Singapore pt 7

Ok, the last of my pictures from Singapore!

After the Night Safari my former labmate Corrie and I went back to her hotel downtown.   Let me spend a second to explain about the hotel situation.

I had booked a cheap budget hotel through the internet a few weeks ago, but as i found out a day before flying over,  it was in a bad neighborhood.  Singapore is one of the safest areas in the world, but it wasn't bad as in robbery... it was bad as in... it is a district with lots of red lights, if you know what i mean...(wikipedia). 

It was pretty bad too.  I have traveled to China, Thailand and Saigon,  and of course I have lived in Japan and HK,  but I had rarely seen a red light district this red...  at least unlike Saigon, the prostitutes mostly appeared to be female (mostly!)    They were relatively harmless for the most part, but they were outside 24-7... 10:30am on a rainy day... there's at least one waiting out on the street.

Anyway, since my flight on Saturday was 6:45am, I didn't book the hotel for friday night.  I figured I could either stay out all night or just spend the night sitting at the airport.  Luckily Corrie also had a super early flight, and she had that fancy room in the conference hotel, so she let me dump my stuff in her room friday morning.


So anyway, Friday night we ended up meeting up with AnD member Vanessa.  She took us to the nearby bar/restaurant area called CHJIMES.  Its a bit strange... it used to be a jesuit cathedral...

Its quite a big size too.  I'm not sure why they stopped using it, or who's idea was to use it for an event hall and surround it by bars and restaurants,  but its a fun place to hang out on a friday night (albeit slightly sacrilegious)

Here's Vanessa:

She was nice, she didn't get bored with my history lesson about the Council of Chalcedon or discussing why earthquakes aren't caused by oil drilling... :-P

Corrie was surprised to see this:

but i've lived in Asia long enough that it doesn't phase me anymore. :-P

One interesting thing we ran into when we entered CHJIMES...

Holy smokes!  A Maid Cafe in Singapore!  oh snap,  the first I've seen outside of Japan.    I was tempted to go here, but I didn't think my companions would really appreciate it as much as I would. :-P

Last but not least - Corrie and I checked out at about 4:45am to head for the airport.

Not many people in the lobby at 4:45am... but we were surprised to see two extremely tall and skinny girls in skimpy clothes with a western guy checking in at the desk.  After they got his key for him, the three of them headed up to the elevators... looks like the $400 a night hotel is just as bad as the $40 a night hotel!  :-P