Day 2 - Singapore

Well, after a measly 1.5 hours of sleep last night (see post below), I was up and at 'em this morning at 8 AM. The reason? Church with Frank's friend Tara. She picked me up in a taxi and off we went to the International Baptist Church (AKA "IBC" - small world). This morning was a special service by the Women's Concert Choir and Bell Ensemble from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. What a wonderful service of music and sharing. The director of the choir - Hong Xiangtang - is working on her doctorate, but received her Masters in Choral Conducting from Westminster Choir College (which some of you will recognize). I have heard bell choirs before, but this group was really amazing as they played not only the bells, but used mallets plus had this "bells" that looked like long, skinny, rectangular pieces of metal. Several of the women would be frantically playing one, putting it down, turning a page, grabbing another instrument, putting it down to pick up the bell....

After the service, I experienced my first taxi ride [in Singapore] by myself. Of course, Tara hailed it and told the driver where to drop me off and since it was the Borders on Orchard Street that I had been past the day before, I was pretty ok. I wandered around Borders - oh, what a hardship - for a while before meeting up with Frank, then we headed over to the Marmalade Pantry at Palais Renaissance, where Tara joined us. She teaches Sunday School to 11 year olds and before I left the church, we'd talked about how she's a scientist and that the students ask her how she fits that in with being a Christian.

After lunch Tara left, while Frank & I headed off to do a wee [and I mean wee] bit of shopping. After dropping our bundles back at his place, we headed off to a Cello & Piano Duo Recital by Joshua Roman & Benjamin Loh (Ben is a friend of Frank's). We were both absolutely exhausted, so we sat in the back row in case one of us fell asleep. Came close a couple of times and thank goodness there was an intermission (we ran & grabbed some caffeine). They played pieces by Beethoven, Benjamin Britten, and Brahms. There were two [short] encores and the second one was this lively piece. A young boy in front of us was really into the music, bopping his head around and just overall very excited about it.

Met some more friends of Frank's after the concert & while we were waiting for a ride, Frank realized that the reason he was so tired - as he slept fine last night - was because he'd barely eaten all day and really hardly ate at all during the past week!! So it was back to Orchard Road for us and some meat at Billy Bombers - a retro American diner.

Today's impressions of Singapore: it was very hot; thank goodness for a/c; it's an attitude of "I don't care if I win, but I don't want you to win either" when getting on a bus or subway; everything is very clean and there are trash barrels & recycle bins all over the place; they drive on the left as in England (having been an English colony); absolutely everything is imported and the island has no natural resources; did I mention it was hot?

I am getting comfortable with the mass transit system and could definitely take the number 171 bus back to Frank's without a problem!