Chris goes to La-La Land

I was kind of half-expecting to hate Los Angeles - I put it on my itinerary because I figured it was the kind of place everyone should see... but maybe only once. It has to be said, my first impressions after arriving at the airport were pretty dire. The bus ride towards downtown takes you through deeply ugly low-rise suburbs, scarred by the many intersecting wide freeways and flyovers that you associate with LA. However, it soon got better.

Los Angeles covers a huge area. At least for visitors, it is not obvious where the city actually ends, with some districts commonly thought of as part of the city, such as Santa Monica and West Hollywood, actually being independent cities within the wider county of Los Angeles. Everyone knows that LA is the city where the car is king - in fairness, the sheer size of the city, even of individual districts (this is not the land of high-rise living), pretty much dictates this. Although actually, there is more public transport than you might expect. There is a Metro system with five lines, which is remarkably cheap and even fairly pleasant (with touches such as art installations in stations). However, this number of lines only scratches the surface of the city's mammoth size. It's complemented by a substantial network of bus routes. However, the chances of finding a direct route for wherever it is you want to go are pretty slim, meaning you'll need to change - and many bus routes only run about twice an hour. And due again to the vast overall size of the city, you'll also possibly still have a long walk at one end or both ends of your journey. And to boot, information on routes and times is often either incredibly difficult to follow or just entirely absent (I am appreciating more and more on this trip just how thankful Londoners should be for the mostly superb standard of information provided by Transport for London). Lonely Planet, which is normally pretty well attuned to the diverse circumstances of its readers, pretty much takes it for granted that all visitors will hire a car. As I don't drive however, I spent a lot of time just trying to get around LA, albeit in all cases I eventually managed it.

With warnings ringing in my ears from a backpacker in Auckland about the vital importance of being well organised before you arrive (for the reasons outlined above), I'd booked a hostel in Hollywood, mainly because it had a remarkable location right at the heart of Hollywood Boulevard and literally opposite a Metro station. I'm not the type ever likely to get hugely excited about Hollywood because I'm just not much of a fan of its films (generally preferring indie and European cinema) or of celebrity culture - but it was worthwhile to spend maybe an hour having a wander around anyway. I saw the legendary Hollywood sign (from fairly afar), and the famous Walk of Fame on and around Hollywood Boulevard, where hundreds of stars from the entertainment world have their names in gold on individual paving stones. Additionally, outside the equally famous (and sort of impressive if possibly rather grotesque at the same time) Grauman's Chinese Theatre, are imprints in concrete of the hands and/or feet of megastars such as George Clooney and Meryl Streep. Of course, many A-listers live around Hollywood, and, believe it or not, one of the major things to do is to take a bus tour around their homes. Should you prefer to do it yourself, you can buy a "movie star map" showing you where to go. Strangely enough, I managed to resist this particular 'pleasure'...

I soon left Hollywood behind to explore the Downtown area. I was there over the weekend when it was largely pretty deserted - while it acts as the city's business district and civic centre, it isn't the area where most people spend their leisure time. Some areas of Downtown are clearly a bit dodgy, and the random strolling I initially did before I'd managed to acquire a guidebook isn't entirely something I'd recommend - however once I knew clearly where I was going, a targeted walkaround was very enjoyable.

Downtown is dominated by the massive, towering and gracefully imposing 1928 City Hall, some 138m high in off-white concrete. However there is also highly impressive and contrasting modern architecture to admire, particularly the Walt Disney Concert Hall which is externally comprised of various sharply angular but curved elements which loosely resemble sails on a boat. It's pretty stunning and I can't think that I've seen anything else much like it Although it hasn't got any of the jaw-dropping setting, with its 1980s/1990s design you could possibly suggest it's a bit of a modern-day Sydney Opera House.

 

Walt Disney Concert Hall [picture pulled off Internet]

 One area that definitely is populated at the weekend is El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the oldest area in the city. This features a lovely pedestrianised plaza, and a busy and charming Mexican market at Olvera Street, complete with Mexican street entertainers. With grand old buildings in this area such as Pico House and Old Plaza Firehouse, this is a great buzzy, multicultural and historic area to spend a bit of time, which doesn't really fit at all with my preconceptions of LA. Also elsewhere in Downtown there is some remarkably cheap if shabby shopping, with genres of store clustered together into a "Fashion District", "Jewellry District" and so on.

 

El Pueblo de Los Angeles [picture pulled off Internet]

Just to complete a thoroughly enjoyable day in Downtown is the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), which is without doubt the best modern art museum I've seen anywhere, seemingly featuring work by a complete roll-call of the greats. I loved it and if modern/contemporary art is even slightly your thing, this is an absolute must-see, period.
  

After Downtown, I spent another day down at the waterfront. Santa Monica is famous partially for its pier, which frankly seems to have less charm and no more glitz than any other pier you might go and see. However strolling along the beach, with its myriad beach volleyball courts and seriously buff topless guys was great fun. Also on the beach is, er, a designated chess-playing area, complete with numerous boards built into tables and one giant board complete with giant pieces. Santa Monica also has a very pleasant pedestrianised high street - it's completely chain-ified with not an independent store in sight, but on a nice day it beats a mall hands-down as a shopping experience.

Further along the shoreline is Venice Beach, which could generously be described as
"alternative", with a busy line-up of stalls and shops peddling reggae CDs, bracelets, paintings, new age supplies and so on. (I was asked several times by merchants if I wanted to buy reggae CDs - I did consider asking if they had any Linda Bengtzing but figured the joke would be a little wasted!) The atmosphere was sort of interesting to briefly observe, but otherwise it was a tad underwhelming to me at least - if you are into reggae and dreadlocks however, you might well love it. Much nicer and without a hint of the grunginess, only a few blocks away from the beach, was Venice Canal Walk. This is genuinely idyllic, spotlessly clean and totally peaceful with charming multi-coloured houses and I could easily have spent much more time wandering around than I had available.

I also made it out to Beverly Hills, an undeniably chic, spotless and pleasantly calm area, in order to visit the Museum of Tolerance, which chronicles and explores bigotry and intolerance in all its forms. Sadly, they have airport-style security there, meaning I imagine that it is believed to be a target for extremists of one type or another. I got a taste of just how car-oriented LA is when they informed me that I couldn't bring any fluids in and there were no cloakroom facilities - they clearly expect everyone to drive there and to just leave any water etc in the car. As I was unwilling to abandon the water I'd brought with me for the whole day, I eventually persuaded them after taking a sip of my water in front of them to let me keep it, but it was clearly an exception and it was as if I was the first water-carrying pedestrian they'd ever seen! Amongst the exhibits there was an excellent if shocking multimedia display tracking the myriad extremist websites out there preaching every kind of hate you can imagine - quite sobering to see for someone who's never exactly gone looking for them. The Internet is a double-edged sword indeed.

I also had a stroll through West Hollywood, another relaxed and chic area which seems to be pretty much defined by its gay population and scene. I'd never seen so many rainbow flags in one district and most of the people out on the streets (in the very early evening midweek) seemed to be gay men - bearing in mind that in true LA style, the area stretches out over several miles. However, between what I'd read about the nature of the LA scene but particularly the difficulty of safely getting there and back late at night from where I was staying in Hollywood, I ended up not actually going there for a night out. Infuriatingly, I'd actually arrived in LA just as  the Pride weekend was starting - but by the time I realised this (LA not exactly being the sort of city where you 'can't miss' something happening elsewhere in town), it was more or less at an end. Whoops - not a mistake I intend to make again when travelling.

If you know anything at all about my political persuasion, you'll be able to guess roughly what I think of the levels of inequality in the US. You didn't have to look too hard to see some of the downsides of the American dream. There are a lot of people begging on the streets, some of whom clearly have mental health issues. Vandalism is clearly rife - for example you won't find a public toilet (sorry, "restroom") that you don't need to get a key or a combination by making a purchase to open. And the Greyhound bus station is apparently in virtually a no-go area after dark, when you're advised to get a taxi to come or go - at the risk of being naive, I'm not really aware that such areas really exist in London. I've read LA described as the "city of private places", and public space seemed to be in pretty short supply. However, I'd have to admit that it didn't feel as wild or as barbarous overall as I might like to sometimes assume when I'm eating my muesli a stone's throw from Islington. I wouldn't presume to have got a sense of what it's like to actually live here - except to note that if you live in somewhere like Beverly Hills you seem to be buying yourself great physical separation from the city's social problems.

As I'd gleefully anticipated after the so-so winter weather in Australia and truly horrible conditions in New Zealand, the LA weather was mostly lovely - really pleasantly warm and bright without a trace of humidity. The hostel receptionist complained to me that it was well below average and (shock horror!) a little cold early in the morning - if that was poor weather, I'll take it please!

When it's that nice it's difficult not to enjoy yourself just walking around and soaking up the sunshine, but genuinely I was pleasantly surprised by LA. It goes without saying that it's not the kind of place I could contemplate living in, and overall I'm probably not likely to rush back given all the other places on my travel wishlist, but up to a point I really can see the attraction of the place. It is very calm and surprisingly well organised, with for the most part a well maintained feel - felt more like a place on planet Earth, and in the civilised West at that, than I expected. And no doubt I'm very glad to have seen it.

Freezing in New Zealand

New Zealand in wintertime is cold, windy, dark and often thoroughly wet. Obviously I knew this before deciding to spend one week of my round-the-world trip there, but perhaps what I hadn't appreciated is how important acclimatisation, or the lack of it, is. One of my Scandinavian friends once told me that they cope with their winters because each day/week is only a little colder and darker than the one before over a period of several months, so they get used to it. The New Zealand climate is more British than Scandinavian, but the trouble was that it hadn't been long at all since my prolonged exposure to constant heat of anything between 30-odd and 44 degrees C in Asia. So it felt absolutely bloody freezing to me. And I think also that sudden loss of hours and intensity of daylight was also a shock to the system. I'm not saying I wish I hadn't gone to New Zealand, but to anyone else considering a round-the-world trip, the impact of travelling through wildly different climactic conditions is something to bear in mind!

I limited myself to the North Island, which earned me incredulous looks from a couple of other travellers on the grounds that South Island is supposed to be prettier. However it's also that much colder in winter, and would have left me spending too much of my week in transit given that my onward flight across the Pacific needed to be from Auckland, towards the north of North Island. So, I went to the two major cities of Wellington and Auckland, and in-between to Rotorua. Travelling between these places by bus was very scenic, albeit in a largely English-style way, definitely part of the experience.

Major world cities Wellington and Auckland are not; bear in mind that New Zealand has only just over 4 million inhabitants, and they're generally a pretty understated sort anyway. Around a quarter of them are in Auckland; Wellington is the capital however due to its more central location, but it has a population of barely 200,000. I only counted one tall tower block there. While Auckland does have the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, the Sky Tower (aptly described by Lonely Planet as looking like a giant hypodermic giving a fix to the heavens), it seems to have a reputation for having a largely dull and generic city centre. A few points of interest included a modest, modern square commemorating New Zealand being the first country in the world to enfranchise women, and the surprisingly bold 1926 Art Nouveau University Clock Tower; however overall I didn't see too much to disprove the reputation. What charm there is in Wellington city centre seems to come largely from the bohemian cafes and live music venues around Cuba Street - although the whole city only boasts one rather provincial, albeit reasonable, gay venue, Club Ivy. Wellington city's main architectural claim to fame, the modernist concrete government office building called the Beehive, is a bit of a monstrosity.

Wellington. Alas not my photos in this article or the next couple, for reasons explained a bit later on - and not quite the weather I experienced there either!

What both cities certainly do have however are impressive natural settings. Wellington Airport is right on the shoreline of the Cook Strait, the narrow stretch of water between North and South Islands - it looked like my plane from Melbourne was landing on water until dry land of the runway became visible at the very last moment (not entirely a great minute or two for this slightly nervous flyer!). Wellington is built on enough of a slope, with some reserves of forest still standing between the very modest buildings up the slopes, to make for a famous and very picturesque view from the waterfront. Auckland is built on a very narrow strip of land between the Tasman Sea on one side and Pacific Ocean on the other; it is called The City of Sails for the fairly staggering 135,000 pleasure boats that live in its waters. It's also built on an area of volcanic activity, and the Auckland Museum tells how an eruption is inevitable sooner or later - albeit there have only been 19 in the last 20,000 years.

Auckland, with the Sky Tower towards the right [picture pulled off Internet]

Unfortunately the weather was just too inhospitable in the very limited time I had available for extensive exploration of either city. The Auckland Museum, with social history and design galleries as well as Maori anthropology, is a good way to spend a wet afternoon. Also in Auckland I did enjoy an (admittedly rather overpriced) visit to Kelly Tarlton's Antartic Encounter and Underwater World - my first opportunity to see penguins! Attractive but strange creatures, they are well worth seeing. When I first saw some near the venue's entrance I thought for a good few seconds I was looking at plastic models, so rigid and statuesque are they when stood still. Then when they do walk, it is really rather comical - they are fairly rotund with their layer of blubber but their legs are virtually non-existent above their big orange webbed feet. They therefore look very much like they are waddling, but also like they are extremely unstable on their feet. However, when you are able to observe them swimming in the water, there is no doubt that they look efficient and extremely graceful.

The definite highlight however of my trip to New Zealand was Rotorua. It's a fairly small town (deader at night than almost anywhere I've seen in my whole life), but it is the country's number one tourist destination. The large, rather beautiful and serene Lake Rotorua, upon one side of which the town is built is a substantial attraction; however the main draw is that this is an area of geothermal activity.

Plumes of hot steam rise up from drains and even solid ground fairly randomly all over the place. Notoriously, there is a pervasive odour of sulphur in the air throughout the area, although I found it faint enough to be just amusing rather than offensive, and it seemed to come and go (perhaps it is stronger in still summer weather than in breezy winter weather). There are bubbling pools of hot mud in various places - and the undisputed highlight, geysers which periodically shoot up torrents of boiling hot and steaming (98C) water many metres into the air. When in full flow it is rather like watching an upside-down waterfall, and with rough limestone rocks below the geysers the overall effect is disinctly unworldly, like you've stepped into some underworld or onto another planet. I strongly recommend seeing them or other major geysers (eg in Iceland or Yellowstone National Park, USA) if you get the chance as I found it a unique and memorable experience and so clearly did other visitors.

Welcome to Middle Earth... Or the geysers at Rotorua [picture pulled off Internet]

This natural endowment is also tapped by man. At my hostel in Rotorua I was initially fairly horrified that the front door into the lounge was propped wide open, allowing the chilly winter draft right in, while the heating was on high. I took an opportunity to gently point out to a member of staff how horrible this must be for the environment, who replied that all the heating was geothermal! Oops.

Rotorua also has the country's largest Maori population. The traditional Maori area of town Ohinemutu features some charming carved wooden Maori architcture, but the general impression was one of integration. A local guy Michael (brother of my work colleague Anna) I'd done lunch with in Wellington told me with some pride that there is much less of a legacy of injustice, tension and separateness for New Zealand's indigenous population compared to Australia's, and my limited observations seemed to bear that out. For example I was slightly surprised to find that the shoreline of Ohinemutu has a church which is unmistakeably Anglican, but with Maori art on the walls and Maori inscriptions on the stained glass windows - it seems that many Maoris, at least in Rotorua, converted to Christianity in the 19th Century pretty readily. This church also has a huge clear glass pane looking out onto Lake Rotorua - plain except for a carving of Jesus, who thus appears to be walking on the lake behind. It was touching, even to this committed atheist.

Ohinemutu [picture pulled off internet]

While at the park containing the geysers, the full Maori name of which is Te Whakarewaretanga o te ope taua a wahiao (The uprising of the warriors of Wahiao), I was also able to take in a traditional Maori concert. This involving a scantily clad troupe (I don't think they're particularly supposed to look sexy, but, erm, they kind of do) dancing and playing various traditional musical instruments, and sometimes sticking their tongues out while wide-eyed, which is one of their traditional ways of expressing hostility to outsiders. They gave us a run-through of the haka, the war dance made famous of course by the New Zealand rugby team, then pulled all the guys out of the audience to practise it ourselves! It was too rushed to really get the hang of it but I'm sure I must have looked all manly and terrifying to any would-be invaders, honest. ;-) Another one-off experience anyway and pretty good fun too.

Also at Te Whaka (as it's unsurprisingly shortened to) is an indoor sanctuary for Kiwi birds, the national emblem of New Zealand but sadly critically endangered; they had few predators until European colonisation in the mid-19th Century brought in new threats such as dogs, ever since when their numbers have been in catastrophic decline. They are flightless with curiously long feathers and exceptionally long bills - they're really quite endearing in a funny sort of way. They pair off for life, and females lay eggs which are quite exceptionally large for their size (getting all the women in my tour group wincing); they require an extended rest after laying one, meaning that it's up to the male to raise offspring. However, the females are so territorial that the father has to literally force the offspring off their patch, never to return, before the mother recuperates and gets back on her feet - at which point she would kill it as an invader. A good reminder that it takes all sorts to make the kingdom of nature!

I think I can now, with a little concentration, reliably distinguish an Australian accent from a New Zealand one. The Kiwi accent is just a little amusing at times to this Englishman - it is like somebody has taken a vowel pronunciation chart and totally jumbled it up. Their way of saying "fush and chups" is quite well known, but I also thought a local guy I met named Matt had said his name was Met, and that another was asking me if I had a pin (pen) to write with. This is surely also the only country qualified for the football World Cup which, a few days before it started, was still leading its sports bulletins instead with the build-up to a routine rugby international (against Ireland).

From the New Zealand winter it was on, with a certain amount of gratitude, to summer in California..

Melbourne

For a city of 3.8 million people - only a fraction smaller than Sydney - Melbourne seems quite an understated sort of place. (How often is that true of second cities?) It hasn't got anything quite as stand-out iconic as Sydney Harbour, and Lonely Planet advises that you should be prepared to take some time to appreciate the city's charms. However despite that and the sometimes chilly winter weather, I really warmed to it very quickly.


The definite focal point of the city, self-styled as the city's meeting place, is Federation
Square. Decidedly modern in design and construction, flanked by some fairly way-out but tasteful and very attractive architecture, it always seems to be buzzing. With the beautiful Edwardian Flinders Street station across the road, it's all rather lovely and makes the city a whole lot more human and legible. 

 

Federation Square

The whole city centre benefits hugely from wide streets and buildings large enough to give a big-city feel but not so big as to feel inhuman. This seemed to make appreciating the showpiece colonial era buildings somehow easier than I found it in Sydney. The standout is the large and rather majestic State Parliament of Victoria, built as Australia's federal parliament but downgraded once Canberra had been established as the federal capital.


They say that Melbourne feels much more European than Sydney, and a couple of times wandering around I felt as if I could be in Scandinavia. The city centre bars I went to, courtesy of my Finnish friend turned Melbourne student Kaarina, felt much more like Berlin - one with wooden packing crates for seats and street art-style decor.


The South Bank of the river is rather unusual in being both the city's main cultural hub with several galleries, but also a very businessy area full of suits and skyscrapers. It probably bears some comparison with London's Canary Wharf, and with its modern, sculptured feel it's similarly lovely to stroll around.

 

The river and the South Bank

Like in Sydney, I was really struck by buzzing arty districts such as Carlton and Fitzroy just a shortish walk from the city centre, stuffed full of lovely independent cafes, restaurants, ice cream shops and so on. Melbourne has a real cafe culture without doubt. Thanks to a local friend of Rob's I was introduced to a nice bar/restaurant on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy called Bimbo's Deluxe, that does happy-hour pizzas for just $4 - and memorable dessert pizzas for the same price topped with cream cheese instead of mozzarella, and your choice of fruit or chocolate topping. A great idea that I'm surprised hasn't caught on more widely!


The beach district of St Kilda, a tram ride away from the centre, is nearly as attractive, with a characterful pier (complete with a protected colony of small penguins) and a truly beautiful beachfront. There weren't many people around the beach on a winter midweek afternoon, but I've no doubt that on a summer weekend it would be fantastic, probably in a more understated (and comfor able?) way than Bondi in Sydney. St Kilda also has a particular concentration of mouthwatering cake shops. While many countries seem to do delicious cakes and pastries much better than the UK (another failure of our national cuisine?), in Australia they seem to be everywhere and particularly impressive.


I made a pilgrimage to the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). With its capacity of 100,000, it's the second largest cricket ground in the world (the largest is in Kolkata) and well up there amongst the largest sports grounds in the world - used as the main arena for the 1956 Olympic Games and 2006 Commonwealth Games. It's also used through each winter for Australian rules football. I've always been somewhat in awe of it when following the England cricket team's tours of Australia (I follow cricket when I can now, but for many years in my younger days it was much more of a passion), and it was the scene of probably the most miraculous England Test victory in my living memory in December 1998, so it was a real boyish thrill for me to be there. I lapped up the excellent and comprehensive tour of the ground given by a Melbourne Cricket Club volunteer (wearing the stripey club blazer only marginally less ridiculous than the Marylebone Cricket Club one), taking in the changing rooms, honours boards, players' walkway, commentary boxes, Long Room and so on.

Me at the Melbourne Cricket Ground... it's quite big!!

From the very top of the stadium there were pretty good views of the city, and an opportunity to marvel at extraordinarily good urban planning. I'd walked to the ground as it's a very comfortable walk from the city centre (try walking to Wembley Stadium, or the 2012 Olympic Park, from central London!), but there's also a railway station in close proximity which is apparently able to deal with the surging numbers. And just a stone's throw away from the MCG and the station are also the city's rugby/football ground, swimming centre and Rod Laver Arena (home to the Australian Open, one of the world's four major tennis tournaments). Incredibly elegant and practical, and a massive statement about the huge importance of sport in Australian life.


Within the MCG is the National Museum of Sport, with (amongst other displays, but of most interest to me) excellent coverage of the Olympics and of the Australian cricket team. As well as caps and other clothing/equipment of various great cricketers including Donald Bradman, the annoyingly large number of cricketing trophies held by Australia were all on display, including no fewer than four World Cups (that's four more than England have won). I did have a quiet self-satisfied chuckle at the way the trophies were arranged to not acknowledge one considerable gap - the Ashes trophies, which are no doubt safely in England after we won them back from Australia in the last series in 2009. :-)


I'd also thoroughly recommend a visit to the absorbing ACMI, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. Australia didn't have television until 1956 (that's 20 years later than the UK) - apparently this wasn't so much due to any technological or funding barriers as to politicians stalling out of fear for the effects TV would have on family life and children's development. Well, maybe they had a point...


I was asked several times whether I preferred Melbourne or Sydney. While still in Melbourne I was answering Melbourne; now that I've left and got overall thoughts together, I wouldn't be able to choose between the two. Sydney is definitely more exciting, but Melbourne has easily the more livable feel.


My feeling, both at the time and since I moved on, that I could really live in either Sydney or Melbourne was strong. With minimal cultural barriers and the very favourable climate, it might be realistic (rather than an impractical dream as it is with a certain other city everyone knows I'm very drawn to) - were it not for the fact that you can't get a visa to work in Australia for more than 12 months, unless there is no suitable Australian candidate for your position. With my education and work background, the chances of that are pretty much zero. And even on a 12-month visa the Australian Government expects you to move between short-term positions - likely therefore to be low-wage monkey jobs, which makes it a much less attractive proposition for me. As I aspire (rather vaguely) to go back to university to study for a Masters at some point, possibly doing so overseas would be an option, but a very expensive one alas. Anyway, maybe some research and thought is needed on my part; but I will definitely go back to Australia one way or another (for more than the 12 nights of this visit) sooner rather than later.

Sydney

Getting to Australia inevitably felt almost like a homecoming after two and a half months on the road mostly in Asia. Obviously English is pretty much the only language you see and hear, and if you live in London you're already very familiar with the accents and relaxed, generally friendly manner of Australians - one reason why I was particularly looking forward to my visit. Almost immediately you're handling coins with the Queen's head on them - this felt like such a slice of home that I forgot for a good 10 seconds or so that I'm an ardent republican! :-)


It feels to me like there is generally a relaxed understanding and connection between Australians and Brits - our cultures and world views don't exactly seem so different. If that sounds like a historical no-brainer, I figure I'm not entirely sure how much I'm going to get the same feeling in North America, but we'll see.


I was fortunate that my good friends from London Rob and Dushyan had decided fairly last minute to holiday in Sydney and then Melbourne with dates that almost exactly overlapped with mine. It's been fantastic to be able to see and hang out with friends from home again, if slightly odd too having been mentally prepared since March for not seeing anyone from home until Stockholm Pride at the end of July! It had felt as if an age had passed since I last saw them when in fact it was only a little over two months - time definitely passes a lot more slowly when you're away from the daily treadmill and experiencing something different every day.


The weather I experienced in Sydney was poor, with lots of rain and cloud, and one day which was so unrelentingly sodden it would have been atrocious by English standards. Even though late May is late autumn if not winter in the southern hemisphere, all the locals I spoke to suggested this was pretty exceptional and hot on the heels of a long spell of fine weather. If I'd had a dollar for every Australian who joked about the rain making me feel right at home, I'd be quite a bit less poor! Fortunately I was able to pass the wettest afternoon at the excellent Museum of Sydney which, with Sydney having been the first European settlement in what became Australia, really does give an insight into the excitements and many problems (and, sadly, crimes against the indigenous population) associated with nation-building in this (then) remote corner of the world.


The one day that the sun did come out, it was bordering on warm... and I got a touch sunburnt. It hadn't remotely occurred to this naive English boy that you can get sunburnt in the Australian equivalent of late November! Someone mentioned to me afterwards that it is partly due to the ozone layer being much thinner in this part of the world.


Where else could you start sightseeing in Sydney but at Sydney Harbour? The extraordinary Sydney Opera House is, like the Taj Mahal, one of those world-famous sights which really is as good as the hype. It's just so unique, and stunningly and perhaps strangely graceful. It's well worth taking a lingering walk right round, since it felt like it reveals something new from every angle.

The iconic Sydney Harbour Bridge is I believe (without having compared diagrams) of somewhat similar design to the Tyne Bridge which links Newcastle to Gateshead in England, but obviously beats it hands down for both size and setting. Its sheer scale becomes more impressive the more you see of it and learn about it. An essential activity is to climb the 'Pylon', one of the four mostly ornamental towers at each corner of the bridge - the view all around the Harbour and beyond is truly breathtaking and a major highlight of my entire trip. Also told there is the story of the bridge's construction, which took seven whole years after planning was complete. None of today's safety essentials such as helmets or tethers was available to the construction workers, and several died on site as a result.

There's a very pleasant atmosphere all around the Harbour too, which is quite a cultural as well as a transport hub. The free Museum of Contemporary Arts (MCA) there is excellent, but probably longer in the memory will live the unusual range of buskers around the waterfront, which included an Aboriginal man playing a dhidgerydoo over a hard house backing track, and a guy in a tuxedo dancing the samba with an inflatable dummy for a partner...


The other legendary area of Sydney is of course Bondi, and even with the ropey winter weather it was well worth spending half a day there. I feel that the reputation of the sandy beach area itself probably owes more to the undeniable atmosphere (even on a winter's day; in summer an average 35,000 flock daily) than to any particularly incredible natural beauty. However, wander just a little away from the sand and you do get a pretty breathtaking glimpse into the power of nature, with large waves off the Pacific Ocean fairly crashing into large rock formations. Even on this winter's day there were several dozen surfers out in the water and as I've never seen any before, it was fun to watch them enjoying the waves. A water baby I am not but it's not hard to see the appeal! Apparently the strength of the waves keeps the lifeguards busy rescuing swimmers on a daily basis however.

It's hard to capture much of the awesomeness of the waves around Bondi Beach in a still photo, but hopefully you get some sense...

Sydney city centre lacks a real focal point, say an iconic public square. It does have Hyde Park right in the centre of things, a fraction of the size of its London namesake but beautifully maintained and somehow very lovely indeed to wander around. Other than that though, although there are moderately impressive colonial buildings and statues dotted around the city centre, I generally found it a little on the impersonal and non-descript side. At nighttime in winter it is definitely helped by the projection of interesting light images onto some of the landmark buildings - definitely something that should be copied more widely in other cities.


But if the city centre is at times underwhelming, this is definitely compensated for by other reasonably central areas. Both Potts Point (where I initially stayed in a hostel) and, even more so Newtown (where my lovely Couchsurfing hosts Ghassan and Theo live), are really lovely, with a great atmosphere and charming independent cafes, bakeries and galleries. Newtown seemed to be a real leftie, arty, bohemian enclave with a sense of local community - I was genuinely amazed since the feeling of that I got was probably stronger than anywhere I know in London, and it was a real insight to be shown round the area by a savvy local. I talked to Ghassan about rental prices and it seems that very decent flats in Newtown are far more affordable than I'd expect for a similarly nice area in London.


Not entirely by accident (although it had only involved tweaking my first-draft itinerary plans by something like one day), my stay in Sydney coincided with the Eurovision Song Contest, all three shows of which are broadcast annually in full in primetime (thanks to time delays) on the country's multi-cultural network SBS.


Thanks to the lovely British ex-pat and keen Eurovision and schlager fan Louisa (miss you!), I had an invite to house parties for both semi-finals. I think Louisa had pretty much arm-twisted an American (!) friend Joe who just happens to have a spacious central flat that he wanted to allow an assortment of randoms (including a Swedish girl, and a genuine Aussie who's previously flown all the way to Europe to be at Eurovision) into his flat for this thing called Eurovision. He was a fantastically generous host, despite a conversation along the lines of:
Joe: "So will they sing different songs in the final?"
Me and Louisa: "No, the same songs."
Joe: "Oh. That's a bit boring."
Me and Louisa: "It's a SONG contest!!"
Joe: "It should be a band contest..."
I did try my best not to scowl for the next half hour, honestly I did...


Much fun was had with impromptu schlager parties afterwards (the second one a wake to help get over the debacle of the heartbreakingly dull and weakly performed Swedish entry failing to qualify for the final)... Slightly too much fun too late into the night, as the police turned up at about 1am regarding noise nuisance, and neighbours egged the balcony. I think it was Louisa's rousing solo performance of "Molitva" that had done it...


For the final we headed to Oxford Art Factory on Oxford Street, a cavernous basement venue showing Eurovision on big screens. The time delay in broadcast had become a problem, since earlier that day when I was introduced to a visiting member of Theo's family as a Eurovision fan, he said "Oh Germany won didn't they?" And in the middle of the Australian broadcast, one of the group of rather annoying Irish boys near us took great delight in telling me that the UK had come last. But nonetheless it was good fun, the venue was pretty busy with locals appearing to get quite into it... And the best song won (again) too. SBS's commentary by Australians had been bland and fairly clueless, and the venue closing almost immediately at the end of transmission was unexpected and unwelcome, but then how much can you really expect for Eurovision in Australia on Sunday night?


The slight downside of my one weekend in Sydney being taken up with Eurovision (and with the delayed broadcasts being on three consecutive nights whereas live in Europe you get days off in-between, it felt unusually hardcore) was that I didn't end up with the energy or proper opportunities for full exploration of Sydney's legendary gay scene. I did go to the famous Stonewall Hotel and a couple of other Oxford Street venues midweek, but really I'll have to reserve judgment until I go back to Sydney, whenever that might be. You can't do everything, everywhere, every time. I did skim in a bookshop parts of an Australian book lamenting the supposed shrinkage of Sydney's gay scene in recent years, allegedly due to integration with the mainstream and the 'Gaydar effect' (i.e. gay people now using the Internet to hook up instead of going out), or even gay people leaving Sydney for elsewhere. However just walking around the streets (and chatting with great locals) there was no doubt it's still a very gay city.


As I've mentioned Australian currency, a vaguely interesting point is that banknotes appear to be largely made of a very thin lightweight plastic rather than paper. Once you get used to this, it's really quite welcome, since they appear much more durable than British banknotes. I imagine there'd be a huge uproar if the Bank of England tried introducing the same, but surely everyone dislikes grubby English fivers? The banknotes make up for the extraordinarily large Australian coins - I'm sure they're larger than British 50p, 10p and 5p coins were before they were made smaller in my youth, even though tne Aussie versions are worth barely half as much. Added to that that the $2 coin is very similar to the $1 coin but smaller...


I was a bit surprised by Sydney's public transport, which seemed generally quite poor. The reach of the equivalent of the metro seems really quite limited, the trains are pretty dirty and a little dingy, and they're surprisingly infrequent, as in my limited experience were the buses too. There also doesn't seem to be any equivalent of the touch-card system that most cities I've been to seem to have adopted. This may well not be typical of the rest of Australia however, as Ghassan mentioned that the state government of New South Wales has been feeble for many years.


Gripes aside though, I had a fantastic week in Sydney, no doubt about it. There's no doubt that at a different time of year with warmth, no rain and light evenings, it would be even better. Do I want to go back sometime sooner rather than later? You bet I do.

Random memories from Asia...

Some more random small memories from travelling in Asia which I probably didn't mention first time around...

• The 50-something American guy in Amman talking proudly about how much his diet has improved since his heart attack - talking while chuffing away on a cigarette at least every 10 minutes
• Asking at reception how much the Amman hostel charged for wi-fi access, hearing the American guy behind me complain that he'd been charged twice as much, and the Jordanian receptionist shoot straight back that because he was American he must be able to afford it!
• My Couchsurfing hosts in Tel Aviv being amazed that Queer As Folk wasn't originally American
• Locals in Petra shouting offers of "air conditioned taxis"... meaning camel rides
• The barber in Chiang Mai who after cutting my hair (in a domestic garage) insisted that I take a swig of mouthwash
• Being beckoned over then groped by a 'woman' on the street at night in Kuala Lumpur who I realised only too late was a ladyboy and a prostitute

Health and safety greatest hits:

• A minibus driver in Jordan smoking a cigarette while operating a petrol pump on the forecourt
• Pedestrians in India ducking under the level crossing gates which had just come down
• A family of six, including one small child, riding on one ordinary-looking motorbike in India

The delights of budget backpacking:

• The little old lady on the hostel reception in Hong Kong who spoke virtually no English but seemed to think if she talked long and loudly enough in Cantonese I'd understand... And finally generating enough understanding with her by pointing
• The hostel in Chiang Mai with signs in toilets instructing you not to flush toilet paper down the bowl because the pipes are too narrow, but to put it in bins instead - bins which were tiny and usually overflowing. You imagine the rest...
• The hostel in baking, steaming Singapore which told me flatly they won't switch on air conditioning in dorms before 10pm, and that if I wanted it during the day I'd have to pay for a single room
• ...and then that if I left my big rucksack at the hostel on the morning of my departure without being there at exactly 10am to tell them, they might throw it away
• The hostel in Tokyo that charges for use of the showers

...All the sorts of things which make the trip! :-)

Geishas, art and bum-warming in Japan

Since I got to Australia (yes, I'm a little bit behind with this blog), pretty much everyone I've talked to about my travels has widened their eyes and gone something like, "Ooh, Japan, what's Japan like??" I've found it pretty difficult to give what I'd imagine to be an intelligent answer to be honest. I think as a Westerner you could probably spend months there and still only form a pretty patchy impression of what Japan is like; I only had one week there which was barely time to scratch the surface - not that it wasn't a hugely enjoyable week!

I went to two very different Japanese cities, Tokyo and Kyoto. Tokyo was bombed pretty much flat during World War II, so it's an overwhelmingly modern city. Kyoto however was spared the bombs, and having also been the capital of Japan for centuries before Tokyo took over, has dozens of traditional temples, making it a major tourist draw.

I think I had been nervous that Tokyo in particular might be a difficult place to travel, what with the notorious lack of command of English of most Japanese people and the obvious differences to Western culture. However in reality it really wasn't very difficult at all and I felt very comfortable very quickly. Things are logical and efficient, enough signage is usually provided in English, and, charmingly, those people who do speak English will often ask you if you need help if they see you looking lost or confused.

Tokyo is huge, with a population of around 12 million. There is a comprehensive metro system, albeit that the scale of the city means it takes considerable time to get around on it. Getting in from Narita Airport or back is pretty time-consuming also. The city doesn't have one centre or focal point, which probably explains why nowhere felt overwhelming or oppressive, but pretty much everywhere felt lively. Possibly the nearest to a focal point is Shibuya with its famous Shibuya Crossing across the major crossroads there, apparently the busiest pedestrian crossing point in the world. Japan is a place where rules are obeyed, so a mass standstill becomes a sudden huge surge of humanity every time the lights turn green.

Shibuya Crossing

A good place to start sightseeing is Tokyo National Museum, in the rather lovely (albeit relatively Western-feeling) Ueno Park. It showcases Japanese art forms such as sculpture, pottery and costume down the ages, and much of it is truly beautiful. The Japanese aesthetic is charmingly delicate and probably often a little feminine (for want of a better word) by Western standards, but in no way lacking in ambition or impact. Photography was mostly allowed so there are some photos in my Facebook album.

I found my dabbles into the contemporary art scene particularly impressive too. Mori Art Museum is widely recognised as world class, and the installations there varied from beautiful to energetically zany and hilarious (if you didn't know that a car and assorted household objects including a food blender, Coke bottles and stuffed pandas could be "remixed", you do now!) to political. At the same site in Roppongi Hills is a viewing tower offering magnificent views over the city in all its vastness, but giving an impression of order and substantial green space. The Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography was almost equally stimulating, and I'll now be keeping a keen eye out for any future exhibitions by the excellent Japanese-born but Austrian-based photographer Seiichi Furuya.

At Shibuya is the charming Hachiko statue, of a small dog owned by a professor in the 1920s. Every afternoon the dog would wait at Shibuya station for its master's return from work. Sadly the professor died in 1925, but the poor dog continued to faithfully wait at the station every afternoon, until its own death 11 years later!

Hachiko statue

As a city heavily rebuilt after the war, architectural interest in Tokyo (as in Berlin) seems often very limited. However, one place that is well worth a good walk around is Tokyo Bay, the docklands area where there is (relatively speaking) plenty of space, a modern light rail system and plenty of hyper-modern glass-and-steel architecture - yes, not completely unlike London's Docklands, or the equivalent area in Amsterdam whose name escapes me. However I was disappointed with the National Museum of Emerging Science & Innovation there which I didn't find very accessible - very possibly I'm not science-minded enough by Japanese standards.


The Tokyo gay scene was an interesting experience. Tightly concentrated in one triangle in Shinjuku, it is apparently quite large but varies in its accessibility and openness to foreigners. A typical Japanese bar of any colour is, as I understand it, very small and you won't necessarily find that any locals will talk to you nor that they (or even the barstaff) have the English to be able to. (On those grounds, based on the very limited info turned up by Google, I decided not to bother venturing anywhere gay in Kyoto.) However in Tokyo the reasonably large bar Dragon Men is known for being foreigner-friendly, as is the darker and more claustrophobic club called Arty Farty (!). The latter plays predominantly Western pop music and got unpleasantly overcrowded on the Saturday night I was there. Frankly, my impression was that Japanese gay boys have an attitude; dressed and groomed to the nines with a bit of a swagger, they will strike up friendly but flirty conversation with you in an instant, but then disappear without a word in a flash, never to return. Now I'll never bitch about Swedish boys again! (Well OK, I probably will...) In fairness, take that assessment with a huge dose of salt as doubtless you could get a negative impression from a solitary night on the London scene too, depending on which establishments you happen to pick. :-) And later in the night I did meet a 20-year-old Japanese virgin who was endearingly free of any attitude (or worldliness!) whatsoever.

I took the shikansen, aka bullet train, over to Kyoto; this is quite an experience in itself. Not only does it attain speeds of up to 310 km/h, but it's pretty much always exactly on time, there are up to 11 services per hour, you can rock up to the station and make a seat reservation for the very next train, and it's beautifully comfortable. It really does feel like the future. One trick that I missed in itinerary planning is that for barely more than the (admittedly very high) cost of going from Tokyo to Kyoto and back, you can obtain a week-long rail pass for the entire country - so it would have been more cost-effective to stay maybe 11 nights in Japan instead of 7 and to have added a couple more stops before heading back to Tokyo.

Kyoto's railway station is a huge, comtemporary and rather impressive construction, and it does still possess a large, buzzing commercial heart occasionally indistinguishable from Tokyo. However, Kyoto really is all about the temples, and once you get out of the centre it can feel more like a small town. Japanese temples are probably most remarkable and distinctive for their rooves, constructed out of wood, and often painted in two-tone colours that emphasise the intricate geometric carvings. The biggest roof I saw had no fewer than four separate tiers to it - quite remarkable.

How many tiers on that roof?

There are literally dozens of temples in Kyoto; a handful of them attract busloads of tourists (actually more of them Japanese than foreign), which make the surrounding areas shop-filled melees. Ginkaku-ji is one of the several which has World Heritage status, and was remarkable for the sculptures in the gardens made from what looked like sand but was actually many thousands of small pebbles - but to be honest such were the crowds that any wider appreciation (aesthetic, let alone spiritual) seemed pretty well impossible.

 

Really, this is made from thousands of small pebbles

I found that the real pleasure was getting off the beaten track, which with so many temples to choose from is not difficult at all. My pick was Eikan-do, the headquarters of a sect based around a peculiar legend of the temple's Buddha statue coming to life, walking and talking. There was a real sense of space and calm there, and particularly beautiful gardens and lake.  Also thoroughly worthwhile was taking a short hike into the dense hilly forest to the east of the city, where there's a lovely small shrine in front of a modest waterfall.

I also managed to take in a couple of genuine Japanese major cultural experiences while in Kyoto. Firstly, I went to an onsen, a Japanese thermal bath - there are hundreds of them nationwide. They're generally inexpensive; you don't have to take anything other than your birthday suit, and make sure you enter before getting into your first tub (not doing this is very poor form). The tubs vary from pleasantly warm to (to me) uncomfortably hot. One of them appeared to have some kind of weak electrical or electromagnetic charge, which had me getting out pretty rapidly! Upstairs was a sauna (considerately fitted with a TV) with a tub of ice-cold water outside. Truly when I finished my session I felt absolutely fantastic, at least as good as after a particularly good gym session.

The second experience was seeing a geisha dance. Apparently Japan's famous geishas normally only give private performances which are prohibitively expensive and in any case largely inaccessible to Westerners. However in Kyoto a few times a year they also put on seasons of public performances in theatres, and I was lucky with my timing. The performance featured dialogue and some sort of plot (it seemed to involve a male samurai kidnapping one geisha), so a working knowledge of Japanese would have helped. However I was able to appreciate the supreme elegance of the geishas' costume, make-up and dancing, as well as the intriguing (and decidedly non-Western) music from the live orchestra. After a relatively sedate second half, there were loud gasps from the largely Western audience when a curtain rose to reveal the finale of the whole 18-strong company dressed in their brightest, most elaborate costumes complete with fans. It was a captivating show and I feel very fortunate to have experienced it.

One of the things Japan is probably most associated with by foreigners is cutting-edge technology. Well, the Sony Building in central Tokyo is considered attraction in its own right even though it's basically just a Sony showroom, featuring 3D HDTV (rather dubious I thought), the dinkiest laptops I've ever seen, incredibly high-end cameras and strange 'life planning' software. Vending machines are on virtually every street, selling wide ranges of bottled and canned drinks and cigarettes. Also, many fast-food restaurants (a misleading description as they often sell proper, nutritious food, just quickly) require you to insert money into a vending machine, press the button labelled with the dish you want, take a ticket and go to the counter only to hand over your ticket. Another 'application' (misapplication?) of technology is the common provision at the side of toilet bowls of electronic buttons: one to warm the toilet seat, and a second to activate a spray of water to wash your rear end (and on unisex models, a third button to spray water into female parts). Talk about solving problems that the rest of the world never thought existed...!

Japanese Internet cafes are a remarkable experience also. There are not all that many of them - Japan is not exactly a society where most people don't own their own technology. Those that do exist do much of their trade overnight; as far as I can tell there is no night-time public transport at all even in Tokyo, so if you go out and stay out even moderately late, can't walk home and don't want to take an astronomically priced taxi, you need somewhere to spend the rest of the night. Each user gets their own private cubicle, and you can choose a 'flat' leather seat that you can stretch out and sleep on. There is a huge library of 'manga' (Japanese comic) DVDs, a PlayStation as well as a PC in each cubicle, and unlimited free hot and cold drinks - and ice cream! It's all expensive, but very pleasant.

Unfortunately smoking is still permitted in Japanese bars, cafes, restaurants etc... but it is banned in parks and on the street! The logical consistency of that escapes me somewhat...

It's just a shame that Japan is such a closed, mono-ethnic society. Just about the only non-Japanese people I saw working anywhere were African men working as touts (aggressive and slightly intimidating ones) for individual venues on the city's busiest nightlife strip in Roppongi - an activity that city council signs in the vicinity made clear is illegal. Several times on metro trains I noticed that local people would rather stand than sit in an empty seat next to me; as I have continued to wash while travelling, I can only assume that this was because I was a foreigner. A fellow traveller I've since compared notes with had exactly the same experience in Korea.

However, an overarching impression of Japan was of a respectful, polite society. A middle-aged Indian immigrant to London visiting Kyoto got talking to me at a temple there. He was obviously depressed by his perceptions of anti-social and disrespectful behaviour in London, but expressed jealous wonderment that (a) groups of Japanese schoolchildren visiting temples on school trips were conspicuously quiet and orderly, not rowdy and misbehaved as you might expect, and (b) vending machines can be widely provided on ordinary streets without getting vandalised or stolen from. Fair points both.

Japan is an expensive destination - even if you sleep on a thin mattress on the floor in a run-down 'hotel room' all of about 6'6" by 5', as I did in Tokyo. However, I'm very grateful to the friends who persuaded me that I couldn't possibly miss Japan out of a round-the-world trip, as it was worth every penny, and I'll be looking to go again for a longer trip when time and money allow.

Singapore - more than just a stopover

I only booked three nights in Singapore, mostly because everyone I know who's been there seemed to take the view that it's basically only somewhere you should stop over for a short period, three nights maximum. However, I have to ask those people - why??? I really really liked it, didn't want to leave at all, and could easily have spent at least a week there as there was easily that much to see.

Singapore is a reluctant country; it desperately wanted to be a state within Malaysia when the latter gained its independence in 1963. This initially happened, but Malaysia then threw Singapore out a mere two years later due to racial tensions perceived to threaten Malaysia's stability (Malaysia is majority Malay, but Singapore is three-quarters Chinese). This left Singapore's Prime Minister publicly sobbing. According to Wikipedia it's the only country in modern history to have become independent against its own will. 

Singapore has prospered to a remarkable extent, becoming rich by global standards, easily the richest in the region. The narrative told by the National Museum of Singapore is that this has come about through unglamorous hard work. There seems to be a relative lack of ostentatiousness about the city - Singapore is definitely not Hong Kong. It doesn't have the stunning natural backdrop of Hong Kong either, albeit it does have a patch of untouched primary rainforest. As I understand it much of the wealth has come through industry and technology rather than finance, and the Central Business District is small (albeit surprisingly pleasant and atmospheric).

What it is rightly well known for is being remarkably clean and well organised. Roads are organised on a grid system, with plenty of space everywhere, and the public transport is seriously impressive - I imagine it is a bit of an urban planner's dream city. But if that sounds uninspiring, it really is better than that. There is plenty of British colonial architecture still intact (again, unlike in Hong Kong), such as the world-famous Raffles Hotel and the more outwardly impressive Fullerton Hotel. The city centre has a very pleasant and impressive waterfront, as well as a river running through it, with many dozens of riverside spots to hang out in. I was impressed by the fusion of traditional and modern, there are also distinctly modern structures such as the Esplanade Theatres which look a little like giant metallic pineapples, and there is also notably a lot of modern (sometimes hyper-modern) street sculpture pleasantly dotted around the city centre.

Giant metallic pineapples... oh sorry, Esplanade Theatres

Orchard Road is the main shopping street and I can only describe it as bizarre. I've shown surprise at the number of huge shopping malls in several other Asian cities, but Singapore really takes the biscuit - Orchard Road is a whole street, probably a good two kilometres or more in length, that is just one huge mall after another. I didn't try to count them but it must have been somewhere around 15 or 20. Some of them make remarkable architectural statements too. A little soulless, almost certainly, but actually the overall effect was highly interesting and not quite as grotesque (or JG Ballard-esque) as you might imagine. And, you can literally step off Orchard Road onto Emerald Hill Road, an immediately quiet, tree-lined street with delightful bars and cafes giving way to gorgeous private Mediterranean-esque townhouses.

Emerald Hill Road

The National Museum of Singapore is a very good (and remarkably high-tech) museum with a welcome focus on social history. Don't bother with the disappointing Singapore Art Museum, but do head to the lovely Fort Canning Park, one of the loveliest and most peaceful city centre parks I've seen. The park contains a number of attractions, including the Battle Box - the military bunker used by the British Army during World War II, in which the humiliating British surrender of the island to the Japanese in 1942 is superbly re-enacted with the help of robotic waxworks (!).

By night, I had a lot of fun at the excellent gay club Taboo where the music was good (think Lady Gaga, Madonna and commercial house) and the atmosphere even better. I have to say that if you want to feel attractive as a Western gay man, going to gay joints in Asia seems to be an excellent way of doing it - simply because a lot of Asian guys seem to like white guys. Ahem. I'll be happy to discuss further over drinks when I'm back in London! Tantric, the gay bar nearly opposite, is also a decent venue although you probably need to be in the mood for the distinctly cruisy and posy feel. There are two or three other gay venues I could have explored with more time. Homosexuality is in theory illegal in Singapore as in Malaysia. However whereas in Malaysia they seem to still mean it, in Singapore I was led to believe that it's more that they haven't quite got round to changing the legislation yet but the authorities will turn a blind eye as long as you don't really rub it in people's faces. From what I saw, Singapore is definitely a pretty good destination for gay nightlife.

I really do hope to spend more time in Singapore at some point. Does it sometimes have a slightly sterile feel? Maybe. I should also warn that it seems to be far from well set up for backpackers and I spent too much money staying in a decidedly unimpressive place which Lonely Planet seemed to think was amongst the best available. But is Singapore an interesting, cultural, exceedingly comfortable place? Definitely, and with English as the primary language, I could even see myself living there without too much trouble.