(not so) quick update

it's 22.30 saturdaynight. i went out thursday and yesterday, so i'll be turning in early tonight (damn you jose cuerva). i've done so much things this week and also went through my first homesick moment. since i've never been this far from home without knowing when i'll be returning, i've never felt something like it before and i guess it's normal to miss home, family and friends once the excitement of a new country starts to fade away and you spend less time discovering new things and more time thinking about how everyone's doing and the things you might have missed. but i got over it...
so the girlsnight at the gayclub was allright. most chicks here are very distant, but luckily this girl started talking to me and i met some other people. there was a competition going on called 'so you think you're androgyne' which was very fun to watch. it was the semifinals and these six chicks had to do sketches and stuff. in the cabride back home the cabdriver was asking me where i'm from and we started talking about the sights i still had to see and about Singapore and food of course. he was so enthusiastic and totally lifted my spirit again!
the singapore toy&comic convention was that weekend and i went on saturday, man, it was packed! at first i was a little bit dissapointed, because it was very small and crowded, but i found some neil gaiman comics, so my initial dissapointment turned into utter happiness! they did have some awesome toys btw:




and creativity going on:


games and a star wars creature touching another star wars creature's spaceboob:


that afternoon i got a phonecall from a couple of friends from holland (bart and marjolein!) who have been backpacking through new sealand and indonesia for a couple of months and were passing trough singapore, heading for malaysia. we had some drinks in the arab quarter and some incredibly gross satay (which made me bummed out, because i was bragging so much about the awesome food here). it was so nice to see some friends from back home. unfortunately their bus to kuala lumpur left quite early the next morning so they went home around twelve and i took a cab to toca me, a lesbian bar in chinatown. i met a really nice girl there so it was way better than the last time i was there. they had karaoke inside, obviously, but the speakers outside were dripping with the brilliant sounds of moloko, only moloko :)

i've also been organising my new sealand visa stuff. i've applied online for a working holiday scheme and it was quite easy, but i just need to make an x-ray to check if i have tb (which i don't, but it is required to get one of you spend 3 months or more in a country where tb can be transferred to you) and i needed a second document of identification, so i asked my mom to send me my u.s. passport (hope it doesn't get lost in the mail, that would suck so much) then it's just finding a new travel insurance (the one i have now only lasts for 60 days max, i found that out a couple of days before i came here, so f*cked) that will last for at least a year and is valid in new sealand. oh right, also need to make an english cv and post it on every jobsite i can find.

this week was a little bit thunderstormy, so i went to a couple of museums and shopping. the singapore art museum was incredibly cool, but it wasn't allowed to take any pictures inside. there were a couple of different exhibitions showing art from singapore from the early 20th century till now, art from vietnam, works of chinese calligrapher and painter xu beihong (i never heard of him either) and some alain fleischer photographs (which were awesome!) it was so interesting to see how modern painting started here and i've only seen and learned about paintings and art from european artists, so it was cool to see some stuff made in the same time on the other side of the world.
a little bit further was the singapore history museum which was also really nice. they had an exhibition about singapore and how it came to be the country it is now and upstairs was an exhibition of the collaborative works by ruben ramos balsa and yuen chee wai. i have no idea how to explain it to you...so i won't. let me just tell you that it was really really cool. there was also an exhibition explaining the history of street food sold by hawkers between the 1950s and 1970s through some well known dishes over here (like laksa, roti prata, satay, char kway teoy, tok tok mee, haianese chicken rice) and how they were made.
oh right, the peranakan museum. i'll just copy the visitor's guide intro to explain what peranakan means: 'southeast asia has been a crossroads for trade since ancient times. prevailling winds brought traders from distant lands to southeast asia. some of these traders put down roots and married local women. their descendants are the ancestors of the peranakans.' so basically people with a mixed background. this museum hasn't been here that long and its purpose is primarely to give peranakans a form of identity, since they don't have one clear cultural heritage, which could cause a feeling of not belonging to any culture at all and to secondly make them feel proud about their heritage. i find it quite beautiful and it also shows how important culture is for people here and how much it influences their identity.

enough museum stuff. like i said, i went out this week. thursdaynight was the finale of the androgyne competition and i met the girl from the other night and her friends there and had a blast. yesterday i discovered an awesome club in clarke quey called home club. they played indierock, dnb and spinecrawling electro (cuz we are.....your friends!!). the tequila was flowing, my body was dancing and my face had a perminent smile. and i kicked a girls ass at a game of pool, high five!

below some random pics:


a lizard in our kitchen sink, i accidentaly cut of his tail trying to help him out of the sink and he died :( i still feel bad about that

trees:


some buildings and a very psychadelic streetview which turned out exactly how i wanted:


tomorrow will be packing day, because monday it's time to fly to the philippines!! i'm really excited about it and can't wait to be at my dads treefarm in the middle of nowhere. even though singapore is really really nice and beautiful, i'm so ready to be away from all the crowds, taxi's and malls. and besides, my savings are suffering a serious bashing over here, so it will be good to go somewhere even more cheap (for example, a bottle of rum is like 1 euro).
i'll be gone for two weeks and won't be posting anything, so don't worry when you see nothing new in between, i'll be chilling on a gorgeous beach somewhere (mwuhaha) and you can also mentally prepare yourself for an enormous post after the philippines.
when i get back i'll go to bali and travel to yogyakarta and maybe further, don't know yet. after that maybe malaysia or the philippines again, who knows...

(another very long story, guess it didn't turn out to be an early night after all)
(and btw, the new buffy comic 'no future for you' is awesome)