Mr Martin and I got a little philosophical at the white tiger enclosure at Singapore Zoo.
The question of the day was: who would win in an epic battle between tigers and lion? We definitely think the tigers would win. Apart from the fact that they're bigger, tigers are tough guys. Tigers will eat you for the fun of it.
Ninjas vs pirates? No competition. Pirates won't even see them coming.
Do you like Dr Who? While Martin was in NZ in December I watched almost all of the new Dr Who series on bootleg DVDs.
If you are a Dr Who fan you will know what I thought when I saw this photo among the dozens of photos of guitars Martin took in Singapore. It's the Weeping Angel guitar!
We had an hour or so at Singapore airport after checking in.
Oh Singapore! Singapore was a little bit difficult for me, truth be told. I was stressed before we left, and Singapore itself is hardly a relaxing place. I got annoyed with the way the Singapore government seems to be so preoccupied with keeping the traffic moving, that they think nothing of making pedestrians walk for 6 kilometers just to get across the road.
There are shopping malls parked over most of the city subway stops. So you get off the subway, and then suddenly you are trapped in a shopping malls. Sometimes, it was as if our holiday was a weird 6-day long version of Mall Rats, with occasional zoo breaks.
We had hot, sore feet the whole time. Jandals weren't cutting it, so we were wearing trainers a lot. Believe me, you're making a sad choice when you're deciding between sweaty sore jandals, or socks in 35 degree heat.
So at the airport, we fed ourselves to the fishes.
They did a REALLY good job at removing all the horrible dead skin from my feet. (Aren't you glad you know that?) It tickled quite a bit in the beginning, but you get used to it.
Mr Martin liked it too.
PS: Mr Martin has taken to referring to me as Mrs Grits on the Internet. What do we think of this? The rational is that his moniker is HotGrits, so therefore I am Mrs Grits. Wondering if I should start calling him Mr Grits instead.
On Sunday night we walked from Little India kind of aimlessly until we suddenly found ourselves in town outside the front of the art school. We're in Singapore, and it's Chinese New Year. Sunday night was the night before the first day of the festival, and there was a feeling of calm anticipation in the air.
And then suddenly a woman gave us a giant helium balloon.
We weren't the only people to be handed big balloons, there were a bunch of them around the place. Im not sure whether the balloons were city funded new year thing, or an art project. But whatever they were, they were a lot of playful fun.
It was also an opportunity to practice our interpretive dance skills.
And after all that excitement our balloon led us through some zen-like moments of quiet contemplation:
Earlier in the day we had been lucky enough to see Van Gogh's painting "Starry Night" as part of a temporary exhibit at the National Museum.
I was reminded of the painting as we watched somebody else's released balloon swimming into the murky night between the treetops above us.
Finally just as we were wondering what we were going to do with a balloon so huge that both of us could have fit inside it, we were approached by a pair of young girls who wanted to know where to get a balloon from.
Here's to wishing that your water dragon year is filled with moments of playful absurdity.
