Back in Singapore and though the hostel is nice, already mourning the loss of my private KL room at the Y. The most unforgettable moment of my stay here and Malaysia was today at the Changi Museum, near the site of the old infamous POW camp where so many people suffered at the hands of the Japanese. I had an audio guide with 25 stops on it and I hardly stopped crying after stop 8. There was one particularly heart-rending account from a young woman who was taken from a POW camp to a brothel for Japanese officers and though I wanted to listen to it again, I couldn't, I was worried I would start sobbing out loud as she spoke of how no-one really remembers that there were women in these camps too, seeing their babies die, having their children taken away from them, being forced into prostitution. A moving place.
Tomorrow I'm going to the 'School of Hard Knocks' at Royal Selangor to learn pewtersmithing. Let's hope I don't have so much trouble getting this through customs as I did my knife. I was DETAINED (OK, only for 10 mins) at customs when I came back into Singapore yesterday as they called different officers in, rang the police and I tried to explain that my knife was a souvenir I'd made myself. I was on the verge of showing them my photos because they weren't having it at all! They finally let me go as I was leaving the country in 4 days and the blade was only 13cm. Size does matter then!
|
