Letter from Singapore, work not play.

I look out of my hotel window and see St Andrew's Cathedral, I feel at home. I suppose with it being surrounded by tall office blocks and behind the docks and many tankers is a little unusual but it like that here; a real mixture of cultures.

In side the exhibition we could be anywhere, Las Vegas, Amsterdam, Birmingham, all air conditioned it is only outside you can see and feel a difference. 30 degrees C and difference shaped grass.

With so many cultures present we having interesting discussions; for example with a Buddhist Monk who has the ‘answers’; or the people from the Christian radio station in Indonesia who also had the answer. People from FEBA were also present.
One person asked where were we from in the UK; he explained he only knew the UK by the football teams. I therefore said Aston Villa, he was a Manchester United supported so I shook his hand.
We tried to sample local life he by going to a Hawker stall for our evening food, a very interesting experience. Some of you will be pleased to know that some of the stalls were veggie only. We choose to get our food from the stall with the longest queue, always a wise move. We shared a round table with 2 ‘local’ students. He was doing business studies at the University of London, were we from London? No, it was the only place he knew in the UK. It was a remote learning course and did not expect to actually go to there. They were a very friendly couple and gave us some of their carrot cake. I should now explain that carrot cake here was not like ours, it looked like a quorn stew, it tasted ok and I think it was vegetarian. They recommended a local drink but we stuck with our Tiger beer.

On Sunday I am back in Singapore and hope to attend St Andrew for their Sunday Service in English. At present I am close to those other twin towers in KL!