Singawho? Singawhat?

Singapore was, honestly, disappointing. The name conjures up images of an exotic, tropic place teeming with people and energy brought together by the seas to do business of all kinds, but what it actually looks like is one big shopping mall surrounded by government funded high rises. Like if Dave & Buster decided to plan a city.

Singapore does not look like this.

Nor does it look like this.

I think the highlight of our trip was the first family we couch surfed with. They had just moved there from the Philippines because of Jeff's (the dad's) job. They were young, really nice, and had the most amazing 2 year old daughter. She spoke Tagalog, a Filipino language, and two weeks before we got there had just started learning English. You would think she had been speaking it all her life - she could almost have a full conversation with us in English. She was constantly performing, singing, dancing, anything for attention. And that girl had moves. Her parent's would occasionally start singing "Low," and she would just start breaking it down. I think by the time she's 4 she will be able to rival Beyonce, no joke.

With no extra money for shopping or restaurants, we were basically excluded from Singapore's two main recommended activities (though we managed to scrounge funds for some excellent curry in Little India...twice). We did go to the Kranji War Memorial, an old prison that served as a POW camp during WWII, which was very interesting. We also went to the Singapore Zoo, the other recommended tourist activity (it was a very good zoo, as zoos go). And in our spare time, we took photos of the various fines strictly imposed by the Singapore government.
*Note: a durian (above) very smelly fruit...highly illegal.

Scientifically proven...to do what??