We have been

in Singapore. Though, I hasten to add, not for the last three weeks. Just a week, long enough to induce some envy in those of you who are still reading this blog. Prior to that we spent a week at my mother-in-law's house, which should balance the envy out with some pity. 
Singapore was an exercise in tropical deja vu as we visited last year as well. Familiarity, though far from breeding contempt, did elicit a kind of nonplussed languor; as a tourist destination there is a limit to the city's attractions. We quickly reached that limit and then it was back to the Zoo, back to the beach, back to the Botanical Gardens, and back to My Peranakan Spice Box, but only because these places were well worth visiting a second time. 
It was a week of rest, good food, and minimal excitement (except for this apocalyptic thunderstorm that exploded upon us late one afternoon when we were downtown. Rain torrenting down so hard you couldn't see the other side of the street, constant lightening rippling and crackling across the dark sky, great gusts of wind whipping the palm trees this way and that; and throughout it all furious peals of deafening thunder crashing and echoing among the streaming towers of the business district).
Anyway, some random thoughts on our trip:
(1) William Gibson, the SF writer, has long used Tokyo has his template for the city of the future, but I think Singapore may be shouldering it aside. With the Marina Bay Sands complex and the newly opened Gardens by the Bay, the city is using public works to manufacture future spectacle. As a whole the city seems to be aiming for an advanced state of modernity: clean, efficient, safe. But also culturally banal and in thrall to mindless, constant consumption. It is a SIM city brought to tropical life.
(2) Chocolate. They like their refined cocoa in Singapore. Chocolate cafes, pastisseries, sweet shops, ice cream parlours - they're everywhere. Mammy was happy. As they had  mars bars in the 7-11's, Daddy was happy too.
(3) You see neither old nor small cars in the city. Owning a car is prohibitively expensive, deliberately so, as the government wants people to only use public transport. Before you can buy a car you have to bid, yes, that's right, bid for a Certificate of Entitlement to actually own the thing. These in themselves are quite expensive (thousands of euros expensive) and are valid for only 10 years, after which you must bid once more for it. These certificates are strictly limited, hence the necessity for bids and hence the expense. In addition, all imported cars (basically all cars) have a 41% import duty tacked on to them as well. The result of all this is that cars are the privilege of the wealthy, and if they are going to all that expense to actually own a vehicle it might as well be a prestige model. hence the preponderance of German marquee brands - Benz, BMW, Audi,- with those a little lower down the automotive ladder favoring Korean Hyundais. Japanese cars are surprisingly few.
(4) I found myself one wet afternoon in very good second hand book shop. They like their James Patterson thrillers in the steamy tropics. And the happy clappy Nicholas Sparks' stuff, whilst titillation comes courtesy of the timeless Danielle Steele. But even these literary heavyweights were overshadowed by the stacked shelves of "How to succeed in your job/career/finances/investments/life/death" manuals. All of which, one can only conclude, must be wrong as (a) if there was a proven book on how to succeed, people would have presumably bought only it; and (b) even so, if we all succeed, wouldn't we still, comparatively speaking, be standing still? And finally (c) less abstractly, why are all these books in a second hand bookstore?
(5) The Snake House at the Singapore Zoo. Is freakin awesome!!! There is a class of python there that I swear is the length and girth of a 10 foot tree trunk. And the King Cobra!  Sweet Saint Patrick but that thing is nightmarishly impressive. Imagine a sickly green venomous hoover and you get the idea. Or maybe not. No photos though as Sanae refused to give me her camera.
(6) I may knock the shallow consumptive culture of the city, but that is more than compensated by the richness and variety of the food on offer. Singapore is fairly exacting in its culinary standards and you are pretty much guaranteed a good meal regardless of where you go. And we went. Indian, Vietnamese, Thai, Peranakan, Egyptian, French, Japanese and Irish. Or rather Sino-Irish fusion.
(7) Oh, and they have a pretty amazing aquarium too. Reminded me of my scuba diving days in Koh Tao. Ahh the grouper around South West Pinnacles; Tyson the trigger fish up at Twin peaks. Dinners at the Big Blue restaurant where they used to show 'Braveheart' night after night; checking your shoes every morning for scorpions; the sunsets on the beach; the sunrises on the beach; the sleeping on the beach in between because you were too drunk to find your way back to your cabin; the overnight trips down to Malaysia to renew your three month holiday visa and thinking the place too uptight. The chance encounters, the fleeting romances, happened but gone, lost to memory, perhaps best forgotten...
Anyway the aquarium at Singapore is worth a visit, if you can contain your nostalgia.