Singapore is one of three city-states in the world, did you know?

So, I'm sitting in my kitchen in Singapore having the first cup of coffee I've made myself since arriving that isn't horrible. As it turns out it wasn't the coffee or my lack of proficiency with a French press (my first purchase after arriving) that was the problem. It was the soy milk. All of the local brands of soy milk I've tried are more like soy syrup. When I finally found a carton of Silk yesterday I was more than happy to pay $5.50(SING) for one quart. Worth it.
There's a breeze coming in my kitchen window. The weather is uncommonly nice today. It's only 84 degrees. That probably just means it will rain later. It usually does. Through the kitchen window I can see a woman in the opposite apartment building checking on the clothes she has hanging out the window. It doesn't appear that the wind has taken any of them. All of the apartments in my neighborhood have slots under the windows to insert bamboo poles into so that you can hang your clothes to dry outside. I'm kind of afraid to do that because last week a pair of pants fell from a few floors up and have been hanging precariously from my open window. I have no idea how to return them to their owner. So all of my clothes are currently hanging on bamboo poles inside. I washed them last night in the tiny washing machine in our kitchen. That was quite a debacle but not really worth going into. Suffice it to say that in the end my clothes appeared clean even if I didn't use the most orthodox methods with that washer and the water I got all over the floor dried within a few hours.
The apartment I share with Matthew (a friend from school and the cinematographer of the film we're working on) is on the seventh floor of a fifteen story apartment building surrounded by other buildings the same height or taller. Seventy percent of the housing in Singapore is government housing. So most people live in these huge apartment buildings. Ours is not bad. It's a little older I think. The elevator only stops every five floors. So we get off on the sixth floor, walk past about five apartments, dozens of potted plants and a little old man who sits in front of his door everyday taking things apart with a screwdriver, up one flight of stairs and into our scantily furnished apartment which smells strongly of mothballs.
Most days we go to our office in the business district. It is actually the conference room in Michael's father's office so it's in a very nice building. I'm not sure that the security guards downstairs are really sure what we're doing there when we show up, jeans and t-shirts and backpacks surrounded by suits and briefcases. I smile at them and they look somewhat quizzically back at me. I never get very much done at the office. There's a lot of talking that goes on between Michael and our producers, Kaini and Charmaine, two very capable Singaporean girls who have been working on the film for months now. It can be very distracting, so for the most part I've decided to just work outside of the office. However, spending time with Kaini and Charmaine and Michael together I've been improving my knowledge of Singlish, a creole language spoken by most Singaporeans. It's interesting if not completely impossible to understand.
Yesterday I didn't go to the office at all having gotten very little done the day before as we spent the majority of the day at a press conference. It was small, just a few local papers, a magazine and some of our sponsors. Michael and three out of of four of our lead actors sat on a panel and answered a handful of questions and then it was over. I tried to read a translation of the article written by a Chinese newspaper online, but it made absolutely no sense. It was really just about one of the actresses more than it was about the film. One of our two leading ladies was Miss Malaysia 2004, so that helps with getting press I suppose. The actor who didn't make it to the press conference is one of Singapore's biggest local film stars and couldn't come because he's under contract with Media Corps and isn't allowed to do anything for anybody else while he's working for them. The film industry in Singapore still takes a very 1940's Hollywood studio system approach, apparently.
Our first day of production is in sixteen days. I still have so much work to do and it's really difficult when I'm still not sure how to get places or where to find things. I'm sure I'll manage. I usually do. For now though, I'm taking the day off. I think I'll take myself to a movie and then see if I can find anywhere in this less than vegan-friendly country that doesn't respond to the question, "does it have meat in it?" with "no, just fish".