So...I'm still in singapore.

(this was written yesterday - Tuesday - but not posted until today.)

Today I went "shopping" for three and a half hours. Both of our stylists are out of the country (keep in mind that the country is half the size of LA, so not an unusual occurrence really) and it's fallen on me to dress the cast. Shopping is bad enough when it's for myself. Wardrobe shopping can be a nightmare. First of all, I may be the most indecisive person I've ever met. If I were alone I could spend hours walking around looking at things without picking up the first shirt. Thankfully (for me, but not so much for them) I was accompanied by Sarah, my art director, and Kaini, our producer who had the unfortunate job of coordinating with the department store that's sponsoring us. That department store is another whole issue. It was enormous. All of the malls here are huge. And there are so many of them. For such a small country a huge percentage of the land mass must be covered in malls. I commented on this to Sarah to which she replied, "Shopping. It's the national past time. There's nothing else to do." I'm still not sure to what extent she was joking. So after navigating through six storeys of department store I managed to pull together a passable selection for the two actors I'm dressing tomorrow. And then Kaini used some kind of magic and they let us walk out of the store with literally thousands of dollars of unpurchased apparel. I am constantly in awe at the way movies work.
Right now I'm drinking some pretty awful coffee to pass the next hour until our tech scout ("tech recce" here) to look at six of our locations. I think tonight I will be exhausted.
I think I will take the bus home from the train station instead of walking. I took the bus for the first time last weekend and was amazed to discover that Singaporean buses have TVs in them. I was even more amazed when Matt pointed out to me that what was on the TV was the Asian version of "Deal or No Deal" whose host is none other than our leading actor. I can't begin to explain how much this amuses me.

This weekend was also amusing. I went with Kaini and Matt to try durians, a local fruit, for the first (and last) time. Imagine a banana filled with garlic mashed potatoes and a horrible aftertaste. Also you can smell durians from at least a block away. The smell is so powerful that they are banned on public transportation. I've met lots of people that like them, though. Kaini ate most of the one we bought. The first two or three bites weren't so bad, but the more I ate, the worse it was. I did try though. We got the durians in Geylang which, as my guidebook delicately points out is, "coincidentally Singapore's red-light district". Did you know that prostitution is legal in Singapore. It's a weird place. Prostitution is legal, but chewing gum is not.

Anyway, on Saturday night we went to see one of our actresses perform in Urinetown the musical. She is a student at La Salle (which, by the way, might be one of the most beautiful schools I've ever seen). It was a student production in a small round theatre and it was absolutely incredible. Had it not been the last night I might have bought myself another ticket to go and see it again.

I think that was my last weekend off until we wrap, though. I have so much to do still. Yesterday I stayed home and, with the exception of a few distractions from on-line chess, worked all day. Tomorrow I have a fitting and Thursday more shopping and Friday another fitting. And honestly I don't ever want to see the inside of a department store again.

Monkeys!

The pants are gone. I've just looked over and realized that what's missing from my kitchen window is the lump of seersucker that's been living there (see previous post). I hope they made it back to where they belong. I just finished a cup of tea, but I think this might be a double cup morning. I've been inexplicably tired for days. Probably it has something to do with lack of proper sustenance...I digress.
Today I have a meeting with the stylist for the film. As it turns out I don't have to do wardrobe in addition to production design. One of Michael's good friends is actually a fashion stylist who does choreography and styling for runway shows and other fashion events. He's kind of a big deal I think. Most of what I know about him I read on our website, which is up by the way. He's a nice guy, though. Today should be okay.

Saturday was the best day I've had since I got here. In the end, I did not take myself on a date to see a movie. Nor did I manage to find a vegetarian restaurant. Instead, Michael took Matthew and I to a water reservoir to do a 10K walk through the jungle. It was pretty, but I was there for the promise of wild monkeys. And I was not disappointed. Less than 1K into the walk Matthew said to me, deadpan, "there's a monkey". It was right above my head and I hadn't even seen it. Further in we ran into a whole family of monkeys. Four of them were babies. Because the path is often used by runners the monkeys are very accustomed to people. To the point where they would just lay in the path and people approaching would have to step around them. Amazing. When I finally get my camera fixed I will definitely be going back there. For now I have a few of the hundreds of pictures that Matthew took (unless otherwise noted, all of the pictures on my blog are taken by Matthew).
It's raining now. That will probably make my walk to the train station slightly less than enjoyable. I did find an umbrella in our apartment though. It's floral printed and also smells like mothballs. The rain is better than the heat, though. I think it is a whole ten degrees cooler than normal right now.
In the time between the start of this paragraph and the end of the previous one Matthew woke up, got dressed and left for the office. I've been awake for 4 hours and he woke up five minutes ago. Maybe it's time that I started accomplishing things. Maybe first I'll go get coffee...

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".