People here are so polite. I'm not sure if it's an Asian thing, or particular to just Singapore, but everyone is so well mannered, to a fault even. Instead of asking you to move, or saying "excuse me," they'll simply stand politely behind you while you block their way and wait for you to notice. It happens to me a lot, since I'm usually staring at a building or map and not paying attention to what's around me. Makes me feel like a real asshole. I also keep forgetting that the roads are the opposite here, which means when you're trying to avoid walking directly into someone, you have to break to the left, not the right. It's very frustrating and feels unnatural, and I'm terrible at remembering to do that. I'd like to extend an apology to all Singaporeans, I will most likely at some point either block your path or run into you, possibly a combination of the two.

I mentioned earlier how much I like riding the subway, since everyone puts in their earphones and relaxes. It's not like riding an Austin bus, no crazy people try to talk to you or cough in your direction or throw things at you and yell to themselves. My ride yesterday, however, was disrupted by a pair of tourists, who decided to have a fight in the middle of the train. Now, you'd think they'd notice that everyone here is pretty polite, not to mention QUIET on the subway, but apparently that was no deterrent. I'm just grateful they weren't American, because otherwise I might have had to interfere so our country wouldn't look bad. They were speaking in English, but their accents were European--German maybe, or possible eastern European. From I what I heard, the woman was pissed because her boyfriend had done something with the passports. Instead of talking about it, like normal adults do, she decided to march over to MY area of the train and stand with her back to him. Now, this would have been fine, but then the guy followed her and started things up again. The conversation was one sided, and went something like this:

Why aren't you talking to me?.............Why aren't you talking to me?.....................I have your phone. Take your phone............Why aren't you talking to me?..............Take your phone. Will you talk to me?.....................Take your phone.....................Why aren't you talking to me?

It went ON like this the whole ride back, till I wanted to grab that stupid pink phone he was holding and throw it off the train. I mean, who acts like this?! Who isn't a 15-year old?! No one, that's who. People were trying very hard to ignore them and look the other way, except of course for me. I glared at them as loudly as I could, but to no avail. I was very tempted to pull a Vincent Schiavelli from "Ghost" and yell GET OFF MY TRAIN! I know I'm not actually from Singapore, and I have no right to feel insulted, but since people here are too nice, I feel I should be offended on their behalf.

Anyway, after that little episode, we had a very lovely evening. We decided to go look around the rather lazily named Arab Street. Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like: a street full of Arabic shops and restaurants. It was similar to Little India, but with a lot less people and not so hectic. There were a lot of fabric shops on both sides, with really gorgeous patterns and decorations. If anyone needs fabric...for some weird reason...this is where I will go to get it. Then there were shops that had things like cloth bags and wall hangings and jewelry that were really beautiful. I want to get some of the wall hangings to decorate our place when we finally move. We walked by the Sultan Mosque, which is really huge and breathtaking. I forgot to bring the camera, but I found a picture of it online which I am stealing because it's exactly the view we had. (UPDATE: I have replaced said picture with one I actually took.)

We were accosted outside a Moroccan restaurant and told to "Eat here! Couscous!" so we said ok and sat outside on the patio. They brought us this freaking delicious mint jasmine tea in an antique looking silver tea kettle and little glass shot glasses to pour it into. We got too much food, as usual, but to be fair we didn't know that "couscous" meant a giant plate of it with vegetables and lamb. So we got that, and a mixed grill kebab, and some hummus. The hummus was served warm, which Mike did not like one bit, but it tasted fine to me. We had a great view of the mosque from our table, and we got to hear the call to evening prayer. It felt like we were in a totally different city, which is one of the really great things about Singapore. People here tend to stick to their own, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. They're very friendly and accepting of everyone, but being insular within their groups or religions creates these little pockets of different worlds throughout the city. Luckily, they really don't mind if you wander into their world for awhile.