Sunday morning dawned on a peaceful and hazy Singapore. The start to the day was tempered by the late night and the urgency to be out of the flat before the maid arrived to do her three hours cleaning on a Sunday. Three tired people headed to the riverside for breakfast at a Mexican restaurant, which seems to be incongruous but such is life. After a long and leisurely breakfast we walked along the river to Liane Court, a Japanese shopping centre, where we spent time exploring a Japanese supermarket. This contained fruit and vegetables that none of us had ever seen. Back to the flat where we met the maid leaving the building and then we settled down to watch sport none of us exhibiting any great sense of energy.
The executive director went for a swim and David and I watched a football match before I put together a papaya salad and a curry for dinner. The afternoon passed in a haze of laziness. In the evening we went for another walk along the river to Clarke Quay, as the Singapore river festival was apparently in full spate. Nearest to us there were several tents selling an assortment of rather odd items including cider from Cornwall, hand made linen , preserves and paper items. It was a truly bizarre bazaar. We stopped at a beer tent but as the proprietor didn't offer to sell us a beer we moved on. We walked down to Clarke Quay but there was nothing else going on so we walked back again stopping to listen to a Cuban Band, playing to fifty people down by the river. We treated David to a beer and then made our way home for dinner.
Singapore is rather a strange beast of a city, every one is very polite, there is a plethora of skyscrapers with more springing from the ground and everyone appears to work long hours and long weeks. Sunday is not a special day and construction workers were hard at work. It is a difficult city to get a handle on, very eclectic and in some ways very democratic, with poor areas coexisting alongside expensive apartment blocks. There appears to be no sense of adventure or anarchy and everyone is well behaved in a polite and charming manner. There is a lot to learn in a city which has built itself as a business capital in Asia and which appears in many ways to be still learning.