Monday 18 June 2001 – Singapore
Visited Arab Street and the surrounding quarter. Quite attractive, but not overly exciting. Lots of shophouses selling silks and baskets, mostly Chinese traders from what I could see.
Filled in time until the evening (sitting in cafes, going to the gym) and then went to the Jubilee Hall at Raffles Hotel to see an Australian ‘Electric String Quartet’ – Four Play. They played loud, amplified versions of recent rock and roll songs on string quartet instruments, complete with greasy rock and roll attitude. I was a bit skeptical at first, as I didn’t recognise any of the songs, but then they did some Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Jeff Buckley and they won me over.
Gion and Anita turned up, and Benjamin Chee was there, again reviewing for the Straits Times.
