Going to Myanmar Tomorrow

Going to Myanmar tomorrow!  Will  be there until two Mondays from now.  In spite of my best efforts, I will most likely will get food poisoning.  Thats just how it works.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know there are ethical issues about tourism in a country with a repressive government, Myanmar.  Part of what I spend will help fund that government through taxes.  The fact is, however, that the businesses that I will be spending money on really need it.  My money will make a real difference in people's lives.  So, in the end, I think that going to Myanmar is fine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Continuing with the narrative:
I get in the Cab and I say 'can you take me to NUS?' and he says 'What, NUH? I said ' No NUS'.

'Oh great NUH is the hospital, much better to go to NUS than to the Hospital'.

We drive away.  We start getting into the typical airport taxi type conversation.  'I will be here for five months or so'.

Certain details escape me.
I remember that he pointed to all of the lush greenery and said 'see all of this, everything here is nicely maintained and gardened'.  And seriously, there were a lot of tropical plants on the median and sides.

Interestingly, this highway had traffic flowing on the right, and the car had the steering wheel on the right as well.  For a bit, I was confused, but that highway turned out to just be an anomaly.

The taxi driver gives me the typical Singapore rules talk; 'This place is very safe, as long as you don't break any of the rules.  If you do, you will be punished!'.

I ask him about gum.  He says its a big no-no.

At some point we are driving through a HUGE, very long tunnel.  He says 'see this?  This was just opened last week!' the highway used to be above ground, and you could see all of downtown, but now there is just his tunnel.  That's right. Singapore put a whole highway underground, without really needing to, they just thought it'd be nice.

When we get to NUS, I ask for directions to Temasek Hall, where I live, from a passerby.  I was quite startled by his accent; Most Singaporeans at JHU have masked their accent pretty well, so that it sounds vaguely British.  But a real Singaporean accent is very unique!  I must mention that it is a true accent of the English language, just like a Scottish or Boston accent, as it is the language they speak here.  In an Ultimate frisbee tournament I played in in the third week here, there was a team from Sheares Hall (another dorm).  They were called the 'Shucks!', and the jerseys had a picture of a shark.  I thought it was really clever of them to make fun of their own accent.

Interestingly, the people who I asked directions from were the second group of passersby who I saw.  The first group the cab driver didn't reccomend I asked; he national-origin-ly (not racially) stereotyped them as being Chinese, and said that they might not know where Temasek was, and wouldn't know English very well.  Having been here for some time, I think that this profiling is unwarranted; most Chinese people here have at the very least decent English.  Now I know that, based on where they were walking, and the building complex they live in, they may very well have not know where Temasek Hall was, but the cab driver didn't have that information.  It reminds me of a story one of my Singaporean-Chinese friends told me to day, so I will tell you later, because it is time to sign off.