My time here in Singapore is ending – I’m sitting in the airport terminal waiting to board my flight to Hong Kong. Joseph’s wedding was a special event that I’m thankful I could attend. He is a dear friend of mine from my days at Purdue and we were roommates for the semester after Drew left for Japan and before I left for Germany. Joseph does post-doctoral research on the structure of the universe at University of Pennsylvania and Serena, now his wife, works at a hospital down the street from their new home.

There are no pictures yet of the wedding because I didn’t want to drown him out with cameras. Turns out that I needn’t have worried, because the guests already handled that part! There were so many pictures being taken! There is, however, a plan to distribute the official batch at some later point.

After the wedding it was me hanging out with Joseph’s parents, which was fun. We explored the city, walking first to Ion Sky, an observation deck 218 m above ground at the top of a residential complex on Orchard Road, where even.more.malls can be found in Singapore (I think they like to shop). As we neared the Singapore River and Marina Bay, Joseph’s parents retired to their hotel while I continued along. I think they had a good time in this big town, just slightly bigger than their home community in the vicinity of Bedford, Indiana. The nation of Singapore is about as big geographically as my home, Johnson County, Indiana, but holds just as many people as the entire state.

Earlier this year when I was in Tokyo, I took a ten mile hike through the city on one of my last nights. Something prompted me to start walking and I kept on going until I reached my hotel. It was probably a combination of me wanting to have a few more hours to explore the city and the fact that I love exploring at night so much – the colors of the city come to life and there’s a peaceful sense on empty streets which earlier hosted should-to-shoulder crowds.

Last night I did this again in Singapore. I hadn’t planned on it being so long, but shorty after midnight I discovered that the transit system shut down, so I ended up walking home (and running for a couple of km). All in all, my tracker counted 35,000 steps, covering around 25 km (15 mi), and I lost practically none all of my sleep. Now it’s time to get some Zzzs, take a day trip of Hong Kong, then get back to work in Japan.