Monday, July 9, 2007

Asian Civilizations Museum, etc.


Yesterday Matt and I woke up and got moving, which is not so common for us on the weekend.

We went to Raffles Place on the MRT and walked across the river to the Asian Civilizations Museum. It was a great museum - putting Singapore in the context of the region, giving lots of history, and explaining lots of culture. I highly suggest it if you want to come out to Singapore. On the way to the museum we tasted durian flavored ice cream. The durian seems to be the state/country fruit of Singapore, and it's hilarious. It's this spikey, scary looking fruit, and it has a crazy, strong smell. It's not allowed on the subways, and it's not allowed on planes, and you're not allowed to have them in other certain public spaces. Apparently the smell bother Caucasians but not Asians. Anyways, we got a home-made ice cream sandwich with the ice cream, and it wasn't that good. It was a good experience, though.

After the museum we walked all around the river area. It seems like a touristy area with lots of restaurants - looked a lot like many other cities in the world. We ate lunch and went to Borders to get me a new GMAT book. I finished my other ones. Yeah, there's a Borders here. It looked exactly like the one in Columbus Circle, but there were SO MANY people in it, and they were mostly Asian.

We went out to dinner last night with this nice couple we met from our complex. They got married in October, and she just moved here six months ago, he a year ago. It was really nice to talk to normal people. They're pretty funny too. She's also looking for a job and doesn't have much going on, so that's good news for me.

1 comment:

Harry said...

Ughh, durian. When I was in Hawaii, a friend of a friend (or should I say former friend of a friend) conned us into buying a durian fruit for her raw food New Years party. If I was already skeptical of raw food fanaticism, this pushed me over the edge and made me into a full fledged hater of the raw people. We had to shlep this spiked stink bomb in the trunk of our car for three days. Luckily it was Hawaii, so we could stick our heads out the windows to prevent barfing in the car, but unfortunately I think the funk started to brush off onto us. Ugh. Like old gym socks, BO, and rotten fruit rolled into one. If millions of years of evolution have made this plant so wretchedly abhorrent to us, why do we refuse to listen?
Anyways, I ran across a funny video of a guy in Tokyo trying other nasty ice cream concoctions. Coincidence? Its pretty funny, and I thought you'd get a kick out of it.
Check out Ice Cream City Pt 1:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tokyocooney