My first purchase in Singapore........

......was an umbrella!

Yup, just like when we went to Bandung, as soon as the touristy part of the trip starts, so does the rain. I decided to start the day by going to Chinatown (to sort of make up for the fact that I was staying in Little Riyadh!), and everything was going OK until I got out of the Dim Sum restaurant after brunch (Ok, I got up a little late......). As soon as I started going around the stalls, here comes the rain! At first it was OK, a bit of drizzle like you'd get back home, tolerable like - even more so than at home 'cos it was warm rain. (Warm rain? Who knew such a thing existed?). After a few mins tho, downpour! I was reduced to scurrying around under the awnings outside the stalls trying to find an umbrella. You'd never guess how hard it was to find such a thing as an umbrella among stalls selling all sorts of crap, but it was! It took so long that at one stage I said "screw this" and sat down outside a food stall for a drink and to wait for the rain to stop (it didn't).

Eventually, I found the umbrella, and having exhausted the pleasures of chinatown, decided to wander a bit more. I ended up down on the riverside along Boat Quay (tourist central, full of restaurants-cum-bars, all with guys outside trying to get you inside), and wandered along until I got to the Merlion, the big statue at the rivermouth which was the symbol of Singapore, a lion with a fish's tail (how drunk do you have to get a lion before he'll have sex with a fish?). After a few obligatory pictures, I decided I was fairly done touristing for the day, so headed back to the mosque for some dry clothes and a rest.