"The Devil wears Prada."

This is how a public interest lawyer loses their soul. Send them to Singapore for a week.

Ok, it takes a little more than that. Send them to Singapore for a week of classes with other lawyers, listening to stories about how women are chosen at firms based solely on looks. Also have them travel around w/ british lawyers, who have about 2 cents worth of brains, and I would love to meet in a courtroom, but have already worked for Reed Smith and DLA Piper. That alone was really just enough to bash your head in.

But here, in Singapore you are surrounded by the concept of what perfection and professionals should be. Its like LA for Lawyers. To really make it you need your Gucci shoes, Prada Jacket, and Louie Vitton Bag. Its beyond intimidating to see everyone in their designer suits w/ perfect hair and make-up all the time. Big shot corporate lawyers driving around in their Ferraris... yes... Ferraris, and lots of them.

And then there's you... the one that can't really afford to shop in the big name stores, but just sits and whatches them walking by. And it was fine all week, until you get to the Singapore airport where they throw in every high end shop on the planet plus jewlary shops galore... and basically it comes down to greed. I think i'm going to take a corporate law class next year. Thank goodness the internet was free.

"I saw the sign, and it opened up my eyes, I saw the sign."-- "The Sign", Ace of Base

Signs in Singapore are a riot… The best one is the first one I saw, but I missed the opportunity to take a picture… it was a sign in the metro that talked about how old people should not use escalators… they should use elevators… there were even pictures of people holding on to the elderly while riding escalators… It was friggen hysterical But so are some of these other signs…

I guess I should explain about the durians…. Durians are a fruit… they are considered a delicacy here in SE Asia… However… the Smell of rotting meat… and from what I hear, tastes pretty fowl as well… In general, westerners just don’t like it. But the smell gets into everything… and lingers more or less permanently… so they are unwelcome in most indoor places.

"This is screaming, this is screaming photo-op!" -- "Time to Dance", Panic! At the Disco

One of the more peculiar things about Singapore is how fake it is… Now I mean this in the most admirable way. It’s a lot like an urban planning major’s project. Everything is just a little too well put together… and this culminates in a truly tourist resort, Sentosa Island. Going here is like going to Disney world without the rides. Unfortunately I did not get to take as much advantage of this place as I had wanted to, but we did go out here for some great burgers and drinks one night.

First, there are some great views of the city that I took while riding the monorail to the island… (yes, it really is so much like Disney land that it has a monorail… it also has a sky lift too, just like Bush Gardens).

This here is my law student crew, Yvanna, Rocky, Marie, Matt, and Arie.

We wandered along the picturesque Central Beach

But the scenery is ruined by the millions of cargo ships.

They had some crazy little night clubs set up all along the beach that were perfectly set up and designed… much like everything else here.

I think lit up palm trees are fun.

Yvanna eating ice cream.

Arie serving drinks.

All the cargo boats lit up at night.

A little later that night we moved on to Little India. This here is Andy’s friend Kevin who was working in Indonesia, but needed to make a visa run, so he met up with us on Sentosa… I have no idea what he was doing a this point… but it sure makes a funny picture.

Here we have Kevin and Arie trying to do the Asian squat… basically Asians sit like this all the time… I don’t understand how it doesn’t kill their knees… oh and Yvanna’s posing in the background.

"Its fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A"-- "The YMCA", Village People

Well since I have some extra time on my hands, I figured I might as well do an actual posting for the first time in a while, instead of just some randomness.I am currently in Singapore, staying at... the YMCA. Oh and unlike what the song says, this is not the place to stay if you are, "short on your dough." But its the nicest place I've been in over a month. It has A/C, no bed bugs, in fact no bugs of any kind, decent food, and the most exciting thing on the planet, a shower w/ a shower door. I've gotten all too acustomed to bathrooms where there's just a drain on the floor in the corner and the shower head usually pointing whereever you think you should put your towel and clothes.

Though being surrounded by motivational christian phrases/pictures, the constant christian rock music, and the mass gatherings everyother day is a little bit on the bizarre side... reminds me a bit of the few times i went to Young Life.

This here is the View from my room…

And this is the building next door… had trouble getting a great picture here…

Singapore is like a giant mall with roads running through it. Even the Supreme Court building has shops and "mall stuff" inside it... in fact even the hospital is set up like a mall and has a full chain-store drug store in it. Its kinda bizarre. And its more or less the same shops in each building... with just slightly different styles of stuff. And its all name brand shops... Gucci, Louie Vitton, etc. Lucky for my wallet very few things fit me as they are all made for little Asian women. Though I have been very tempted to go accessorizing, especially because its mid-year, meaning the great Singapore Sale is on. I don't really see whats so great about it, everything still seems pretty pricey.There are also tons of spa and massage places around. Especially reflexology places. I think that people here get things like that done the way they get hair cuts. Its just something you do once a month to keep happy and balanced or whatever.

I took advantage of the abundance of cheap fancy hairstylists, and yes, I got a really cute manicure.

It has tons of sky scrapers and lots of fun night clubs and bars that have crazy themes, like “the clinic” where they serve drinks from iv bags, or they show dirty jokes on tv screens.

And then there was this pretty cool street full of fans.

There’s also a lot of cool cultural centers… Little India was awesome, and definitely promotes me wanting to visit India, and there was also the muslim district with awesome architecture and surprisingly chill bars and places to hang out.

I've finished up my whole one week of class here, Comparative Legal Systems of South East Asia. Which for many of you out there would probably make you want to poke your eye out, but its really right up my ally... except that it repeated a lot of stuff that I learned in Comparative Governments of SE Asia, way back when I was Sophmore. The law kids are really great, and I get on w/ them really well, kinda sad we had a week together. But two of them will be in Cambodia w/ me which should be good. Its nice to be back around a bunch of Americans again... or maybe its nice to be back around people my own age.We got to check out the district attorneys office and the Supreme Court.

This here are a few of our boys looking sharp… Ari, Dave, Matt, and Rocky.

Unfortunately the past few days haven't been particularly great. I managed to get some sort of bacterial infection, and have basically been in bed since friday. So rather than heading out to Cambodia yesterday, I opted to stay in a place w/one of the best healthcare systems in the world, rather than go to one with one of the worst systems. So on Wed. I'll be heading out to Cambodia, and starting my internship on Thursday. Oh, and i'm doing better now; fever finally broke and I'm more or less eating solid food again... and lots of anti-biotics... Yay!

The running joke with my friends is my reaction to being ill… we were about to have lunch at the Supreme Court and I just decide that I need to leave… And for whatever reason I turn to Matt and go, “so hey, if you guys go out drinking tonight let me know”… This made my exit seem exceedingly shady… In my defense, I had figured that I just had a migraine and I would be fine in a few hours… few hours later, wasn’t really better, had started running a fever and things… but was definitely way out of it enough to claim I was feeling better… next day I ended up worse, headed to the clinic… had about a 104 degree fever… didn’t move for next few days.So hopefully next time I post, I will be in Cambodia, and it should be with pictures!Hope you all are well,Feel free to drop me some e-mails or comments or whatever, I'd love to hear from ya's!

"You should know you're his favorite worst nightmare." -- "D is for Dangerous", Arctic Monkeys

I’m not going to get into too much detail about why I was more or less at the end of my rope with the kids I was hanging out with, but lets just say, differences in personality were becoming obvious at this point. But it was the last night and I really wanted to go out, so we all got spruced up and headed out to the famous Raffles hotel, home of the original Singapore Sling. When we pulled up to the hotel there were tons of people going in dressed in full ball gowns and we were feeling particularly out of place… we had to wander around until we found the right bar… I think it was the long bar… it was covered in peanut shells and really had a colonial feel to it.

Here’s me posing with my own Singapore sling… man are they good, though wicked expensive

Then there’s the girls

And Matt and Holly

After we got back to the hotel, we played some drinking games, as usual, and then headed out to some local bars. Some locals found us incredibly amusing and took us around to bars after hours. Appropriately, there were once again lots of shenanigans, and an early morning trip to McDonalds… which very disappointingly was only serving breakfast, and not the desired cheeseburgers… And that was it…

I stayed in a smoke filled windowless room that night… it’s the night I was attacked by bed bugs… Don’t ever stay at the Royal Peacock of Singapore.

"In the eye of the tiger."-- "Eye of the Tiger", Survivor

Malacca is calm, laid back and beautiful… it’s a completely chill place, very clean, and reflects its colonial roots. It is a place that takes pride in its history… so much in fact it has about a bazillion museums. Malaysia was originally inhabited by the Portuguese… after 40 years, they had completely botched everything… so the English took over, like they do. The legacy of the Portuguese is that the Malaysians put an egg on everything… often a raw egg…

They also wanted all of the houses to be white… so they kept repainting them white… but the dirt and sea water and everything kept changing the white houses a reddish color… so, desiring conformity, they painted everything red…. This here area is Portuguese Square

In the middle of the square is a road sign w/ distances to various locations around the world

“Whats your favorite dish. I’m not going to make it for you but we can order it from ZANZIBARS”… yes that’s exactly what motivated me to take this photo

Here is A Famosa, which has a church on the top and I think was a fort… it wasn’t exciting… I did not climb this hill.

Now some of the individuals on the tour were really frustrated w/ our guide… and the grand breaking point was that he said there was no China Town in Malacca… Please see pictures above and make your own decision on that.

Please note the incredibly creepy eyed children on this decorative thing in the street.

OOOO… I don’t have pics of this… put feel a need to jot it down… there were big ass lizards in the rivers…. We aren’t talking gekos, we’re talking lizards in the family of the kimono dragon… they are mean looking things… and then there were things swimming in the river that were terrifying.

Cool old guy statute

Cool Malacca flag

This is the Cultural museum, Muzium Budaya, replica palace of Sultan Mansur Syah… it is entirely made of wood

Inside there were all sorts of cool wax figures… here they replicate people coming and meeting the Sultan

Malacca also represents a strong mix of religions… in this one area there is a beautiful Mosque and down the road a Chinese temple.

Inside the Chinese temple they were having a religious ceremony, and there was this cool dragon window.

Ok… this takes some explanation… these stone dogs have balls in their mouths… but there is a trick… the sculptors carve the ball in the mouth, so its impossible to take out… so it provides some entertainment to try and take it out even though it is impossible

Finally, to close out Malaysia, Malacca’s symbol is the tiger… and there were all sorts of tigers around as you can see from above.