Slept for crap last night. I kept visualizing my mind as a data object, with a bug in the sleep() method. My mind raced furiously, trying to debug the method, call out the parameters correctly, and publish an updated version. This happened on and off all night. Anti-woot.
We had no meetings scheduled today, so I was able to sneak out with my primary host and visit the Forbidden City before our plane to Singapore departed. Very cool stuff. I stood in the courtyard from the movie “Hero,” where the protagonist was riddled with arrows in front of the emperor. It actually reminded me of Washington DC, at a lot of levels. Besides the “pride of a culture” scale architecture, there were the same cheesy souvenirs and the same ticket sellers making a buck selling admission to little extra sideshow exhibitions.
At one end of the Forbidden City is Tiananmen Square, the one they always show on the news about China, where the student faced down the tank column. There were neither protests nor tanks today, but it did give me a little pang to be in a place where such heavy stuff had gone down.
Went business class on the six hour flight to Singapore, thank God. Singapore Air is an airline that never got the memo about equal rights, male waitstaff, ugly uniforms, or bad food. The stewardesses were all dressed in uniforms modeled after the traditional garb in Singapore, and the in-flight magazine referred to them as “Singapore Girls.” After boarding, one of them came by and asked “how may I address you?” I said “call me Chris.” For the duration of the flight, I was “Mr. Chris.”
When I mentioned that I’m vegetarian, there was a little consternation that nobody had gotten the memo to include such a meal in the service, but then they improvised. They took one of the pasta wrappers from another meal, and filled it with veggies, cheese, and salsa. In other words, the flight staff made me a burrito because of my weird dietary requests. I was stunned.
Watched “Electra” for my first in-flight movie, which was a decent film to use to pass the time on a flight. Chick kung-fu, with references out to some rich and complicated world that probably exists in a comic book somewhere…but just seemed hokey on the screen.
The second movie was the most baffling, funny, awesome, terrible, and generally weird film I’ve seen in years, possibly ever: “Himalaya Singh.” It’s about a kid raised on a mountain peak who has achieved total mastery of yoga. He has to go down to the base of the mountain and win a yoga contest in order to marry the beautiful girl. After that it gets really weird. I won’t even try.
Singapore, in my brief impression, is clearly a tourist destination. Where the hotel in China was upscale, this is over the top posh. Everything was included in China, because at such prices it ought to be. Here, my bottle of water from the mini-bar costs extra, the internet service costs extra. It’s also muggy and hot. I suspect that during the day it’ll be muggy and hot. Then, we go to India. At least it’ll be a dry heat there.
I’m back on the demon brew (coffee), which is bad. Still, it’s european style coffee, which means it tastes gooooood. Like rich dark soul nurturing evil.
And with that, off to bed.
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