My Singapore Travel Diary, Saturday, July 23 - Sunday, July 24, 2016

Saturday, July 23

Day-Long Workshop for the main workshop group

Slept 12:00 MN - 5:49 AM, but woke up briefly after two-hour intervals.

Breakfast in the hotel dining room. I sit on the smoking deck with the food supplier again. I remark that the breakfast room is not crowded this morning. He says that it is too early for the crush. He mentions that, this evening, his crew will be preparing a dinner for the Indonesian football team, whose members I have been seeing for the past two days.

Rain. I wait for the clouds to disperse, then walk to the theatre under the drizzle.

Saturday is not a working day for the theatre. I arrive 9:20 AM just as E. also arrives to unlock the doors and turn on the lights. Jason and Anica arrive next.

This morning the participants are rehearsing their group play. Their invited guests will arrive an hour later to watch their performance. I converse with Ze-An, who mentions Atiqah, his senior, and who was the intern who assisted me last year.

The performance goes well, and the invited guests join us later for two or three exercises before we break for lunch.

Lunch with some of the participants at a Chinese coffee shop. Pamela follows us there. This part of the city is terra incognita to her; she is one of the wealthier Singaporeans who do not usually venture into iffy places.

Afternoon exercises and closure. Afterward I take Jacky and Khai with me to the bak kut teh shop. I have never tried bak kut teh before. It is yummy.

Back in the hotel, I catch a Thai movie about three gays on a haunted ship. I finish packing.

Aside from bak kut teh I reflect that there has also been Ribena, a black currant syrup introduced in Singapore from way back when it was still a British colony. I had Ribena several times during the workshops. I initially suspected it to be duhat, but I was wrong.


Sunday, July 24

I wake up twice at dawn, then finally at 8:49 AM.

I dress, then go down for a quick breakfast. The sun is out, the weather is as fine as a warm summer day's.

Check-out in the lobby. I have two 50-dollar bills changed to a 100. E. arrives to pick me up. I return to him the adapter I borrowed, and to the hotel the other adapter I borrowed to charge my camera.

E. takes me to Changi Airport in a taxi. He'd checked me in electronically, but checking in here is smooth either way.

The departure gate opens 11:00AM. I make it in time. No more window-shopping at Madame Butterfly, and I even forego using the departure area computer terminals. Boarding proceeds on time. On the airplane I watch The Monkey King (Wu Kong). As in my earlier flight the earphones come in a plastic bag that says, "Compliments of Singapore Airlines". I wonder if atchay airlines still warn you to return their earphones or else, as if they were great earphones to begin with. Frankly they are mere plastic toys with cheap sponges on them, like the headgear used in the game "Who Am I?".

The movie has fascinating characters and great special effects, as most wuxia do.

After lunch I have my first Singapore Sling. Nice and sweet, like a gin and tonic with crushed orange pulp and maraschino cherries. It makes me feel like I swallowed a cold, juicy grape that stays in my stomach for an hour.

Dessert is a cone of KitKat ice cream. The stewardess asks me, "Kanang--ice cream?" and of course I want it. I also have a cup of black, brewed coffee.

And guess what I watch after The Monkey King? Ip Man 3, of course, and so I come full circle.

I reflect on how my body adjusted to the right sleeping schedule in Singapore, and whether this will keep when I lie down in bed tonight.

Our expected landing is 3:15 PM, but we arrive 3:33 PM. I wish that they would knock down the wall behind the conveyor belt. I not only want to see my baggage coming in, I want to see how it is being handled as well.

I take a Europcar home. I am already thinking of myself sitting inside my bedroom, spaced out and still unwilling to unpack and set aside my laundry.

But, it is great to be having dinner with my family again!

Looking back now, my only regret is that the workshop was too short. I was unable to use the exercises from a visual arts book that I adapted for application to creative writing.They are truly wonderful exercises and I hope to have a pick-up workshop with alumni some time in the future in order to use them. That, and that I have all these loose paper currency and coins that I cannot spend to buy anything in the Philippines.