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Continuing with my east-Asia orientation in Singapore I went for a few Korean and Chinese movies which I enjoyed immensely. (Korean movie : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0434008/ , Chinese movies : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0483957/ & http://us.yesasia.com/en/PrdDept.aspx/pid-1004017738/code-c/version-all/section-videos/). To sum up my Chinese experience at Singapore I went on my final night for some classic Chinese dinner and opera with the Chinese Theater Circle (http://ctcopera.com.sg) and was surprised to be part of an exclusive 8 people to have a private show and discussion. Chinese Opera, that tend to sound like squeaky voices with lots of banging, gets a lot more interesting when there’s an English lecture about the legends and traditions before the show and some English subtitles when it’s playing. Fascinating.

After the …

At first, I admit I was worried. It took me a while to understand what ‘Transit rate’ means, so once I figured that out and made the connection it was somewhat spooky. There’s no other place in Singapore a guy can get a cozy TV/AC/Toilets room for this cheap, but it comes with the cost of being the only hotel guest that’s actually paying for an overnight stay. Or as the kind Malay receptionist put it – ‘it’s for those weary businessmen in a rush’. Indeed. Here I am, feeling like the only white guy in Harlem, and I like it.

It’s actually fun, since it’s also very safe and I get to learn about my fellow Singaporeans inner workings up …

.“You do realize that this a prostitution area?”, her gaze inspecting my body response as I hesitate what to do next. “Prostitution, you say?” I try changing reality by nativity, but her reoccurring nod suggested that she expected me to be either pleased or change hotels. How can that be? I never book hotels through the Internet, but I knew that arriving at Singapore on 06:00am after a night flight would exhaust me to the point where my whole day would be ruined unless I could drop by for an early check in at a hotel I reserved before. The whole idea came to me as I was inspecting the ‘Jewish Singapore’ site to find out where my free Chabad …

It’s settled then. A night flight to Singapore leaving tonight. A new place, a new adventure… Don’t ask me why, I really don’t know.

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I’m not cut out for this. “You can do this, you’ll pull through…” I keep reharsing while declaring my dorm room a natural disaster area. I’m stuck with 3 Kiwi kids on a working holiday that have been in that room for a month and a half with their stuff hanging all over the place, everything stinks with the smell of cheap (Brut?) aftershave blended with what seems like an aftermatch of a smoke (yeah, that kind). The safes are occupied with condoms, some ‘out of the box’ and the shower is overcrowded with their stuff. And this is with the cleanest newest backpackers place, so the only alternative is a 70A$ single in a hotel. Sucks. This all might …

Bad weather continues and has had an effect on us both as this is not how we were planning to spend our last week together. To make matters worse, coming back from our one day tour to Green Mountains outside Brisbane we got a message that due to some misunderstanding regarding our reservation the hotel we're staying at they have packed our stuff and thrown us out of the room. Being the person that I am, I was quick to take on the blame on us thinking that we've not made sure everything was okay but my partner was right to be upset and it was, very obviously, some guy's fault at the hotel. We ended up in a worse …