Our top bunks creaked in protest as we clambered down and left for breakfast in Burger King on Orchard Road. Orchard Road, often known colloquially as Orchard, is a major 2.5 kilometres–long (1.6 miles) road in the Central Area of Singapore. A famous tourist attraction, it is an upscale shopping area of Singapore, with numerous internationally renowned department stores, restaurants and coffeehouses located in its vicinity.
It was a wet day and a Sunday air of “nothing going on” was prevalent. We spent a good while writing postcards within earshot of some loud-mouthed American sailors before posting them over the road in the lobby of the Hilton Hotel. This was another of the plush stereo-typed palaces with a fancy dressed doorman (no riff raff!) that are safe havens for the wealthy the world over.
On our way back we took shelter from a torrential cloudburst in an exotic shopping plaza which offered Yves St. Laurent, Italian fashionwear, expensive jewellery, crocodile skin luggage and the like. We also visited a specialist supermarket that sold imported goodies such as Heinz Baked Beans, Fosters Australian Lager and McVities Chocolate Digestive biscuits.
Back at Peonys we found the other guests laying about connected to their Walkman’s or making inane conversations. The tattooed Australian birds in our room caterwauled along to their personal stereos a la todays Silent Disco without the silence! A podgy older bloke endeavoured to sleep through the day regardless of the noise.
We listened to our own Walkman clones and had a shower. We had hoped to do some laundry, but the washing buckets were in use by others. Eventually we got fed up with the depressing company and went to the food stalls near the Peninsula Hotel and Shopping Plaza for a “Mee” lunch.
This comprised of mainly hot soup and noodles, washed down with coconut water and followed up by bananas fried in batter. A short walk confirmed that all of the shops of interest were closed on Sunday and that all of the cinemas were showing little known “B-Movies” such as “Girls Riot” and “The New Barbarians” (The New Barbarians (Italian: I nuovi barbari) is a 1983 Italian post-apocalyptic action film directed by Enzo G. Castellari, and starring Giancarlo Prete and George Eastman).
The movie "Girls Riot" (1983), reviewed by Dan Taylor he said "I've enjoyed all sorts of European sleaze, from the shores of Italy to the castles of Spain. But when I'm looking for hardcore degenerate behavior captured on film the Germans have always been a "go to" country. Hey, after viewing something as depraved as TEENAGE PISS PARTY I never expected them to create something as dull, boring and unexciting as the truly wretched GIRLS RIOT (Acorn Video). In actuality, GIRLS RIOT takes place in a vocational home for emotionally disturbed chicks, but the filmmakers lied, because there really isn't a riot. As for Catfights, this flick rates a big fat ZERO since the only bone they throw us is two chicks whipping wet towels at one another and a mediocre "head in the toilet bowl" scene".
Shame we didn't see either of these films!
We returned to the dormitory and thankfully most of the other guests went out for supper. Before leaving one of the blokes asked a fat Aussie girl “What is there to do in Kathmandu”? She replied “You can go trekking or see the temples. I didn’t do either. I just sat around smoking dope all day”. It would appear that she was repeating this experience in Singapore. No doubt she was trying to find herself.
I setup my Walkman to play through the speakers and listened to that for a while. These Unicef music cassette players got through AA batteries at an alarming rate. After about 2 hours play the tape would start to drag, but hopefully this was because we had bought cheap, poor quality batteries.
We went out again at 19:30 hrs., destination Burger King. On the way we had to dart into a space-aged plaza to dodge the rain which took the form of a torrential monsoon-like shower. Raindrops hit the pavement and bounced back 2 metres into the air!
We were going to have a coffee there, but the cost was prohibitive. “At home” in the fast-food emporium we wrote our daily logs as young, trendily dressed Singaporeans courted of sat chattering noisily in cliquey groups. We had become quite accustomed to piped music and air conditioning over the last few days.
Our flip-flops were treacherous on the rain-slick pavement tiles as we headed back. We tried to read our books, but in our dormitory the Aussie birds and a fat, seedy-looking European were debating the evolution of man, while in the Common Room a bespectacled English cringe was holding forth on oil rig employment opportunities in an annoying nasal whine.
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