Learning to deal with the heat

This is not what I am doing. Although I have started taking a light cotton shirt around with me to mop up my face and neck, and I'm not the only one doing it. Otherwise, I always bring water and make sure to step into air conditioned malls and shops every once in a while.

My experience in Singapore has been wonderful. Despite my family leaving for Canada part way through I've felt so welcome here. I mean, I'm staying with Aunt Lay See's mom right now and she's great. It's like she wants me to taste absolutely every food here. I am so stuffed full of delicious chinese cooking I can hardly move (the heat doesn't help either).

Some of my other highlights have been visiting the Jurong Bird Park and seeing so many different birds from around the world (and being hot).

I visited the Singapore Botanic Gardens and got a personalized tour from Steve, a local man who didn't seem to have anything to do so he took me around the park. Including a very important visit to a medicinal tree when he found out I had arthritis.

I also got very, very hot here.

Oh, and I saw a very cute little bird in a ginger blossom.


I had a lot of fun visiting the different cultural districts in town;

Little India - where I went through the ritual of buying a sari




The Arab Quarter - where I ate Egyptian food and shopped in Japanese boutique stores

And Chinatown - where I wandered through the Heritage Centre and visited the Bhuddist Temple






And I was extremely lucky to join Lay See's mom on a trip to her Bhuddist Temple on Sri Sakya day to celebrate. Everyone was very welcoming and again, stuffed me so full of vegetarian noodles and rice and yummy lotus cakes I almost had to roll away.