A Portal into Singapore's Past

So, there we were, distracting ourselves with glowy lights,

And experimenting with strange unplumbed indoor bath basins now available from China. I prefer the tiny Pink Panther splashy bathing can.

When suddenly, Barry found a portal into the past!

And we found ourselves in 1970s Singapore!

It was toastier before air conditioning, but phones were easier.

This was near the New World's End amusement park cabaret, which was indeed ending.

From what we learnt, they had song, dance, fun, games, crime, prostitution, and a catastrophically collapsed hotel.

I mean, there's still crime here: some people can't control their bulky junk! (Light junk is ok in this alley, don't worry).

Also in this alley - flaming pots of hot charcoal at ankle height.

Anyway, since we were in the past, Barry made upside-down cake! Why is this no longer a thing?

I made my grandparents' buns recipe, which I thought would be troublesome in the tropics.

Here is an actual picture of previous attempts baking recipes calling for rising dough at "room temperature", which is ~10 degrees warmer here.

Of course, I used fresh well water. Maybe that helped. (This well is downtown, in an alley behind office towers.)

---

Camouflaged Colugos and Flying Potatoes!

We finally found Colugos!

When I say "we", this includes our guide, as we have not been able to find them ourselves, so joined a guided hike. Thanks for the pictures goes to our fellow hiker Bob, whose camera takes pictures at night.Colugos are also called flying lemurs, but they are neither lemurs nor flying, they just like to glide. You would too, if you were more webbed.

This is the Sunda flying lemur, female above and male below.

I'm entirely unclear why they look green, since that's not trendy with mammals. Before finding them, I thought they might be imaginary, like quokas or platypuses.

Still confused on your gliding mammals? Here's a handy guide: flying foxes are actually bats, and can fly. Everything else glides, like flying squirrels, flying phalangers, and some gliders in Australia, which has weird animals anyway.

Another animal we saw for the first time was a tarantula! Don't worry, it's a small kind, maybe the size of an oreo. Species unconfirmed, but we think this is the Singapore brown tarantula, native species!

Ok, calm down, here's a boring Asian toad.And we think this is a malesian frog.

Cute little bat.

And now back to day hiking, where we showed Berni and Luka around Bukit Brown.

We saw the avatar trees. No idea what this means, all I know is avatars are blue.

And speaking of flying, we found our first air potato, flying tubers!

---