A Canadian friend who has been living in Cambodia, Zorica, left today after a 3 day visit here in Singapore. I enjoy having friends visit because it gives me an opportunity to get out and be a bit of a tourist. Zorica's visit overlapped with Alex's on the first day, so the three of us went shopping in Chinatown and then to dinner at Boat Quay. Alex, who is half Chinese and has been to China several times, was especially enthralled with Chinatown as she found some great bargains and loved that it was very condensed into a small neighborhood.

The next day Zorica and I did the Little India -- Kampong Glam--Bugis--Colonial District walk that I have adopted for showing all of my friends Singapore's many ethnic neighborhoods in one day. Actually this is the "north of the river" tour day, and the "south of the river" tour day includes Chinatown and the quays. See how my tour director experience is so useful? ;-) We also stopped off at the National Library to see a terrorism show that I have been hoping to see. I was a bit surprised that it was so small after all the advertisements I have seen for the show around town. I didn't learn anything new for my thesis, but it was interesting to read about Singapore's history with terrorism- threats from the communists post-independence, bombing the MacDonald House, hijacking of a Singapore Airlines flight, bombing of an oil refinery, etc. One thing that seemed very typical "Singapore" to me was where they had this huge timeline of terrorist attacks around the world- 9/11, Lockerbie, Tokyo, Madrid, etc. And there, surrounded by all the dates of attack after attack, they had a date stuck into the timeline that said "Singapore foils ____ attack"- making Singapore appear singularly effective in fighting terrorism!

That night we went to the night safari, which was SO cool!! Now, you all know that I am not an animal person, but I loved it! I actually really wished Colleen was here to go to the night safari, because I know it would have been so awesome for her- imagine Portland zoo lights, but add in hundreds of jungle animals! The coolest was seeing a huge rhino really up-close. They have done a really excellent job making you feel like you are out there with the animals. There are no visible fences at all- even when by the lions and tigers and bears (oh my) and sometimes you feel like you can almost reach out and touch the animals (of course, you can't though, at least I think so...).

Yesterday we took the cable cars to Sentosa Island and had a bit of a walk before it started raining. So then we went off to Clarke Quay for some Mexican food, came back home to spiff ourselves up a bit, and went to the New Asia bar. This bar is famous because it is on the 70th floor of a building, with a panoramic view all the way to Indonesia and Malaysia. After our brief stop at New Asia, we went to the Long Bar at the Raffles Hotel, which is where the Singapore Sling was invented. Sipping bright pink Singapore slings ($17 for one drink- drinking in Singapore is soooo expensive), munching complimentary peanuts (at least something is free!), tossing the shells on the floor, and taking in the colonial feel of the bar is pretty much a de rigeur experience for the visitor to Singapore.