Anthropomorphic

Rare morning: we had breakfast with the orangutans at the Singapore Zoo. So yeah: there's a program called Breakfast With The Orangutans. We signed up for it. The tour bus came and picked us up and brought us, along with about 200 other non-Singaporeans, there. All were hungry.

The breakfast for the humans was delicious and plentiful: think cruise line or all-inclusive resort buffet. Then the orangutans--moms, babies, aunts, uncles--climb down a tree and sit at their table and eat their breakfast next to the humans, right there. No walls. Just about five feet of space. The orang-utan (which means "jungle man" in Malay; the first Malay tribesmen thought the apes were actually another tribe and thus named them the jungle men for their dexterity) table is kind of like the table for a wedding party in that it is sort of raised and away from the riff raff. The riff raff was cautioned not to do several things that would naturally occur to such raff in the given situation: do not try to pet the apes; do not climb up and try to eat with the apes; do not feed the apes human food because it will make them sick; do not give the apes a human baby to hold for a photo, etc etc etc. It dawned on me that people had tried all of these things and more at previous bwto's.

There was no question in my mind who was more elegant and graceful and dignified and calm during the breakfast. You should have seen the traffic jam at the hash brown samovar! And here's the strangest part: when the half-hour breakfast time with the beautiful and mythic creatures was over and they were allowed to climb back to their sanctuary and away from the savages, the crowd seemed to lose all interest, as if watching an orangutan eating breakfast from a distance of five feet was what one should expect to see at the zoo and that, say, watching an orangutan clan climb and swing gracefully and with otherworldly strength from the ropes and branches hundreds of feet up and just beyond the breakfast area was simply routine. Old hat. Boring. Non-breakfasty. Not interesting enough to take the trouble to crane one's neck towards.

I was disappointed in my species.

****

The zoo: if you ever come to Singapore, I'm taking you to the zoo. I'll spare you many of the details, but let's just say that I saw a 3-meter long (jade green) king cobra, a 7-meter long and 1/2 meter thick Burmese python, a sun bear, two white Bengal tigers, a 75-year-old giant tortoise (who stared me down while chomping grass loudly enough to hear each jaw contraction), the rare Douc monkey (which has eight colors) in a clan of at least 15, five Indian elephants, and those boring old breakfast orangutans.

****

Here's something that's really Singaporean: we bought furniture at Ikea yesterday for our new place. We cannot move into the condo until Thursday, August 2. So, at the end of the delivery arrangements at the Ikea delivery counter, the man asked when we could take the delivery. I said August 2. He said that that was four days after they could actually deliver it and that he would need to charge me a storage fee of S$20 (about US$18) per day. I said, "But I just bought this furniture from your warehouse right there" (pointing to my left at the giant Ikea aisles of furniture) and now you are going to charge me to hang onto it for a couple of days when it would have been right there anyways had I not bought it?" "Yes," came the reply. "That is the fee." His stare was even. I stared back.

Had it not taken us five hours to navigate buying and arranging the delivery of the Ikea furniture, I would have returned it all and then bought it again on Wednesday, August 1.

Singapore! Oy vay.

********

One of the first funny things that happened to us: we were eating in a restaurant on our first day here. The waiter, an elder gent, came to take our order. Since we had been sitting down for maybe 19 seconds, we said that we would need just a moment to look at the menu. He very kindly said, "No problem" and stood there staring at us. We got the hint and picked up the menus to decide on our orders under his watchful eye. I could see E and L giggling.

********

Callie has two more days left in quarantine. We have been visiting her each afternoon during the visiting hours at Sembawang Animal Quarantine Facility, from 2-4 p.m. (sharp). It's funny to see all the red-faced, sweating Westerners coming to visit their pets from 2-4 at the Sembawang Animal Quarantine Facility. We are of a kind, it would seem. No ID needed. We look the part. Westerner! Sweaty! Red!

********

Brag: took the 138 crosstown bus from the west side of Bukit Timah to Ang Mo Kio and used my NETS card after topping it up to jump on the 5 train towards Woodlands and got off at Khatib to walk to Sembawang Quarantine through Bottle Tree Park and the AVA facility.

Nine days ago, that would have made absolutely zero sense to me.

********

I could watch the tankers and trawlers--massive, leviathan vessels--off the east coast of the island at sundown forever.