Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 47

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 47"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Available at Chan Hampe Gallery

This is another really neat Rococo shophouse just outside of Little India.  It is actually probably 5-6 shophouses, but they all have the exact same design motif and coloring.  This is one of the more unique ones that I have found here.  I think the round windows are really cool and different.  The color scheme on the house is also a very interesting one.  It is a combination of a light sea green and a raw sienna kind of color.  Very Art Nouveau in coloring.

As an aside, I had something totally weird and random happen to me this morning.  I was out on my morning run, just drenched in sweat, in workout clothes and clearly huffing and puffing (I was on my walking interval), when a local guy runs up and sort of walks slightly ahead but next to me.  He stops all of a sudden, kind of turns around and asks me something.  I have my headphones on, so I can't hear.

Now, the first weird thing about this is that locals just don't randomly talk to expats on the street.  It's very much like NYC that way.  Not so aggressive, but if you try to say hi or talk to them, you get very strange looks most of the time.  It's very much a self-contained society where you keep to yourself and don't talk to strangers.  Once you have a common ground of some kind, (like in my art studio) people are super friendly and talkative, but on the street - not so much.

In any case, I can't really hear him, I figure he's asking for directions.  He's kind of nervous and mumbling and holding his cell phone like a security blanket.  So I take out the other earphone and ask him to repeat what he just said.  "Oh um, can we exchange contact info, like phone numbers, so that we can be friends?"

"What?"

"Exchange phone numbers for friends."

At this point, I'm so weirded out by the fact that someone actually stopped me on the street to talk to me, much less ask for my number in a very 6th grade kind of way, that I think I just mumbled no and ran (it was time for my running interval) off.  It was just very strange.  Best my husband and I could figure is he was maybe dared by some friends or something.  Guys just don't go up and approach women here, much less foreigners.  In any case, I thought you might enjoy one of the strange daily occurrences that happen when you live abroad.