Singapore’s version of the Champs-Élysées, Ginza, and Rodeo Drive is Orchard Road. On Monday, my first day here, I wandered down Orchard from the ION Orchard mall for quite a ways, wondering what was supposed to be so special about this street. It was nice enough, but there wasn’t much on it.

It was only today that I realized that I was on Orchard Boulevard, which runs roughly parallel to Orchard Road. Orchard Road itself is lined with flagship stores of top brands. A lot of this is wasted on me — until recently I thought that Ferragamo was a type of chili pepper — but I can enjoy looking at the ritziness of it all.

On the way back, I found a place that was the other end of the scale — a pscrillion little shops shoved into the area of one city block. I spent about an hour wandering through all the passageways. I ended up with a couple of t-shirts and a durian. This last is a spiky fruit that has a reputation for both a horrible smell and a delicious taste, but it doesn’t seem to have either. Neither the smell nor the taste were especially noteworthy.

For dinner I had some basil chicken and a coconut, then came straight back to the hotel room to update my several blog fans on the day’s activities.