Rocking the suburb

I made it back from Singapore in one piece despite being horrendously drunk on the final evening - curse you CSC shots!! I spent the first few days on the Indonesian island of Bintan, as the previous post's photos should show. Following this I cruised up and down the mean streets of Singapore for the remainder of my trip. I got a severe case of claustrophobia in Little India and had to leave Mustafas. I talked with musicians and visited an artist's collective. I drank the night away at a Singaporean Ladies Night and was subjected to the horror of strippers from Johannesburg. I read 2 novels, the latest 100 Bullets graphic novel and managed to write 10 pages of utter rubbish. I think most significantly, I managed to refrain from throwing babies out the emergency exits on my flights. Who honestly takes a baby on flights? Maybe I'm being petty here, but I'm all for the banning of babies on international flights. With one exception. The exception being babies that are being taken to meet ailing grandparents that reside in another country. I think that's reasonable. See? I'm just a fountain of compassion. Vote me for PM.

On Bintan I was treated to a fullbody scrub and massage for around 100 minutes. I'm pretty sure I passed out at one stage during the massage from the sheer force of relaxation going through my body. And for all the boys reading this, yes my primary concern was that having someone touching me all over would leave me with a raging something something. I was quite relieved to find that my body and mind behaved themselves and I just kicked back and let all the tension of the past couple of months at work drain away completely. I think these scrubs and massages are needed once a month just to continue our slog through the human condition. Yes, I'm a spoilt and pampered little brat. I'm allowed to be, so go play somewhere else :P

Ladies Night at a club in Clarke Quay (Gotham something...) was a unique experience. For the lads out there, there is some very very good news tinged with a twist of bitter irony. The scene itself was something altogether new. Ladies Night. The ratio of women to men was around 75-25. In Australia, Ladies Night means an inverse ratio to the Singaporean equivalent so you can imagine my delight at this latest development. Unfortunately, the majority of these ladies were all packed into the club to see the Johannesburgian strippers. The guys were very solidly built and naturally the girls went nuts for this. As a male viewer sitting to the left of a large crowd of women I had my own little show going on watching them jump up and down and touch each other (yes, women do this, though probly not quite in the way we're all wishing they would). The problem with the strippers comes when you gaze a critical eye over their routine. It was total rubbish. They incorporated a handful of cliche boyband moves in an attempt to disguise what they were doing as dancing. They were quite literally just moving from one pose to the next. From Magnum to Blue Steel there really wasn't all the much in between. Moi? Jealous of the beefcakes? Not especially. Girl or guy, I can appreciate good dancing and these guys plain sucked. In a Western country these guys would struggle to get a gig. In Asia? Well, naturally such an average and cliche performance is way beyond serviceable.

I've come back to one of my favourites of gifts - a shitload of music. New Modest Mouse, Silverchair, Mika and Kaiser Chiefs among other things should tide me over for a few more weeks. I'm such a music whore. That's probably the reason that the sheer volume of live music in Singapore was very appealing to me.

I have a massive job interview on Friday afternoon so wish me luck. I'm going to need to be at my best to pull this one off, but should I get it I'll be a very happy camper indeed (not to mention jetting off once more).

I would be remiss if I didn't single out SL for showing me a wonderful time while I was away. She took me places, introduced me to her friends and even did shots with me (at her suggestion if I hazily recall...) on the eve of my departure. Thanks babe :x