Today in Singapore was a painful 94 degrees with 87% humidity! Had I known then while walking around, I would have surely stopped and gone back to the hotel :)
Today I had some Turkish Ice Cream. Not sure what's different about it, but it tasted good - just like regular ice cream. I also took a tour of the river on one of the tour boats. Towards one endpoint of the tour I spotted a ceremony going on and I decided I would walk to it. After a very long sweaty walk, I arrived at what appeared to be a military graduation I guess. The military service is different here - everyone has to serve for some period of time and then be reserve so many days out of the year. Its an interesting system that works for the people - though it does disrupt their lives from time to time. Hopefully the Singapore military will never actually be needed as some of the friends I've made here would certainly be involved in defending the island.
As I was nearing the ceremony, I began to hear the sounds of a national anthem and the distinctive sound of multiple helicopters. Then lo and behold several gunships come over the skyline along with what appeared to be a CH-47 Chinook (US Marine build) along with several Apaches. The Stallion was holding the national flag. They passed over slowly as the people watched, and in the background I could hear the roar of jets, and British Tornado bombers streaked overhead.... followed in succession by an acrobatic wing of F-16s.
As I departed they were test firing artillery and showing the elite commandos dropping from helicopters into the water. All very interesting. One would never suspect that such a small country would warrant such sophisticated miltary forces, but I'm told that there are countries in the region which cause them some concern and are jealous of Singapore because of its wealth and prosperity - indeed it appears to be becoming the APAC headquarters of every company on the planet.
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