Swimming up from the dazed and confused state of mind attributed to modern air travel, my brain finally rebooted when I set my bags down at the Stamford Swisshotel in Singapore. And in a few days, when I made my way out of the spa, I was magically re-calibrated and began to explore the city. Ken was asked to come to LucasFilm Animation to teach and then tour the city on a lecture series about his artwork. While he was doing that, I instructed a figure drawing class that Lucas provides to aid in character animation.

Singapore Summer, continued…

Between our engagements, here is our short list…

Asian Civilization Museum: Great place to get out of the heat and draw.
Chinatown: Great place to stay in the heat and sweat, but it’s so damn fun.
Orchid Garden: Definitely a morning thing, but so gorgeous you want to pitch a tent and live there.
Arab Street: You want Indian textiles? Check and done.
Little India: You want anything else indian? Done.
Willow Spa: I love this place, cool underground and attached to the Stamford, stumbling distance.
Night Safari: This could never be possible in the states. You are so close to the critters.
Dr. Fish: Find them anywhere and for a few sing you can have an army of tiny fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Sounds gross, but…it is.
Singapore prides itself on it’s food, you can go into any hawker market and get the same quality of delicious food you would get in a fussy restaurant. It’s only deciding what kind of atmosphere you want. But if your stomach ever rebels against the…pepper that is in everything.
Le Crepe: A tiny French restaurant across from Raffles will calm your tummy and make you feel like you’re in Paris again.

After two weeks in Morocco, haggling and bartering our way through the labyrinth of the medina, we decided to rest our weary minds and baboosh-ed feet and take a week in the Côte d’Azure…visiting with some friends in Cannes before moving on to a five-week assignment in Singapore with LucasFilm Animation. The short list: a couple lunches and dinners in Monte Carlo, a couple lunches and dinners in Cannes, and in between feedings, cross the Boulevard de la Croisette and take some sun in the sand. That’s pretty much it. Oh, take the train to Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to see the Villa and Gardens Ephrussi de Rothschild…the gardens are superb.

An afternoon at the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild and Baroness Beatrice Ephrussi née Rothschild or as we came to call her “B.B.”
B.B. purchased and started building her shack in 1905. She had 11 architects working on the villa. She wanted full-sized mockups on most of the features on the house. Train cars of art and antiques would pull into the train station and she would go shopping. The house and gardens were all designed in pink, her favorite color.  When she received guests she would dress up like Marie Antoinette (whose whist table she had bought…because if you are going to have a whist table, it should have royal lineage). But what I love the most, she had 34 gardeners on the compound and each their little berets had large pom poms on the top.

Now if you have an imagination, it’s not to difficult to close your eyes and envision this tiny, entitled woman dressed up as Marie Antoinette (with wig properly askew), stomping through her house screeching, “B.B. wants pom poms!”.

What luxuries money will bring.

Cannes, continued…