Play nice

Wednesday, March 4th

Didn’t sleep well last night. We tried to go to bed early but that backed fired and resulted in both of us waking up around 3:30am and tossing and turning until around 6am. But the amazing breakfast and coffee worked wonders and we felt pretty good today. The coffee here is so good. It's espresso based and it's lovely.

We started the day visiting PSA – which is the corporation that runs the port in Singapore, as well as some others around the world. The tour was very interesting and the port is amazing. After PSA we went to the Newton market which is a stall food market and had lunch. I had chicken curry that was wonderful – Malay style. After lunch we went to the US embassy. Someone from the State Department and the Department of Commerce spoke. It was very interesting. Here are the highlights:

-US has a trade surplus with Singapore.
-Singapore is a very unique country in its region – stability, rule of law, strong economy – US needs to play nicely.
-Might not be a democracy as US would like but good to work with because things get done.

After the embassy we went to the orchid garden. It was wonderful and very hot and very humid. After the garden we went to Biopolis which is an area the government has set up to attract intellectual capital to Singapore. Since the country does not have any natural resources, including lacking its own water supply, it is trying to make intellectual capital a resource. We heard about the medical side today. It was interesting but we were tired and the man presenting was incredibly bright and had tons of information to impart on us that we were not able to absorb.

Tonight we went to Boat Quay and had dinner at an Indonesian food place. It was OK. Afterward we went to Clarke Quay. It is a strange place - very Vegas. It has the fake building fronts made to look like the colonial part of the city with winding alleyways built in. As for the bars and stores it was as though they took their customer base and segmented them based on their interests. There was a microbrewery, a retro bar, and what not. But the most entertaining/disturbing bar was called Clinic. It has wheelchairs and hospital beds that you sat on and you sucked your drink out of an IV bag. Gross. We did not go. The whole area is outdoors but it has a several large umbrellas over it that act like a roof. It was so humid that condensation formed on the umbrellas and dripped down on you...pleasant.

**No pictures from today because the camera is dead**