the new performing arts library at the esplanade is beautiful. curving with the river, all along its glass walls you could look on the waterfront. when i went in people were sitting by the glass on high stools listening to music. i had come in through the cafe exit rather than the main entrance, so the waist level music stacks were what i came to, and i had imagined that was all of the library, a little disappointed by its size, until i walked across to what i supposed was the end of the library and found myself at the entrance, and, around the bend, the theatre and film section. the dance gallery i had found earlier, a separate gallery with low leather cushioned stools facing the glass and the street and glossy coffee table photograph books and books on history, technique and choreography, the histories and stories of dancers and companies, posters of dance in film, and programs, and a large screen where, when i went in, the houston ballet was warming up. books on dance, music, film and theatre. cds, scores, scripts, videos, arts journals and magazines. installation art pieces and lots of plasma screens all over where operas, plays, films and ballets are being reenacted all the time i was there. and a cafe with lush cushions, vaguely asian themed, and outside rain was streaming down the glass and i wanted to put my nose against the glass the way i would, when i was little, crawl into the car when my uncle was washing it and put my face to the glass and squeal and jump back when he would come up with the hose and suddenly squirt the glass where my face was.

it's been more than two years that the esplanade exit of the city link underpass had been sealed against my longing glances and now i am brimming with excitement to turn off before the escalators and pass under the words "esplanade theatres on the bay". durian or no durian, i think the esplanade is lovely inside and i am in love with the place beyond any telling. walking around in the atrium i want so much to see something in this new theatre, although there isn't very much to watch at this time of the year, although i think i would like to go to the t'ang quartet 10th anniversary concert this saturday. cindy has already got tickets to go with someone else, so if someone hasn't got tix and want to go with me, call me. the combination of river and terrace makes me think of the kennedy centre in d.c. only this is much more spacious and beautiful. whatever criticism anyone, or indeed myself, have or had about the new esplanade i only feel now - oh well done! i am proud to be home and be here.

crossing over to suntec through raffles link, i thought of how i am beginning to move away from the orchard-scotts area and increasingly attracted to the southern end of town instead. everything from this side of the river - just outside the financial district, boat and clarke quays, the fullerton, across to the asian civilisations museum and the padang side of city hall towards esplanade, anderson bridge, marina, milennia walk, one raffles link and drawing the line back to the "chopsticks" of the war memorial. this is the new downtown, in keeping with my sensibilities though still unfamiliar. the orchard/scotts area is familiar, comfortable, the backyard of any rgs girl - taka's dusky pink tiles, wisma's docile pretty blues, shabby far east swarming with uniforms - there is something unpleasantly juvenile about the area - while the buildings are unfashionably old - decades old, and too accessible - three train stations just along orchard road and uncountable number of buses - the stations belching out streams of people from underground to the noisy street . everything about the southern end of town happens on a different scale and pace - the widening of the buildings and their skyline formation, even when looking back from sheares bridge, and the curve of ecp from the ritz carlton/pan pacific, looking out over marina south, the way between raffles place and city hall station we must walk - i would have described it as inaccessibility years ago, but now i feel it a requirement - walking in the civic district is charming - none of the orchard crowd, few uniformed youngsters, the stately colonial government buildings merging slowly into the newer and quieter marina bay, and the kind of shops and restaurants that instinctively pleases my sensibilities, and yet unfamiliar and too expensive - we're between ages. not young enough to still want to be in orchard/scotts - and not old enough to be comfortable over the south end. suddenly a memory comes out of a long time ago: one after-rain day walking in the southern end of town - which must have been unsual, for that time, though suntec and millenia walk were already built, perhaps newly built, with kenneth and von, walking by a french-asian restaurant in - it must have been millenia walk - looking through the glass and at the menu outside, and having a late lunch, just a few shops down, at a japanese conveyor belt sushi place and bursting into tears angrily because of something kg said - somehow my memory of being out with the two boys has to do with bursting into angry tears - i suppose the two people who are familiar and provoking enough to make me lose my temper, and close enough not to have to not lose it or be overly embarrassed about it afterwards. they are always ganging up on me or trying to bait me, but then i'm so easily baitable i suppose they would. hee. and another time, at marina south, trekking in grass so kg could get some photos taken of the city, and caught in a sudden downpour and taking refuge under sheares bridges and the memory of clammy clothes and strong wind flinging rain at us shuddering under the bridge, and then the rain going soon as it came, having to climb up some steps on the side of the canal across to millenia walk where under a hand dryer in the ladies' room i tried to dry myself. and always looking up, up at the space around that is so uncharacteristic of singapore.