I’m what I am, and what I am, Is back on Boogie Street.

Boogie Street, is actually Bugis Street and that street is in Singapore. For you younguns' the first sentence is from a line in Leonard Cohen's song. That is where I will be hanging around on Sunday.  I need to reintroduce myself to western culture, and know that a bowl, a couple of sticks and a spoon does not define a place setting.  I have to be sure my young grandchildren are not more aware of how to set the table than old Nana.

What I love about my adventures to Singapore is that I never decide where I will go, where I will stay, or what I will do.  The first task is to find the cheapest best hotel and then the trip builds from that.  I have stayed at many fine hotels in that city and it is not because I part with my ringgits easily. The deciding factor is the best deal on the website I belong to, and that sets the rest of the journey.  Going on a Sunday has made it a new pattern which has allowed a completely new set of prices to ponder. I got  the best rate ever because of that, so naturally, I had to take it.  I have some items I can only get in Singapore, and instead of hauling that sort of stuff back from North America, it can just get this done in preparation for my return in the new year.

Now, I have to admit my item burning a hole in my brain is a popcorn popper. I have decided I cannot spend another year here without popcorn. Especially when I go home and have that delightful aroma filling my nostrils on a regular basis and know that it will be over once I board a plane.  So, doing my detective work, I tracked down one that will work on the electrical system here. I don't think one would get the service I found here, back in N.A.  The department store not only responded to my request, but checked to be sure of stock, put one aside for me, and have alerted the staff to watch for my arrival.  Maybe instead of dinner I will just go back to the hotel and pop up a feast of dinner there. I will have to purchase the little kernels at Mustapha centre before I come back to the land of nothing familiar.

I have two speaking engagements in a hotel in JB right at the border on Monday and Tuesday. That is the reason I am going on Sunday. I have arranged a driver to pick me up at the Singapore hotel and deliver me to the JB hotel hours before I have to give my talks.  Very clever, very clever indeed.  My nice travel agent in KT has made that arrangement for me.  Now, tell me, have you ever had a travel agent that is willing to have your mail sent to them - because your own mail box gets raided on a regular basis?  Well, mine is doing just that for me. They are the same ones that found the SPCA version here and helped rescue the dog on the highway.  They are the BEST!

So, now to clean up the hovel and pack a few items for the workdays in JB, and then relax with Big Bang Theory gang for the night. I have to go into JB and find a restaurant to entertain my mentees for a year end party, get some laundry done, and fine-tune my ppt presentations for next week.  As for Boogie Street (Bugis), the lyrics go like this:

So come, my friends, be not afraid.

We are so lightly here.

It is in love that we are made;

In love we disappear.

Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh

Are posted on the door,

There’s no one who has told us yet

So come, my friends, be not afraid.

We are so lightly here.

It is in love that we are made;

In love we disappear.

Tho’ all the maps of blood and flesh

Are posted on the door,

There’s no one who has told us yet

What Boogie Street is for.What Boogie Street is for.

I feel very local when I go there. Singaporeans still gather then regularly. Tourists don't.  I love Arab Street and the Mustapha Centre - both are a short walk from this street made even more famous by Leonard Cohen. I am a lucky girl. I will be saturated with the culture there in a couple of days.

Cohen's explanation of the song is:  "Boogie Street to me was that street of work and desire, the ordinary life and also the place we live in most of the time that is relieved by the embrace of your children, or the kiss of your beloved, or the peak experience in which you yourself are dissolved, and there is no one to experience it so you feel the refreshment when you come back from those moments… So we all hope for those heavenly moments, which we get in those embraces and those sudden perceptions of beauty and sensations of pleasure, but we're immediately returned to Boogie Street."  

yes --  I will be returned to Boogie Street in a couple of days. 

gotta log off here - I have been disconnected 10 x already!