, I lost 20 pounds between August and December
• visited a buddy in Gunsan, North Jeolla (and rode first class on the KTX back to Seoul)
•  planned a wedding in April 2015 (my own!)
•  scored an interview with a tech start-up in Las Vegas 
•  made dozens of new friends in seven countries
•  finished my final semester at Sejong University
•  prepared to depart Korea on January 7, 2015

And here's what I hope for 2015: a job in January, a wedding with the love of my life in April, a wedding in England (congratulations, Jeff & Jenn!) in July, Wasteland Weekend in September, a literary agent by December, and burning off the rest of my gut at the gym. And keeping it off. Twenty pounds gone already, as you saw above.

Postie out. 

Hong Kong, day four

We languished in our hotel room until 1:30 p.m. (Tuesday, August 6), waiting for the downpour to clear up. Then we caught the train (HK$27!) to Disneyland and spent four or five hours there. 

It was surprisingly small and easy to navigate. We only did five rides: Space Mountain, the Fantasyland Carousel, the Jungle River Cruise, Mystic Manor, and Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, plus some obligatory souvenir shopping. The longest we had to wait in line was 50 minutes. The Chinese were loud, rude, and pushy...pretty typical. Nothing like Tokyo Disneyland, let me tell you! 

The biggest enemy was HK's summer heat: hot, still, and humid. We were drenched with sweat within seconds of arriving, and bottles of water cost a whopping HK$25 (around $3.25 US). We splurged and got a big bag of caramel popcorn for HK$38, and that put our spirits to rights. 

We had dinner at Le Souk, a Moroccan-Lebanese-Egyptian restaurant in SoHo. We barely made it up the escalators before more rain came pounding down. We chewed very slowly on our chicken shish kebabs and lamb stew (with Coke and Kronenbourg to wash it down), but we had to order another plate of Lebanese hummus and savor it before the rain truly stopped. 

No sooner had we clambered aboard a streetcar for North Point when MORE rain hit. We were getting pretty lucky today. I was nursing the back of my right ankle. My old Airwalk flip-flops had no tread left after tramping all over Southeast Asia, and stepping on wet granite tiles was like walking on ice. I slipped coming down the stairs from SoHo and gashed my ankle on the cracked, crumbling concrete stair. Back in Room 2504, I washed the wound in the shower and sprayed it with disinfectant while Miss H went for a late-night massage at the parlor on the hotel's second floor. Then we packed up and turned in. 

Our last day in Hong Kong was done. 

Hong Kong, day three

As of Tuesday, August 5, I'd built up an impressive store of alcohol in Room 2504 of the ibis North Point Hotel. I nabbed a small bottle of White Horse blended Scotch the first night, and there was a bottle of Gambler's Gold (the Hong Kong Brewing Company's golden ale) and some Magners cider in our mini-fridge also.

I was sitting pretty.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. 

We awoke quite late and had a languorous breakfast at the hotel buffet: Danishes, toast, noodles, baked beans, runny scrambled eggs, hard-boiled eggs, sausage, pancakes, bacon, potatoes, fruit, yogurt, congee (rice porridge), cereal, tea, coffee, orange juice...everything but blood pudding. Miss H and I had were pigging out on it every morning. It cost about HK$66 ($8 US), so we had to get our money's worth. 

We were foiled in most our plans today. We wanted to ride the cable car or trolley or whatever up to Victoria Peak, but last night Jeff had warned me that it would be crowded as hell up there, and the lines would be ridiculous. We thought next of taking the open-top bus tour, but upon arriving at the terminus at Central Piers we discovered that it cost HK$400—fifty U.S. dollars a pop. No way, Jose. We briefly considered the Star Ferry harbor tour, but that was eighty-three U.S. dollars. Rather dejected, we went back to the hotel to regroup. I polished off the cider and the Scotch and felt mighty fine.  

We dined at 6:00 p.m. at a marvelous little Sapporo ramen restaurant a couple of doors down from the hotel. For just a couple hundred HK dollars we had dumplings, beef tongue, tonkatsu curry with rice (Miss H), and a big heaping bowl of Hokkaido ramen with pork (me). Great guns—I'd heard Hokkaido ramen and its light brown miso-laden broth was the shiz, but but the reality blew me away. Best ramen these lips have been privileged to taste. Can't wait to get back to Sapporo and have the real deal.  

Not my photo.

To keep the Japanese theme going, Miss H and I boarded the streetcar and rode to Burrows Street to visit the Hokkaido Dairy Farm "Milk Restaurant." Not sure what their gimmick was—I guess all their dairy products came from Hokkaido, and all their food was cooked with it. I'd read that Hokkaido ice cream was a delicacy in Hong Kong, and unlike most "delicacies" which interest me, this was something Miss H could sample too. We had a vanilla sundae with chocolate and adzuki bean sauce—superb. 

For kicks, we stepped across the road and into the Wellcome supermarket to get a look at what Hong Kongers mow down on. There was a staggering array of western foods, including Cadbury's chocolate—nearly impossible to find in other Asian countries and nonexistent in Korea, much to all my English friends' chagrin. I bought one of the Cadbury's bars, a Double Decker bar ('cause I'd never tried one), and a bottle of Laoshan, Tsingtao's upscale brand.

Then we rode the tramway home, dumped everything in our room (and I drank my Gambler's Gold), and went back out and around the corner to a gaming arcade we'd spotted on the second floor of a high-rise. We played at racing games and basketball tosses and a couple of rail shooters, burning through HK$35 in an hour. Then we came home, showered, and collapsed into bed. A fantastic thunderstorm hit just as we turned out the lights, and we laid there, tangled up with each other, watching the flashes and counting the seconds, until we drifted off to sleep.  

Hong Kong, day two

Did I say that we had a fantastic view from Room 2504 of the ibis North Point Hotel? I was whistling Dixie. As we peered outside on the wet morning of Monday, August 4, we saw two rusty brown hawks circling each other as they rode a thermal updraft up the side of the hotel building; barges, junks, yachts, cruise ships, and ferries scudding across the iron waters of Victoria Harbor; rain pounding down in Kowloon; the hoary cloud-swept peak of Tai Mo Shan; and jets descending toward Lantau Island. What a view to wake up to. 

We were lazy most of the day, waiting for the spectacular thunder showers to pass and the heat to subside. In the early evening, we took the tram (the streetcar, not the subway) west to Hong Kong Station.

Then we rode the Star Ferry from Pier 7 across Victoria Harbor to Tsim Sha Tsui.

 

  

There was one thing I knew I HAD to do in HK: the Avenue of the Stars, specifically the Bruce Lee statue. I admired the man's physical prowess and wanted to pay my respects to satisfy my rampant, querulous, needy, domineering inner geek. I also got to mack on some grilled cuttlefish. 

Heather returned to the hotel and I rode one stop north to Jordan to meet Jeff, my old Canuck friend from Geoje, whom I'd last seen in Ho Chi Minh City. He and his fiancée Jenn had taken the Reunification Express in the opposite direction I had—up to Hoi An and the beaches there. He was in Hong Kong on a long layover to Seoul to pick up the wedding ring, and she'd already gone back to England. We thought we'd meet up in Kowloon for dinner and a drink. I nabbed some postcards at the Temple Street Night Market and we located a restaurant. It was down a shifty-looking side-street, swathed in plastic awnings but with plentiful light, electric fans, and TVs showing period dramas. The menu was in English and 640-ml bottles of Tsingtao were only HK$15 apiece. We feasted on fried rice, a satay beef bowl, and fried pork ribs—suspiciously similar in taste and appearance to any Californian Chinese buffet, and therefore likely loaded with MSG. 

For drinks we rode the subway back under the harbor to Hong Kong/Central. We popped out of Exit C, turned left up a hill, went right, traversed a staircase, followed a sinuous skyway for a few hundred yards, and found ourselves in SoHo, a favorite haunt of Jeff's and a great many other hungry, thirsty expats. the place was full to bursting with trendy, overpriced foreign restaurants catering to affluent residents of the Mid-Levels and accessed by a unique system of tiered, slow-moving escalators. One has merely to stand and browse as one is lifted up the steep hill, and disembark at one's leisure. 

Having already stuffed ourselves in Kowloon, Jeff and I were only interested in beverages. We had a nightcap at Yorkshire Pudding, a British pub. We sipped Tetley's beer and Magners cider, watched Australian rugby, overheard rugby-loving Americans nearby exchanging ribald badinage, and eyed the exotic fish darting to and fro in the big aquarium tank behind the booth. 

Then we went home. And that was day two.

10 things to do in the Hong Kong international transfer terminal

Not my photo.

What to do when you're trapped in an airport for twelve hours? It depends on the airport. Major ones obviously have shops and cafes and even game arcades where you can whittle away your time. But what if you're a lone traveler stuck in the transfer terminal of, say, Hong Kong International Airport while you wait for someone else to show up? 

No cafes, no bookstores, no arcades, and just a single forlorn noodle shop. 

Four power outlets and eight hundred people in line to use them. 

Free wi-fi that keeps resetting itself (and whatever webpage you were visiting). 

The city's too far away to reach quickly or cheaply, and besides—you don't want to head through customs and immigration and wait at the airport entrance for fear of losing your beloved partner in the crowd. 

So you sit around in the lounge for eleven hours, tapping your feet and losing your mind. 

Here are some tips to help close that day-long gap in your sanity: 

1. Leave the airport. No-brainer, this one. I was waiting for Miss H to show up on a late afternoon flight, but you aren't! Get out! Go to Hong Kong! You'll miss all the fun stuff below, but you'll save a lot of time. 

2. Take a walk. Explore! Throw that bag over your shoulder ('cause there aren't any lockers or anything) and walk the whole hundred yards from one end of the terminal to the other. If you get really bored, ride the escalators up and down for two hours. Or take in some sights at the shops...both of them. Don't just sit around; you'll give yourself bedsores. 

3. Get a snack. There's only one noodle joint, but so what? The noodles come in a salty broth and have forlorn little bits of soggy hot dog in them, and that never gets old! No convenience stores either, so that makes your choice real simple!

4. Read a book. I hope to God you brought one! Or five!

5. Surf the Web. You might have to wait around for three or four hours until someone vacates a seat near one of the four power outlet stations. Just don't forget to be polite and kick the old Chinese grandma's luggage off the seat, because goodness knows there aren't people waiting to sit down, Granny! 

6. Update your journal. Lots of exciting things happening in this terminal! Even more exciting than the time you got a dull, rusty spike driven through your head with a mallet!

7. People watch. All sorts of people come through Hong Kong, heading to and coming from every part of the planet: Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, an American in a business suit, Chinese, Chinese, more Chinese, two or three Arabs, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, Chinese, a couple of Japanese coeds, Chinese, Chinese, and Chinese. You can also marvel at the aircrews (foreigners and Chinese!) stuffing their faces at that one single noodle shop with the soggy hot dogs. 

8. Meditate. You probably won't feel stressed or antsy at this point, but in case you have accumulated a smidgen of white-hot, misanthropic rage in your belly, curl up on that nice, clean carpet and oohhhmmm it all away! Just don't get run over by anyone's luggage or kicked by any Asiatic who has no sense of personal space. 

9. Shell out for extras. Some of the nicer airports in the developed world have VIP lounges where you can eat a meal, go online, watch a movie, get a haircut, or take a shower or a nap, and Hong Kong International is no exception. It might cost a little extra but it's infinitely more comfortable than crashing on a lounge bench. And by "little extra" I mean about a hundred U.S. dollars an hour. Pocket change, right?

10. Look on the bright side. I mean, eleven hours of your life isn't much, right? That's only as long as it would have taken you to eat three meals, read seven chapters of your book, spend a lovely day together with your significant other, put in a full day's work on your laptop, or basically do anything else remotely useful. No time at all! And when the eleven hours is up, you'll meet the love of your life and the two of you will have a ball in Hong Kong! 

...after you wait in line to get through security, pay one hundred Hong Kong dollars, and spend 40 minutes on the Airport Express to the city, that is.

Hong Kong International Airport, baby! It's all you can stand!

why I hate Singapore

Apart from the stinking heat and humidity, the enforced sterility of the streets, the craven pandering to foreign investors and tourists, the banal plague of trendy Western department stores and fast-food chains, the parsimonious pedagoguery of the government, and the ridiculous expense...

...there were three things about Singapore I truly despised. 

First, this was the name of one of the Chinese restaurants near the check-in counters at Changi Airport:

Second, Changi Airport itself. The first thing that struck me about the place (apart from the above sign) was the lack of a security checkpoint. I obtained my boarding passes, got an exit stamp in my passport, and boom: there I was in the concourse. I turned left and walked to my gate. It was about ten o'clock in the evening and there wasn't much activity in the duty-free shops or coffeehouses. Most folks were curled up in the darkened departure lounges, several of which had fully-reclining seats. Snores, grumbles, and muted conversation permeated the recirculated air, making me feel like I was creeping through a dormitory after lights-out. 

Then I noticed that there were glass walls enclosing each gate, which could only be accessed through thick double doors (also of glass), behind each of which was a miniature security checkpoint. 

Ah, I remember thinking. Now that is nifty. Instead of waiting in an endless queue with everyone else in the damn airport, you'll only be waiting in line with the people aboard your particular flight. 

Then I sat down and tried to access the Internet. 

Now, I know what you're going to say. What a spoiled, privileged little white brat, hung up on his First World problems. No Internet, boo-hoo-hoo. Man up and read a book or something, chickenshit. 

And you'd be justified in saying that. But I'll declare, here and now, that the cussed Internet provided a vital link between me and (a) my lonely fiancée and (b) my terrified parents. Okay, maybe not terrified. But definitely leery of some the places I'd be passing through. I'd agreed, like any good son, to keep in close contact with my folks during my 27-day jaunt through Southeast Asia, e-mailing them whenever I arrived at or departed a new bailiwick. Even Paul Theroux phones home on occasion. Sue me. 

I couldn't access the Internet at Changi Airport. 

Why? 

Because the password could only be found on placards hung upon the wall of the departure gate. On the other side of those locked glass doors. Which wouldn't open until 12:50 a.m., an hour before our departure time. You could have the codes texted to your phone, but I didn't have a phone. 

This was tyranny, plain and simple. In any American or Korean airport you could breeze through security two or three hours beforehand and then laze around the concourse, surfing the Web, drinking coffee, eating unhealthy snacks, and splattering your smelly body, your grubby coat, your crumpled hat, and your electronic gadgetry over an entire row of benches. 

Apparently they frown on that sort of thing in Singapore. 

My American sensibilities were offended on the deepest of levels. Up to that point I had patiently put up with the pettifogging Singaporeans and their absurd laws: the bans against spitting and chewing gum and graffiti and the ridiculous fines for littering and not flushing public toilets. But this was simply too much. The prejudice leveled against some saphead tourist who showed up to Changi Airport with an iPad and no cell phone three hours early for his flight, who just wanted to contact his loved ones and let them know that he wasn't sitting in some whorehouse in Johor Bahru, shooting heroin and contracting all sorts of blood-borne diseases, was outrageous.

When the security agents finally did open up those thick glass doors and started letting us through security, the final nail was driven into Singapore's coffin. I had a grooming kit in my backpack. It wasn't expensive or irreplaceable by any means, but it had been a treasured gift from my parents—a tacit acknowledgement that I was a man, and was capable of looking after myself on my own. In it was a pair of beard-trimming scissors. I had successfully passed through security at Gimpo Airport with those very same scissors. There was no reason whatsoever for the svelte, fruity-voiced Indian lady in the blue button-down shirt and black tie and slacks to pull me out of line. But she did. She ordered me to empty my bag. She confiscated several bottles of suntan lotion which were too large. That was fine by me; I'd plumb forgot they were in there. But then she ordered me to open the grooming kit. I unzipped the small black leather case an opened it like a book, holding it out for her to see. I was writhing with impatience. The entire contents of my pack were scattered across the cold, hard, unfeeling stainless steel of the exam table, and my fellow passengers were scooting impatiently past me to get into the lounge proper. I felt naked, like someone had pantsed me in public. I was anxious to sit down, jack in, and contact home. I was half-crazed with outrage. 

"You cannot take these aboard the plane," said the security agent, her sultry eyes sunk deeply into their sockets, caked with mascara and purple eye shadow beneath plucked eyebrows, snatching the beard-trimming scissors and waggling them under my nose. 

It was then, ladies and gentlemen, that the Vaunter did something he has never, ever done in his entire life. He questioned authority. 

"Why not?" I demanded. "They're mine. They belong to me. I brought them through other airports' security lines just fine." 

"Well, I'm sorry," she said, sounding as sincere as anyone else who has to say "sorry" eighty billion times a day in their line of work. "But I cannot allow you to bring these aboard." 

"Why?" I demanded. I again brought up the other airports which had so freely and eagerly allowed me to pass, beard-trimming scissors in hand. I battled her for five minutes over those beard-trimming scissors. She kept repeating the same dull old lines. No can do. Can't be allowed. Couldn't possibly. She at least had the decency not to claim that the tiny half-inch scissor blades could be used as weapons, perhaps in a desperate bid to take over the plane and crash it into the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Finally, understanding that I was making no headway, and would probably have to take a different flight if I kept this malarkey up, I relented. 

"Well, all right then," I said, grudgingly, sounding exactly like my dad did when I was a kid and I did something idiotic in his presence that he was powerless to halt or avert. 

I began to give the Indian lady my address, so she could mail the scissors to me. She looked confused for a moment, and then she interrupted. 

"No, no, no," she said. "No mail. Confiscation." 

I stood there for a moment, blinking, not comprehending. From way deep down in my brain, there was the sound like a twig snapping in the woods on a dark, frozen, snowy night.

"What?" I asked. "You're confiscating them?"

"Yes," she said, moving away to deposit my things in a bin, but (wisely) not turning her back to me. 

"But they're my scissors."

"We cannot mail them to you. They are being confiscated."

"What's going to happen to them?" 

"I don't know." 

Both of us knew perfectly well. Incineration, probably. Garbage. Waste. Somehow I didn't see Singapore as being the kind of place that would have an Unclaimed Baggage Center. 

"Those are my property, miss," I huffed. I was riding high. The anger endorphins were pulsing through my brain and veins, lifting me higher than the plane I was about to board. I'd never, ever challenged a security agent at an airport, or an authority figure of any kind, really. It was intoxicating. I felt powerful. I felt manly. I felt assertive. And I felt truculent. The more adamant and insurmountable the wall of red tape and bureaucratic posturing erected before me was, the harder I wanted to push against it, headbutt it, knock it down, crumbling and tumbling. 

"Why?" I demanded, my voice calm and clear and cool like a freshwater spring, but with a welter of venomous alkali beneath it. "Why can't you mail them back to me? Why are you confiscating my property?" 

She raised her arms, spread her hands out wide in a full-body shrug. 

"It's Singapore!" she declared, with a faint smile, a pathetic attempt at mollification—or perhaps admission of guilt. It was the sheepish grin of a thief caught red-handed, a shy junior member of a gang of thugs being cross-examined in the dock. 

And in that moment, I saw the futility of my enterprise. The wall was too high and too thick. For the briefest instant I was able to step outside of myself, outside Changi Airport, outside Singapore, and see it as I had from the highest reaches of the Flyer the previous evening—the whole cockamamie place with its dumbass laws and its indentured populace. Poor buggers, I mused. I looked at the Indian woman, her arms outstretched and her shoulders hunched, looking like some stupid scarecrow inexpertly nailed up. 

I said, "Fine." I slapped my lobotomized grooming kit shut and zipped it up. I crammed the disemboweled guts of my pack back inside and lugged the thing off the heavy steel table. I didn't give the security agent another glance. In the time it had taken for us to have our little chinwag, practically every other passenger had gone through, and every seat in the lounge was now taken. I plonked myself on the floor, took out the iPad, checked in with everyone at home, and in twenty minutes it was boarding time. I sat and sulked during the entire four-hour flight to Hong Kong. 

And that, ladies and gents, is why I hate Singapore.

a day in Singapore

I woke up at eight o'clock.

I passed a bundle of laundry to the desk clerk.

I asked for a towel and got one.

I showered and shaved. 

I marched down Kitchener and Serangoon Roads to the Mustafa Centre, where I exchanged 220 Thai baht, 10 U.S. dollars, and 361 Malaysian ringgit for 161 Singapore dollars. 

While I was there, I bought a padlock for my defunct locker back at Tresor Tavern.

All this I accomplished before eleven o'clock. 

I went back to the hostel and sat in the lobby, sweating, updating my journals and letting my parents know I was still alive. I also spent some time writing down the addresses of everything I wanted to see and eat in this town today (Thursday, July 31). 

I went to Chinatown to check out the Heritage Centre and was told it cost $10 SGD to get in. 

I said "Screw that with a pitchfork." 

I went to the foodie street and had some laksa, a spicy noodle soup in greasy orange broth which is central to Peranakan (Chinese-Malay) cuisine and Malaysia's national dish. It consists of rice vermicelli (though this touristy dump used spaghetti) in coconut milk and curry broth. My bowl included hard-boiled eggs, cockles, bean curd puffs, and bean sprouts, and cost $4.50 SGD.

I did not take a food selfie. Too hungry. 

On an impulse I walked across South Bridge Street and caught the open-top sightseeing bus for $25 SGD. We swung out west, down shady, tree-lined Havelock and Zion Roads, curving up to the Botanical Gardens (the one thing in Singapore that I didn't see and wish I had). Then we went dead east on Orchard Road. As clean, bright, and shiny as this city was, dazzlingly clear as it dried from the previous night's rain, there wasn't much to it besides shopping, eating, and authoritarianism. "HAPPY 49th BIRTHDAY, SINGAPORE!" squawked loud orange banners on every lamppost, but on the subway trains were stern admonishments to the citizens to be polite when boarding or exiting, to move to the back or offer your seat to an invalid. Public service announcements printed starkly in black, white, and red urged citizens to perform the vital five-step method to eradicate dengue fever (promptly emptying every container on your property of standing water). 

What was most jarring was seeing so many Occidental franchises. Malaysia and even Cambodia had KFC and Starbucks, and Seoul has Burger King and McDonalds and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, but Singapore was just mad—Long John Silver's, California Pizza Kitchen, Coldstone Creamery, Quizno's Subs, and everything else British or American. I was disappointed. Foreign excursions are supposed to be...well, foreign. And I hated to think that the average Singaporean's idea of western culture was a soggy McDonald's sandwich, some limp fries and a syrupy soft drink. 

The Singapore River. Really takes your breath away, doesn't it? 

After a short foray north and east to Sungei Road, the sightseeing bus dumped us out at the Singapore Flyer. Think the London Eye, but bigger—"the world's tallest observation wheel," proclaimed the posters and brochures. That was a blatant falsehood, as the High Roller in Las Vegas is actually taller, but I'm not the quibbling type—not when sweat's soaking my collar and the red bandanna I'd tied around my right hand and wrist for mopping and sopping purposes. 

Pro tip, kids: this is more fashionable than wrapping it around your forehead and more sanitary than sticking it back in your pocket after every wipe. Just be prepared for lots of concerned fellow travelers to ask you how you hurt your wrist. 

I caught the next bus to Clarke Quay and switched to the metro. I went back to the hostel, rested, rehydrated, and wrote some postcards (the fifth of seven batches). At 6:45, a time I judged with a pilot's careful precision, I caught a taxicab back to the Flyer to see the sunset from on high. 

The Flyer isn't very popular with the locals. According to TIME, they gripe that it's too far away from everything and costs too much. I didn't sympathize with the former sentiment but certainly the latter: tickets were $33 SGD. Concordantly, there wasn't much of a crowd. I rolled up at seven o'clock, bought a ticket, hustled through all the supplementary bullshit they put up to make waiting in line more interesting—planetariums and historical placards and whatnot—and got some fantastic views of the downtown area and Marina Bay. 

Then, of course, I went to O'Leary's Sports Bar & Grill—foreigner-owned and foreigner-run, looking like it had sprung from any broad boulevard in the Inland Empire—for a nightcap. What else but a Singapore sling? 

It was weak and sickly-sweet and cost $17 SGD, but what the hell. I can say I've had a Singapore sling in Singapore. 

I'd meant to sample the best that Little India could offer me in the way of eats, but my internal compass was taking a much-deserved rest. I couldn't find my intended destination, Bali Nasi Lemak in Geylang. So I went back to the neighborhood of my hostel and sat down in the same little halal Sri Lankan/Thai cafeteria where that snaggle-toothed Samaritan Singaporean had bought me a bottle of water the previous evening. I had some iced lychee juice and a plate of nasi goreng thai for just $4.50 SGD. For afters I had some sort of fried fish dumpling, also delectable. I couldn't discern the waiter's thick Tamil accent when I asked what it was. Sounded like "kampop." 

I got an A&W root beer for dessert (you don't see those every day in Asia) and returned to the hostel to update my journals. My time in Singapore was at an end. The next morning I would mail postcards, check out of the Tresor Tavern at noon, and catch the metro for Changi Airport. 

If you'd like to find out why I hate Singapore, come back tomorrow. 

Butterworth to Singapore (the worst bus ride ever)

Long story short: 

I was forced to ride a bus from Butterworth to Johor Bahru in southern Malaysia, and thence to Singapore. Thanks to Hari Raya, the end of Ramadan, all the trains were booked up. It was a rumbling, clattering misery machine a bus to Singapore or nothing at all. 

I woke up at 5:45 a.m. on the morning of Wednesday, July 30, slipped downstairs in the predawn darkness, gave my postcards and 10 ringgit to the night clerk and asked him to mail them for me, and caught the first ferry to the mainland at 7:00 sharp, crossing a calm strait under the pale light of dawn.

What little information I could find online suggested that express buses to Singapore (Woodlands) would be readily available. Apparently those were all booked up too. The best I could do was catch an express bus to the border town of Johor Bahru at 8:30 and figure things out from there. It was a nice bus, at least. It was plentifully air-conditioned, clean, and had seats which reclined fully. I settled in for a long ride and was just getting comfortable when...

...bam, we were in Kuala Lumpur. 

Not my photo. 

A skinny shrimp of a 2nd-generation Chinese-Malay woman kicked everybody going to Gelang and Johor Bahru off the bus. With her hectoring voice, baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, and flicking ballpoint pen, she herded us out of KL Sentral Station and across the street to a pair of considerably older, dirtier, hotter, and less comfortable green buses. A pair of creased, loud-voiced fellows in polo shirts and jeans with walkie-talkies clipped to their back pockets shouted as us to load our luggage and get aboard, and be quick about it. 

Then the agony began. We'd already been on the road five or six hours, but we happy few going to Johor Bahru would remain for a further 8.5 aboard that boiling, filthy bus with precious few rest stops, no food, and shock absorbers that amplified every bump in the road. 

You can't imagine how glad I was to stumble off that accursed machine at Larkin Sentral Station in Johor Bahru, wobbly-legged, sweat-grimed, weak-stomached, bleary-eyed, and foul-tempered. For my trials were not yet over: I thereupon boarded another bus, the 170 for Queen Street in Singapore. I got on and off that bus three freaking times—once to exit Malaysia (and get my exit stamp from a callous-looking woman in a black hijab), once to enter Singapore at Woodlands (which necessitated waiting in line for 40 minutes, and I had to go back to the end of the line once because I forgot to fill out a damn entry card), and finally to go through customs inspection. Each time I stepped off the bus into the steamy night air, my glasses fogged up and my pores began oozing sweat. It crusted my hair, soaked my skin and clothes, and soured my mood. I hate sweating and I hate climates like what they've got down in Southeast Asia, irresponsibly warm and humid. Furry mammals—particularly clothed human beings—have no business living in places like that. It's better if we leave the whole cockamamie place to the reptiles.

At nearly eleven o'clock, 17 hours after waking up, 14.5 hours after leaving Butterworth, and three hours after arriving in Johor Bahru, the 170 bus dumped me out on Queen Street. I had to walk another five or six blocks (and ask a kindly cabbie for directions) but I made it to my hostel, the Tresor Tavern on Jalan Besar in Little India near Farrer Park. Before entering I tried to buy a much-needed 1.5-liter bottle of water with my debit card, but the Sri Lankan shopkeeper didn't have a card reader. That's when a random Singaporean, a tottering old fellow with a shock of gray hair, bulging eyes, and a broad mouth filled with crooked teeth lurched up to the counter to buy a pack of gum. He and a friend had been sitting and eating and boozing it up for who knew how long before I'd walked in. This elderly Samaritan grokked the situation in a blink. Without hesitation he bought the 1.5 liters of water for me, and handed me ten Singapore dollars on top of that. Then he lurched away without waiting for a thank-you. I honestly didn't know what to do, say, or think, and that combination's rare for me. You hear a lot about the kindness of strangers when you're out traveling the world, but the reality of it really hits you in the old heartstrings. That first drink was the coolest and sweetest gulp of water I've ever had.  

My rehydrated corpse hit the rock-hard mattress of the Tresor Tavern's third-floor mixed dormitory at almost midnight. The room had twelve beds, bunked and curtained, the frames bare metal and the rings squeaky. The floor was concrete, the walls bare, the ceiling choked with exposed pipes—"Like a jail," said my elderly Indian roommate. Garbage was stacked atop every locker, none of which actually locked. The wireless Internet only worked on the ground floor, none of the upper floors. It seemed I would have to physically place an order for a towel. Two things did work, however: the air conditioner and the light switch. 

Good night! 

a day in George Town

Not pictured: knee-biting lunacy.

A little historical context first:

George Town is the capital of the state of Penang, one of the smallest provinces in Malaysia, which not only incorporates Penang Island but also a decent wodge of the mainland, including Butterworth. It was named after King George III. That's right, folks—Crazy George, the mad king of Britain and Ireland during the American Revolutionary War. 

The island was originally part of the Sultanate of Kedah, until one day in August 1786 when an enterprising young sea captain named Francis Light of the British East India Trading Company landed there. He wound up marrying the sultan's daughter and Penang Island was ceded to the British Crown as part of her wedding dowry. Captain Light promptly established George Town, Britain's first permanent colony in Southeast Asia. It initially had only four streets and a couple of jetties. A fort was built in the northeast corner of the municipality, commanding a 270-degree view of the sea. The Netherlands Trading Society, the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Company (known today as HSBC), the Chartered Bank (now called Standard Chartered), Boustead & Co., and a dozen others all set up shop here, and the town and the swampy island it sits on were the center of British trade and shipping in the area for quite a few years. There was a nasty problem with malaria in the early years of the colony, earning it the unfortunate nickname "White Man's Grave." 

There were geopolitical speed bumps as well. Captain Light had promised the Sultan of Kedah that the East India Company would offer him military protection in exchange for the island. In so promising he had acted without his superiors' approval. When the Siamese attacked the sultanate a few years later, no British help was forthcoming. The enraged sultan tried to take the island back by force in 1790. In this he failed, and was not only forced to give up the island permanently but also to pay the Crown a sum of 6,000 Spanish dollars per annum. This was later upped to 10,000 Spanish dollars when Province Wellesley (now modern-day Pulau Penang) was incorporated in 1800. Even to this day the Malaysian government pays an annual honorarium of 10,000 ringgit (around $3050 American) to the state of Kedah. 

In 1826, Penang (along with Malacca and Singapore) became part of the Straits Settlements under the British administration in India, and came under direct colonial rule in 1867. In 1946, it was absorbed into the Malayan Union and in 1948 was designated a state of the Federation of Malaya. This federation gained independence from Britain in 1957 and became modern-day Malaysia in 1963. The island was a free port until 1969, and even after losing its free port status became one of the world's foremost centers of electronics production in the '70s and '80s. In 2008, George Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has seen an influx of tourists ever since. 

It was one of the most multicultural places I visited in Southeast Asia, despite having a population of only 720,000 and being rather off to the left compared to more popular tourist destinations like Kuala Lumpur or Langkawi. There were bearded, robed Arabs walking around; chattering Tamils with pearly white teeth; quiet, dignified Chinese; agile, jolly, skinny Thais; bald, pale, T-shirted English expatriates; and grubby foreigners like me from America, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Brazil, Australia, and everywhere in between. 

I spent most of the morning of Tuesday, July 29 nursing my katzenjammer. (Seven beers at the Hong Kong Bar the night before, remember?) The Red Inn Court had a free breakfast of noodles in black sauce, toast and jam, coffee, and fruit. That helped a lot, as did the warm shower I took. I'd intended to sally forth and tour George Town promptly, but a thundering rain came pouring down between ten and twelve o'clock, the heaviest monsoon cloudburst I'd yet seen on this trip. The Matrix Revolutions has got nothing on Mother Nature. It kept sprinkling well past one o'clock, by which point I couldn't wait any longer, so with a poncho stuffed in my pocket I sauntered out and commenced my walking tour.   

It wasn't just the Muslims who were having a holiday (Hari Raya Puasa, the end of Ramadan). For the Chinese Buddhists, there was some festival related to Guanyin, the goddess of mercy, who has one of the largest and grandest temples in George Town dedicated to her. Crowds of elderly men and women swarmed the temple forecourt, barely visible through the thick, broiling fumes of incense. Prayers flew thick and fast and I couldn't get a show, so I walked on. 

Unfortunately, despite being a UNESCO site, there just wasn't that much to do or see in George Town. I saw the fort; Khoo Kongs, one of the oldest and most famous clanhouses; the jetties; a couple of temples...and, well, that was about it. 

All in all, I was so disappointed by the place (my debauch the previous night notwithstanding) that I ended up taking just six pictures during my whole 48-hour stay, including that one you saw in the previous post. Disappointing, to say the least. 

Lebuh Chulia, where a lot of the bars and noodle joints are.

The fertility cannon at Fort Cornwallis. The largest gun with the widest range, it will also cure barrenness in women, or so the local legend goes. You just need to place some flowers on it. 

After my little walking tour of the town, I got into a cab and tried to send postcards home to the States, only to be gently reminded by the Indian driver that today was a holiday—several, actually—and the post office was shut. I sighed, thanked him, got out of the cab, went back to the hostel, and napped until 6:30. 

Awaking hungrier than a horse, I strode toward what looked like the food-and-drink sector of town, determined to find me a burger and a beer. I was sixteen days into my trip and I had been a very good boy, eating local the whole way. Now I was fed up with rice and noodles and chicken and wanted nothing more than to get a thick, juicy beef patty between my teeth. I stopped off at the SoHo Free House, noting burgers on their menu and cheap beer. Seemed like a winning combo.

Well, it wasn't. That was the worst burger I've ever had in my life. What was supposed to be a rare patty turned out squishy, lumpy, and poorly seasoned; the bun was stale and soggy; the vegetables far from fresh; and the fries limp and cold. The best part about that meal was the mad specials they were having on—you guessed it—Tiger beer. Even so I could only bring myself to drink one. I laid my money down and sped out of there.

Night fell. I wandered, unwilling to give up George Town so easily. I thought vaguely of finding a historic hotel and having a cocktail, but again I felt worried by potential dress code violations, and the proliferation of foreign phonies that were sure to be in the hotel bar, boozing it up. I strode longingly past the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, trying to peer through the big casement windows and catch a glimpse of all the idiots partying inside, but my reconnaissance was for naught; I couldn't make out a thing. 

Not my photo.

I walked home, a bit miffed at the double holiday that prevented me from mailing postcards or exchanging ringgit for Singapore dollars. Testily I went to sleep, ready to rise at 5:45 a.m. on Wednesday morning to catch the long-haul bus at Butterworth Station.