Singapore and Bangkok Dangerous

We are now staying in a cozy 12-person dorm in the middle of China Town, Singapore. We lucked out as far as timing though, as the entire area is in the midst of a month-long celebration called the Moon Cake Festival. As I was told by a tour guide, this festival originates from the time when China was occupied by Mongolia, and the Chinese mounted a successful, secret assault by placing an intricate plot within moon pies that were distributed to virtually every Chinese house. Fast-forward to today and the streets, lined with food and clothing vendors, are lively all day and all night, becoming most crowded in the late evening. The cool part is that there are bright spherical lanterns (representative of the moon) strung up all over the place, giving China Town as a whole a very familiar Christmas-like charm...except, of course, for the 90 degree weather, which is also familiar!

Today we will meet up with Joe, a close friend of my father's who has lived in SE Asia for quite some time now. He will show us the ins and outs of dining in the wilder part of the city--Little India. Should be interesting, though I am not sure how many more consecutive foreign morsels my pallet can withstand. And I am not the only one--after dinner last night, Jessica said something along the line of "I may have to eat Burger King at some point." But we are all enjoying the experience, delectable or not.

In case any of you reading this have not heard, Thailand is a bit unstable right now, due to government protests. No need to worry though--we are aware of it, and we will continue to monitor the situation before heading north to Phuket. We plan to contact the U.S. embassy in Bangkok for advice on the safest way to travel the country, but even Joe said that this sort of thing is common and should not be an issue outside of Bangkok. Though we do not plan on being in Bangkok for another month (by then this could blow over), we do have the option of skipping the city entirely by flying in from Ko Samui and right back out to Auckland, never leaving the airport terminal. Either way, safety is definitely our number one priority. I will keep you posted on any major developments.

Cheers,
Mike