Singapore

I genuinely cannot decide whether to describe Singapore as a luxury shopping center built inside a botanical garden or a botanical garden built inside a luxury shopping center.  What I can report is:

(A supertree at the Gardens by the Bay)

1. This city-state manages to be both cheerfully vibrant (by which I mean crowded) and clean.  Knowing as I do that you can be fined for spitting on the street in Singapore, I find it amusing that I've never felt so much like I need to spit as I have in Singapore.  Weird.

(The Old Hill police station, where they are poised to arrest me the moment saliva passes my lips.)

2. Singapore is much more spendy than anywhere else I've been since I started this adventure.  It seems that all the money is here.  Like, all the money in the world. 

3. There are fresh-squeezed orange juice vending machines on pretty much every corner--you tap your credit card and four oranges tumble down into the works of the thing, and about 30 seconds later a cold cup slides out.  I want one of these machines with a gluttonous desperation.

4. At 80 miles from the Equator, Singapore is blisteringly hot and humid.  You may recall my having complained about the climate in Pokhara.  Ha!  If low-elevation Nepal was balmy, Singapore is unrelenting, hotter than Tampa in August.  My natural thermostat is set quite low; I don't like to be hot, and hot + humid is a real challenge for me.  Hot + humid + menopause = a cellular-level slapstick comedy.  I am moving around in a constant, and alarmingly thick, sheen of my own sweat, day or night.  People brush up against me and turn to look in a combination of disgust and alarm and concern for my wellbeing.  It's a good thing that Singapore is small, and that I can see most of what I'm hoping to see in a couple of days. 

(Every article of clothing I'm wearing in this photo is as wet as if I'd worn it in the shower.)

Like, for example, THIS GUY: