A Much Better Week

Well, I'm happy to say that this week was much better than last week. First of all the HAZE that was increasing on a daily basis has, due to a change in wind direction, cleared up significantly. We still don't see a clear blue sky, but we can certainly see farther distances, sharper shadows, and colors, that last week were so greyed-out. Fires are still burning on Sumatra but the Indonesians seem to be putting them out, not starting new burns, and it has rained hard twice. Could that have been from 'cloud seeding'? Who knows. Hopefully if the wind turns back to blow this way again, it won't be as bad.

Another reason I've had a better week is that I got out of the house more (due to the better air) and I've met and hung out with two other very interesting women. Bill finally put me in touch with the wife of one of his Berkeley colleagues who is also on this Singapore project and she and I met on Monday and did a guided historical walking tour of British Colonial Singapore. We had a great guide and spent 3 lovely hours walking, visiting and learning about how the British in 1819 purchased the island, how it became an important trade center, how it was ruled, etc. Unfortunately (for me) Marianna returned home to the Bay Area just a couple of days later, so I went back on Tuesday to do a historical walking tour of Chinatown and learn about the arrival of the Chinese and their place in the Singapore story. Again we had a great guide and saw and learned many things but best of all I met and have been hanging out with another woman from the tour, an American who lives in Germany. We got along great and got together to explore while our husbands worked.

This is a view of Chinatown shophouses in the foreground and a public housing block in the background. Our tour guide said that the upper sky bridge on the 50th storey was open to the public so we just had to go check it out.  

This complex consists of 7 residential towers in an 'S' shape with a connecting bridge at the 26th and 50th floors.  There are 1,848 units. The public can access the top bridge for a slight fee by swiping a Metro card on the ground floor of one of the towers. 

At the top is a fabulous view as well as 5 or 6 different 'areas' to hang out in such as:

'THE BEACH'        

'THE CLIMBING CUBES'

There are lots of trees and greenery on these connectors as well as on the balconies. 

This complex went up in 2009. In Singapore, 85% of the people live in public housing, although this is definitely the most high-end of them all.