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The flight from Singapore to Denpasar was not long, but it was miserable. I was flying on JetStar, the Southwest Airlines of Southeast Asia. Even though it was a late-night flight, there was still a crying baby, which actually offset the obnoxious family with teenagers behind me and the two single guys who thought they were hot shit in front of me.

I tried to move from the third row to an empty row of seats at the front, but the flight attendant wouldn’t let me. The two guys joked that I could sit between them for 50 dollars. I played sweet and pretended to be amused by the joke, but that wasn’t the end of it. Periodically thoughout the flight, the pudgy, Danish half of their twosome kept “offering” to give me the seat, lowering the price each time. Behind me, a baby was screaming, the teenagers were switching seats and getting up to walk around every two minutes, and I was agitated because that’s how I roll.

When we finally landed and stood up to get our bags, the Danish guy kept laying it on. His tall, well-built blond friend stood between us and said in a heart-melting Australian accent, “Oh, leave her alone.” I looked at him for a half-second, trying not to appear overly appreciative, since it was too little too late anyway.

“You are beautiful though,” he added with a smile, not so much giving a compliment but stating a fact, which threw me into indignant-mode. Who do you think you are, trying to white-knight me with your gorgeous face and flawless smile and being all accurate and shit?

“Thank you,” I whispered, trying to appear as if I don’t hear that on a regular basis. I don’t mind it in certain contexts and actually enjoy hearing it from the right people, but sometimes I feel like it devalues the more imporant things about me.

Anyway, we got off the plane and those two were immediately taken away by whatever cool thing they had arranged. I went with the rest of the plebes to buy my visa the good old fashioned way and wait for my suitcase.

I wanted to do something quiet and relaxing on my last day in Singapore, so I went to the Jurong Bird Park. Since it’s a weekday, I walked through the empty park leisurely and without incident.

All the colorful and interesting birds were up front, including the flamingos. These bright, balanced, basically bipedal birds are in my top 10 favorite animals, and I hope to acquire some for my nutso mansion on a hill that I will surely have once I’m rich and famous.

The rest of the park was mostly hawks. They’re not bad, but they don’t interest me a whole lot either. Most of them were in cages, which are easier to bypass than the colorful birds in open air or the mean-looking ostriches behind a fence. I also saw a cage of lovebirds. Five lovebirds in a cage. That’s just unfair.

At the end of my stroll, I used the bathroom, which was surprisingly nice compared to many public facilities overseas. I heard two American women talking as they walked in and one of them commented a similar thought and added, “Sometimes the bathroom is more interesting than the place.” I agree with that too.

Singapore is one big mall, divided into smaller malls, some of which are connected so prissy chicks like me can avoid the stifling humidity. Despite my being a prissy chick, I don’t enjoy shopping much. I already have a lot of stuff, and despite my greatest efforts to consolidate I seem to accumulate more and more possessions just by being alive. I am a little green prince, rolling a giant Katamari ball of crap all over the world. It’s getting heavy.

Fortunately, the malls in Singapore are as pretty as they are huge strides for capitalism, which makes going for a walk indoors somewhat pleasant. Here’s a picture of a fish pond I came across at Suntec City:

I set out for Little India a little on the early side. There isn’t much happening before noon or oneish, but my growling stomach wasn’t cool with that. So I did the cliché, turn-down-an-alley-and-find-cheap-awesome-food thing that is so typical of foreign travel.

The Supergood Curry Fish Head Restaurant was all that and more. For about three bucks, I got a plate of indescribably delicious food and the people working there were efficient and nice. I thanked my stars for getting there early, since they were packing ‘em in when I left.

Later that evening, I met up with my friend’s dad Barrett and some of his coworkers at the Marriott Executive Club. Their hotel is well-situated on Orchard Road (mine is by the marina because “pretty” trumps “shopping”) and I’m having an easier time with the subway system than cabs, oddly enough.

They had been in town much longer than I, so they told me about stuff they’d seen and done while we had free drinks and snacks. One of the more interesting attractions is inside Orchard Tower. A deserted multi-story mini-mall by day, it also houses a bunch of nightclubs well-known for their abundance of ladies of the evening. Apparently, chicks from all over Asia go there to make money or land a white guy, and white guys from all over everywhere else go there to get laid.

“They call it Four Floors of Whores,” laughed Tim, a quiet middle-aged man.

“It’s crazy,” said Barrett. “I don’t want to know what these people are doing.”

“It sounds skeezy as hell,” I said.

“You want to check it out?” asked Soo, a Vietnamese man with a gleam in his eye.

“Absolutely.”

Soo and I wrapped things up at the Marriott and walked down the street. While we waited for it to get darker, Soo told me about fleeing Vietnam on a boat with 64 other refugees. Half of them made it. He ended up turning a buck well enough to bring his family out of poverty, and he could laugh about anything.

We started at Harry’s, the first place I visited in Asia where white people were the norm. The next place, a country-western themed bar, was filled with young petite Asian women feeling up any white man who would let them.

Then we graduated to a club upstairs called Acapulco, which perfectly fit the stereotype of Asian-whore meat-market. Dressier, slutter Asian chicks packed the club, which was peppered (er, salted?) with predominantly middle-aged white men who suffered no lack of attention.

They left us alone, mostly. Being the polar opposite of what that place was designed for, a middle-aged Vietnamese man and a twenty-something white girl don’t have much to offer. We were there to stare at them, and I don’t care how obvious it was. Some of the girls actually seemed to appreciate the extra looks, as they outnumbered paying customers 10 to 1. Also, I’m a white person with money. I might as well have had a penis.

Soo fed me drinks while I watched unlikely pairs sit and chat over the loud music. What the hell could they possibly have to talk about? I wondered. And when it was finally time to make the deal, who instigated it? What do they say? Who makes the arrangements and how?

As I pondered all these questions, I caught myself staring directly at a tall, white man with longish white hair and a hooked nose. He was old enough to be my dad. He caught me looking at him, averted his eyes, and was gone less than a minute later. I felt bad for making him unnecessarily paranoid, but I take comfort in the fact that I may have saved him several doctor visits in the future.

When Soo attempted to put his arm around me, that was my cue to call it a night. As I rode the subway back toward the marina, I laughed at the irony of the whole thing. No one is safe in this sex-driven society, not even towering husky white girls.

From the maps I’d seen, the Singapore Botanic Gardens looked huge, so I wanted to make a day of it. I just about covered the entire park, including the National Orchid Garden for a small fee. Really small, in my case, because I used my college ID. For some reason, I feel a keen sense of satisfaction that I can still get discounts with it, even though I barely remember college now.

When I exited the Orchid Garden, my relaxing walk was interrupted by an older Danish couple from Bermuda. The male half was mostly to blame. I could see his wife was boring him, and he wanted to make that my problem. He asked me where I was from and what I was doing. I politely entertained his small talk for awhile. I told him of my plans for China and whatnot.

He: “China is a very good place to be. Very nice.”

Me: “Sounds great! What did you like about it?”

He: “There aren’t as many Indian people there.”

Me: “Why is that good?”

He: “I don’t like Indian people.”

Me: “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I have to go this way now.”

I grew up around people who were openly racist, but come ON. Not in front of strangers. Is it really that hard to focus your hatred on the individual people and behaviors that bother you?

Anyway, here’s a flower:

I spent some of my morning at the gym and ate my first meal in Singapore at Peach Blossoms inside my hotel. They were running an all-you-can eat dim sum promotion.

While I stuffed my craw with delicious fried thingies, I watched as an older woman cooed a baby in a high, breathy voice, exclaiming, “Fuck it! Fuck it! Fuck it!” It made for a nice impromptu Benny Lava session. Then I heard someone’s cell phone ring with the Happy Tree Friends theme song. Yeah, I’m gonna like here.

When the waitress came by with my first round of plates, she said, “You eat soup first.” But like the tea and most of the hot items I ordered, it was served with a torrent of steam rising from it. I know she was trying to be helpful, but I wished I could explain that I’d like to wait for it to stop being on fire first.

My favorite dish was the pan-fried cheong fun in XO chili sauce. I also had shrimp and waterchestnut wontons and steamed yam cake with Chinese sausage, and about 40 other things.

Even my cold mango dessert came to me under a cloud of smoke. The white bubbling stuff at the bottom is dry ice.

Once I was convinced that wouldn’t kill me, I enjoyed every bite of that too. Then, having consumed everything possible, I went back to my room for a nap. Ah, vacation…

I arrived at the Marina Mandarin at dusk, which at this point is becoming the magic time of day to arrive everywhere. Tokyo was slightly cold, but the air in Singapore was thick and muggy.

I made the mistake of taking a shuttle to the hotel when I should have just called a cab. Even after going through countless airports all over the world, there’s still no rule of thumb for determining which is better. You can measure distance relative to cost all you want, but you can’t usually gauge which option is “worth it” until you try them.

I read a lot about the hotel and the city in general. The hotel is pretty nice, and there was a dresscode. As it was peak going-out time, the folks milling around in the lobby and dining in the several open-air restaurants looked fantastic. I, having spent the last several days either in the air or about to be, checked in as quickly as possible and retreated to my room, where I looked out the window and saw this:

I lost January 2nd to a relaxing flight to Singapore.

WHAT?? Relaxing on a plane? Ya rly!

I funded my flights to and from Asia with American Airlines frequent flier miles that I’ve been saving since college. If I was ever to fly first-class anywhere, I’m glad it was to the other side of the world, and I’m glad it was on Japan Airlines. They’re partners with AA, which operated my (disappointing) return flight.

The first-class cabin on JAL was gigantic. Barring the availability of willing contenders, I could have hosted a boxing match in there. Each person had their own private area by a window, and there weren’t that many of us anyway, so the cabin was very quiet.

As one would expect from an Asian airline, the flight attendants were wicked hot and more than happy to bring me anything I wanted. When I asked which way the bathroom was, I’m pretty sure they would have wiped my ass for me if I wanted help with that too. The bathrooms in first class, by the way, are much cleaner and nicer.

During each leg of the flight, I was supplied with a makeup bag of products from Cle de Peau, a ritzy division of Shiseido, my favorite brand of high-end cosmetics.

My favorite part of the flight was listening to my newly downloaded Aquitane album and sampling the dozen or so flavors of scotch on the drink menu. And, of course, receiving food that I could arrange to look like male genitalia. The only sad part was that there was no one to show it off to and receive a congratulatory fistbump for a job well-done. Well, I guess it’s not too late:

*fistbump*

My travel plans called for yet another layover in a distinctly unfamiliar place: Japan.

Although I had almost a full day there, the Narita Airport is a few hours away from Tokyo. My sources told me to suck it up and go to Tokyo anyway, so I put my luggage in overnight baggage check and took a train to Shibuya, a hip Toyko neighborhood.

I had dinner at a sushi restaurant and used a super-high-tech crapper:

Then I walked around some. At first I was thinking I’d get a room at some skeezy place for the night, since I wasn’t carrying any valuables. Those capsule-thingies looked interesting, but I couldn’t find any where I was.

I ended up taking the last train back to Narita (phew!) because I was scared of not having enough time to get back from Tokyo. I had some trouble communicating with people at the train station about where I wanted to go, and expected to be in worse trouble at the airport if I missed my flight. I don’t want to sound like that fat, dumb American who walks around foreign countries whining, “No one speaks English!” But I wasn’t going to learn Japanese in a night, and I needed to anticipate problems.

I spent the night in a decently-comfortable Narita hotel, wishing my flight left just a teensy bit later so I could see the Narita-san temple.