It's surreal being back in Singapore, and I don't think it's entirely the jet-lag haze I'm in. I was really enjoying myself back home, I don't think I was quite ready to return. It's easy living here, but I was relishing not being a foreigner for awhile and blending in everywhere we went. Luckily I've lots of goodies brought home from our trip to keep me company.
L. A. was fantastic, thanks again Kristina and Michael! The hike in Griffith Park was particularly wonderful, as Mark mentioned. L.A.'s such a funny place because you can go from ugly urban sprawl, to amazingly beautiful natural surroundings in the blink of an eye. Griffith Park is truly beautiful, and also cool because it's been the set for so many movies/tv shows that it seems vaguely familiar even if you've never been there before. Hiking to the peak we saw the Hollywood sign, the Griffith observatory (set of Rebel without a Cause among many other films), snow-capped mountain peaks in the distance, and the Pacific ocean. Amazing.
On the Singaporean front, I discovered today that we missed an entire story line from Love Actually due to censorship. Apparently one couple meets on the set of a porn flick? We didn't see that. Maybe I would have liked the uncut version better. I gotta say I resent the Hell out of the Singaporean government for censoring movies/tv shows. The way they do it seems completely random and inconsistent.
Speaking of stupid government decisions, note to the Mayor of Los Angeles: The way you've centralized all the security checkpoints in the airport is stupid and has created a nice centralized location for a terrorist to target. Also, kudos on preventing people from diving up to drop off and pick up travelers, as a result you've increased the human traffic in the airport three-fold, creating potentially more casualties. Seriously, I hope they are reconsidering this new airport arrangement. As is a terrorist could easily drive up in a taxi or in a rental car van, they've prevented nothing, just made things more inconvenient for most travelers. I've been through L.A. recently before this bullshit and it was much, much, much better, and I felt safer.
For those of you considering visiting us here, the Singapore airport is great. Probably the best airport I've been through.