So, all of you may have noticed that I have been somewhat negligent in updating this blog; I have not even gotten past writing about my 18 hour layover in Japan.  One would hope that the reason behind this is that I have been doing more important things.

If that is true, then a secondary reason is perfectionism; a desire to make each post as long and detailed as my first.  This leads to a psychology of 'oh I don't have time to do that much writing right now, so I will do it later'.

So, I am changing my strategy; perhaps by writing more short posts, as my dad's friend suggested, or by regular working on longer posts to post at periodic intervals.

  I still have a desire for this blog to be a coherent narrative of my time in Singapore, so I will continue writing about events that happened a month and a half ago, and hopefully the past will catch up with the present.

Now, as I said, I sleep in the internet cafe in Tokyo; I catch the train back to the airport, collect my luggage, and get my boarding pass.  I have a few hours in the airport; this is when the mishap with the sushi lady happens, mentioned in my first post.  Without thinking, I also buy some gum (illegal in Singapore).

Without getting into any details, I will mention that the toilets in the airport had some pretty cool bells and whistles.

The plane ride over was really nice; Japan airlines is probably the  best airline I have ever flown; the food actually seemed pretty fresh.  There  also several kinds of meat and fish included in the food.  When I asked myself how many animals had died to feed me, I came up with the answer 'several'. Furthermore, hot green tea that they served was excellent.

So, I land in the SG airport, and nothing too eventful happens.  At customs, they ask me about what I will be doing, in Singapore, and I explain that I will be studying.  If I remember correctly, I showed them some documents I got from the school, and explain that I would be getting my actual student's pass (an ID card, I later found out) from the Immigration and Customs Authority at NUS the next week.  They stamp my passport with a 'Social Visit Pass' good for 90 days.  They also stamp my debarkation card with this pass; printed at the bottom of this card are the words "WARNING: DEATH  TO DRUG TRAFFICKERS UNDER SINGAPORE LAW"**


I collect my baggage, and head for customs; I remember that I have some gum, so I go the 'items to declare' line.  But they just wave me on through to the 'nothing to declare' line, and don't even check anything.  I could have had anything!  I neither confirm nor deny that I actually threw the gum away before going through customs.  And I will neither confirm nor deny that I smuggled gum in from Malaysia this past weekend. And I will neither confirm nor deny that I am chewing gum as I write this post***.

So I catch a cab.  The cab ride itself was interesting; I want to tell you about it, but I have reached the point where writing more would make this blog unsustainable to regularly update.  You will hear about the cab ride, including and the conversation that I had with the driver, and my first sights of Singapore,at the beginning of the next post.

Tooteloo!







**They are serious.  Since being here, I have learned that whether or not you are considered a trafficker is determined only by the amount of a substance that you possess.  The initial sentencing is quickly carried out by a single judge, and there is one level of appeal, after which your only hope is presidential pardon.  If (when) you are found guilty, you have a week, give or take to live.

As you might guess, Singapore does not have a drug problem.

***But, even though chewing gum is illegal Singapore, you just get a fine if caught, and I even hear that if customs agents catch you with it, you can just say 'its for personal use' and they will let you through.  Some de-facto legalization.

Interestingly, if you read about the gum problems that Singapore was having a few decades ago, you would understand why it was outlawed.  There was so much gum stuck on the subway doors that they would not open!  You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore.  I include an excerpt that I fount to be pretty hilarious below:

Revision of the Act[edit]

In 1999, United States President Bill Clinton and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed to initiate talks between the two countries for a bilateral free trade agreement (USS-FTA).^[4] The talks later continued under the new administration of President George W. Bush. Details of the closed-door negotiations are unknown, but it became apparent that by the final phase of the negotiation in early 2003, there remained two unrelated issues: theWar in Iraq and chewing gum.

The Chicago-based Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company enlisted the help of a Washington, D.C lobbyist and of Illinois Congressman Phil Crane, then-chairmanof the United States House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade, to get chewing gum on the agenda of the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement.^[5] This caused a dilemma for the Singapore Government. It recognised the health benefits of certain gums, such as a brand of sugar-free gum that contains calcium lactate to strengthen tooth enamel. Sale of this newly categorised medicinal gum was allowed, provided it was sold by a dentist or pharmacist, who must take down the names of buyers.

Soon, the USS-FTA was signed and the ban was revised. "They were tough," Crane said of the talks. Some found it surprising that Wrigley had fought hard on this battle, given the small size of Singapore's chewing market. But the company said it was worth it. "There's many examples in our history of things that may have not made short-term financial sense but was the right thing to do in a philosophical or long-term sense," said Christopher Perille, Wrigley's senior director of corporate communications.