Arrest of Ai WeiWei - Hampstead Theatre

We checked out another play at our local theatre, Arrest of Ai WeiWei.  The last play we saw here was Judas Kiss, which was awesome, so my hopes were high.  You can get all the info you need for the play from wikipedia, but basically Ai WeiWei is a famous Chinese artist, he helped design the birds nest stadium for the Olympics, did the sunflower seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern, that sort of thing.  It seems as if there has been a bit of a falling out between Ai WeiWei and the Chinese government since then, probably because he started investigations into the Sichuan earthquakes that killed all those kids.  So the government had him arrested and locked up for 81 days when he was trying to fly to Hong Kong.  The script is based on a book, which was written from conversations a journalist had with him after his release.  It feels like it is being pretty truthful, though at some points you feel like he's obviously putting himself in the best light.

If it is actually truthful, it must have been a completely surreal experience.  He is eventually charged , and convicted, of tax evasion.  But they begin by having him interviewed by homicide detectives who have no idea who he is, before he;s transferred to an army base, where two soldiers are apparently in his cell at all times, monitoring him constantly, even when he goes to the toilet.  And throughout it all, he convinced he's going to be beaten, or 'disappeared'.  Before suddenly they charge him with the tax offences, and he's let loose.

The actor playing him does a good job, but it always feels like it's trying really hard to be not just a play, but an art installation piece.  Most of the action takes place in a shipping container in the middle of the stage.  But the entire cast is on stage at all times (even when they aren't part of the scene), and most of them have no role to play at all.  They just sit there, with really good hair, occasionally helping to change the set, filming things on their phones, or taking pictures.  And those people were all white.  So you're thinking, what are they trying to say here, is it the fact that the Western world all wants a piece of him now that he;s famous, and yet we view his suffering as entertainment?  Or was it just a big theatre company putting on the show, and everyone wanted to put this play on their CV.  Then at the end it finishes with a big monologue about what is art.  And then you have to applaud all the people with good hair, who did nothing all evening.

Singapore

Singapore skyscrapers plus the fountain that everyone must see upon visiting

We were back in Australia for a week recently and rather than the killer 24 hour flight we decided to break up the trip with a bit of a stop off in Singapore on the way through.  Definitely a good idea and I think we'll be doing that every time now.  It's so nice getting off the flight after 12 hours and knowing that you don't have to wait around for an hour before sitting through another 9 hour flight.  Aaaah bliss.

The casino/hotel/boat on the other side of the marina.

More of the city with the fountain in prime position

We were a little disorganised on this trip, which lead to some interesting times.  We hadn't got any Singaporean dollars out, and we go to use our UK bank cards only to find Dave's card was being declined.  I try mine, thinking perhaps he was trying too high an amount, and manage to get out $100.  So we are like, great, let's get some more out.  Uh oh, obviously that triggered some fraud warning in HSBC and then we had no UK cards.  We were then thinking, hmm that's a bit annoying, but that's cool, we'll just use our Aussie bank cards.  Only to find we had forgotten to bring them.  Damn.

The city + more futuristic flower buildings

It's cool that HSBC is looking out for their customers, but I think they ping the fraud warning way too early.  Obviously it's to save them money, since they won't have to pay out in cases where there is genuine fraud.  But it is still my money and I would like to be able to access it in one of the largest transit centres in the world.

We then had to have an incredibly painful skype conversation with their call centre.  Where they kept asking me my security details over and over again, all done at a snail's pace.  I had to keep telling them it was an international phone call, and that I hadn't done anything wrong, and could I please access my money now.

A playing field build on the water - taking from the futuristic double helix bridge

They have this wonderfully customer-friendly procedure where each person can only do one specific task, so if there are a few tasks to be completed you keep getting transferred around.  And each time they transfer you, you have to go through exactly the same security questions.  Freaking sort your service out HSBC!!

Unfortunately I think HSBC isn't even the worst of the UK banks in terms of customer service.  And don't even get me started on their joke of an internet banking system.  So I'm off on a tangent here, but seriously if I have a savings account and a credit card with the same bank a blind monkey should be able to figure out how to use internet banking to pay off the credit card.  But no, you have to actually use your credit card number as the customer reference when you pay from your savings account.  How is that a logical and fail safe system?

Please could someone from your supposed internet banking department go to Australia and open up an account there, so you can see what internet banking should really be like.

Panda chowing down

But anyway after the long, and slightly terse skype conversation, we were back in business, and it was time for food!  Singapore seems to be all about food, shopping malls, heat and the zoo.  And we did eat a bit, lovely, spicy, fresh asian food.  Oh how I have missed you!  We had Singapore chilli crab, which was really good, much hotter than I thought it would be.  Halfway through I was kind of wishing that the restaurant had given us plastic gloves to eat it with.  They don't have the same crab utensils that you might get in Europe, you know, the modified nut crackers.  So it was all a tooth and hand affair, we really got in touch with our animalistic side.  But with only one tiny wet wipe to clean up with, I was wishing for a bib.

We also got to experience their hawker centres whilst we were there.  At first I already thought we had been going to hawker centres, but then we went to a real one.  It was at that point I realised that perhaps it's true that no-one really eats at home in Singapore.  Everyone was out.  Imagine a massive shopping centre food court, except it's outside, and there are no brands, and the food is all really good, and $2 and there aren't any shops, just food.  It's definitely an experience.

The other thing which really struck me about Singapore is how it was really going for a futuristic feel.  There was a hotel with a boat on the top, a bridge shaped like a double helix, a sports field built out over the harbour.  Everywhere you looked there was another bizarro, futuristic structure.  It must be great to be an architect in this city.

The first day we were there we were caught in an almighty downpour.  I had forgotten how ferocious tropical rain could be.  Everyone was sheltering under this bridge, and you couldn't even talk the rain was thundering down so heavily.  If you had walked out in it you would have been saturated immediately.  Oh, but it was still so warm.  I love the tropics, like a big, warm hug.  Though forget about running.  We went for one run whilst we were there, setting off before dawn, and I've never been so hot exercising.  That kind of destroyed us for the day, we spent a lot of time in their air-conditioning that day.

Red panda going crazy - most of my shots it was just a blur

They also do a good zoo, in fact more than just a zoo, in this complex there is a zoo, a bird park, a night safari and they are currently building a river cruise/animal exhibit thing.  It's pretty crazy.  But it seemed like a good zoo.  Though their feeding sessions and animal shows weren't as good as others I've seen.  Nothing can compare to Taronga's bird show.  The slight detraction to the feeding shows was the blazing sun.  We had no sunscreen and by the afternoon I was starting to fear for my skin.

They did have newly arrived pandas though, and they got their own, special, air conditioned enclosure.  Too bad you could only spend 15 minutes in there.  They had red pandas in there as well, they seemed slightly insane, but maybe that's just red pandas.  The normal pandas were pretty cool, just lying on their backs chowing down on bamboo the whole time we were there.

Freaky bird in the zoo - cool hairdo

They also do some good gardens.  There are some big ones on the other side of the boat hotel, which is a bit of an experience just getting too.  First you walk through one of their shopping malls, which was so big they had a canal down the middle.  And you could hire a boat and row up and down past all the shops.  Like I said, complete bizarro world.  You then cross this massive 12-lane road before ending up in these gardens.  They weren't even the botanic gardens, just some extra ones.

They had this flower dome built, again futuristic, kind of like a bio-dome, but only flowers.  There was also a cloud mountain dome.  That was really strange.  Remember everything here has been artificially constructed, obviously the plants are real, but their entire environment is built, and constantly monitored.

Cloud mountains are apparently these really moist, high altitude, rainforest type environments.  So in the middle of the dome they had this 7 storey high waterfall, which you would catch a lift up the middle to appear at the top (like I say, totally artificial), and then you would walk your way back down.  Every now and then the mist guns would go off.  There were more sections of the gardens, but there was still slightly too much paving for what should be natural surrounds.

Rhino posing

Would I spend more time in Singapore?  Definitely, I think next time I will check out Sentosa, that's meant to be even more fake.  I just need to do a bit more research on the good restaurants there though.  At the end of the stay I was wanting a bit of a change from eating on plastic chairs, basically in the street, in the stinking hot.  And was hoping for a bit of that mall-type air conditioning they seem to love everywhere else.  But no luck, it was all hawker centres, or restaurants in the street.  So definitely a bit of research needed for next time.