singapore

Things You Can Do in Singapore but Not in Thailand, or, How I Spent My Christmas Vacation.

1. Drink the tap water.
2. Have a conversation in English with everyone you meet.
3. Breathe. (OK, it's only Bangkok that is so polluted, not the rest of Thailand.)
4. Pay way too much for drinks.
5. Have your eyebrows threaded. (It's a method of hair removal.)
6. See the world's largest man-made waterfall.
7. Watch the very worst of American TV (The Swan, America's Next Top Model).
8. See a church, a synagogue, a mosque, a Hindu temple, and a Buddhist temple. All in the same neighborhood.
9. Ponder the nature of a twenty-first century post-colonial industrialized society over a bottle of white wine, while gazing at a nineteenth-century British hotel that stands next to a glass-and-steel officelike building that is actually a mosque, itself wedged between several modern shopping malls.
10. Eat salad. A lot of salad.

Things You Can Do in Thailand but Not in Singapore, or, The Rest of My Life.

1. Eat dinner for 20 baht.
2. Explore the wide, wonderful world of unidentifiable meat products on sticks.
3. Exchange smiles with everyone you meet.
4. Estimate boys' ages by the length and color of their school uniform pants.
5. Buy a new wardrobe, shop for groceries, have dinner, see a movie, go bowling, get your hair done, have a massage, have your eyes examined, listen to live jazz, play video games, shop for major appliances and furniture, upgrade your cell phone, and more. In the same mall. (Come to think of it, maybe you can do this in Singapore. It would just cost more.)
6. Randomly encounter elephants while walking down the street.
7. Hire one person to drive you around town in his tuk-tuk, then pilot you through the canals in his very small boat.
8. Command respect with the sentence, "Bpen ajarn son dontree." ("I am a music teacher.")
9. Locate temples and spirit houses by the smell of jasmine.
10. Listen to people speak with real reverence for their monarch.