Singapore lies one degree(137 km) north from the equator, located at the southern tip of peninsular Malaysia. Singapore’s territorial geographic land forms consist of one main island along with sixty-two other islets.( Islets are small islands, and can mainly be found along with larger islands, or even found secluded or in a group of other islets.) Singapore is 277.6 mi² in size. And yet holds a human population of approximately six million. It is widely known for being the smallest known country in southeast Asia. The weather is EXTREMELY hot because it is so close to the equator. The Sun hits the Earth in an angle, therefore hitting directly at the Earth’s middle. Singapore has a rain forest like climate so even the rain is warm. So I suggest that if you ever come here, where shorts, thin shirts, sturdy shoes, and a hat would help.

It is my mother tongue and my It is well known for it’s multicultural population as well as being the most expensive city in the world. But I have to admit the food is delicous and the people there are super nice. I myself speak Tamil. It is my mother tongue and in Singapore, everyone I met who spoke Tamil said so cleanly without a single chunk of English. I mean even my parents speak with hints of English sprinkled here and there. Most of the people there have a really nice accent as well. The buildings and architectural structures constructed there are incredible and it’s hard not to behold over them all. But honestly, my favorite thing out of all of the things representing Singapore is the rain. It just comes so suddenly and then as soon as it starts, it stops. And in the end it doesn’t leave a single trace or piece of evidence showing that it rained j¨st moments before. It’s miraculous it tell you.

• Part 10 Day 6

I rose to the sound of cars driving about as the sun rose from it’s deep slumbers. It’s rays punctured through the crevices of tree’s and reflected on the windows of vehicles and the glass of buildings and the towering skyscrapers. I dragged my half alert body from the bed and forced my feet to walk to the bathroom to brush my teeth. One foot forward, one foot back, one foot forward, one foot back. One foot stepping on a loose piece of paper, one foot slipping on Madhavan’s sock. One part of my face ramming into a closed door, the other half of my face gets a full face of my moms shoulder. Yeah I am TOTALLY the most perceptive person on the face of the Earth. I stared at my feet, or to be more specific my mix-matched socks. I scolded myself for being the stupid person I am, and mumbled offensive things to myself while I brushed my teeth. What a GREAT way to the start the morning in which we prepare to leave the current place we are in and fly to another one. Or to be more clear, we were basically leaving Singapore and flying to India. We were going to do all that in one single day.

I quickly did my usual routine and helped my mom and dad put stuff away in our bags. I checked each crack and corner of the room, seeing if we left anything behind. I probably did that five or six times before my mother and father told me that we had everything in our bags and that nothing was left. I helped my mom make the beds and clean up. We grabbed everything putting it in the car. Ganesan Mama, Deepak, and Sumathi Athai did the same. We then went to Anand Bhavan for one last meal there before we left for the airport. We said our goodbyes to the owner and told her that we would come there again the next time we came to Singapore for another visit. It felt as if the food was even better now that we were consuming it for the last time before we left.  After our brief goodbyes we climbed into the cars.

We arrive at the airport and walk around until we got to the luggage area to put everything away. We got into the point where we had to leave Jagan Mama and  Bala Thatha behind and venture one our own. I hugged both Jagan Mama and Bala Thatha. Thatha ruffled my hair and gripped his firm hand on mine and then let go. I appreciate him dearly, he was there with us ever since we stepped foot on Singapore soil. And he was here when we were going to leave it. I can never ever express my gratitude through such simple choice of words. Jagan Mama and I embraced and said our goodbyes. It went on until it came to the point where my mom and mama had to say bye to each other. It was so sad. And when they left, Sumathi Athai, my mom, and I all left to the bathroom while my dad, my brother, Deepak, and Ganesan Mama waited.

I had been dreading this day ever since we landed. I hate the sight of seeing my own mother cry. I despise seeing those tears trickle down her cheeks and chin like raindrops in a heavy storm. I become pained when I see her doe like eyes become filled with doldrums of agonizing tears. Her sobs ring in my ears like echos in a deep cave. My heart shatters to see her soft kind face break so sorrowfully and misspoken. All this because she has to leave family behind for more than seven hundred thirty days.

I rubbed my small hand against my mothers palm while athai and I said comforting words. As we walked inside a single tear ran down my callused cheeks like a morning dew drop on the petals of a flower. The salty liquid traveled down my chin and dangled there like a rain drop clinging on to a crumbling leaf. The single drop that secreted from my wet eyes reached the floor, dividing into smaller versions of itself. I wiped the tears away from my moms eyes, trying my best to hide my own. We washed our faces and our clammy, sweaty hands. When we walked back out my mom seemed to be a bit better, considering the fact that SHE LITERALLY JUST SAID GOODBYE TO HER OWN LITTLE BROTHER BECAUSE SHE WON’T BE ABLE TO SEE HIM IN PERSON FOR LIKE TWO OR THREE MORE YEARS.

We sat at the gate until it was boarding time. We talked, and talked. And we explored the airport. My brother got a little box full of Angry Birds gummy candies, that came with a little key chain as well. We hung out at this beautiful fish pond where there were many different colored koi fish that swam along and under these wooden planks that we stood on. Deepak and I were in the middle of talking about the mechanism of a robot that can pump blood in a human’s heart when my brother walked up to us saying that he needed water. Just a few moments before he had been running around the perimeter of the little area we occupied. So we understood why he was so tired out. Deepak and I retrieved the water( while legitimately spilling twenty five percent of it). My dad had just gone to the Customs Department so we can receive the taxes for the jewelry we had gotten.

Soon enough, it was time to board the plane to India. I jumped up from my seat. My hand that was clutching Madhavan’s wrist jerked his little body up with a jolt. We walked to where we would board the plane. I always love walking through that wide tunnel connected to the plane and the building. It overlooked the other planes and showed the Singapore’s skyline. Half of me wanted to curl up into a ball and think. I absolutely dread goodbyes. I don’t care if it’s a person, or a city, or even a single house for all I care. Home is where family is. But what if family is in more than one place? I saw from the corner of my eye, a little slip of paper that fell out of my back pocket. I looked back at it, fluttering slowly to the ground. I remember writing on it and ripping it out of my notebook when we first landed. In the messiest cursive ever, I wrote, Hello Singapore. I smiled before I climbed into the plane. Maybe saying goodbye isn’t so bad as to saying a simple hello.

This time we all sat in the middle row while Ganesan Mama, Sumathi Athai, and Deepak sat in front of us. My mom to the left, my brother and me next to her, and then my father sitting next to me. We were taking off. We were slowing descending from the runway and into the welcoming sea of blue that awaited us above. I looked at the window that was to my right, the city soon become farther and farther from my straining eyes reach. I leaned my head back on the cushions of the seat, I loved the feeling of taking of in a plane. And the fact that this feeling was rare for me made it more worthwhile. My hands were pressed against the arm rests. Shaking from the plane’s movement. My eyes were trained on the window, then to the ceiling, then the window again. I sat there in complete bliss. After all, traveling can make anyone a storyteller.

• Part 9 Day 5

“Kaaaaaaanmani. Wake uuuuuuuuuup.” Sang my mother.

“No.” I said in a voice that sounded like a child’s.

“Kanmani.” My mom sighed.

“I’m sweepy.” I said.( I tried to say it in my normal tone but instead of saying “sleepy” I said “sweepy.”)

I then stuck my hand out in a signal to my mom so she could pull my body up. She successfully got me out of the bed, with me groaning and on my feet. I walked into the bathroom and grabbed my toothbrush with my hand that was sticky and clammy from the sweat that secreted under my clothing. I took a shower and threw on some clothes.  Once I was done I sat on the bed and pulled out my Kindle from my backpack. I started reading the A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens when suddenly I heard a howl so loud that I jumped, dropping the little tablet. It crashed to the floor, clattering against the varnished wooden floor boards.  I scrambled to the floor and grabbed it, checking it to see if there were any scratches. I then looked up and saw that my brother was standing there, a grin plastered across his face. I scowled at him as he ran away.

I was currently in a very odd position. The top half of my body on the floor, my hands caressing the Kindle. My legs were sprawled against the bed sheets in a V shape, my toes smushed against the wall. It seemed my dad needed something from the suitcase so he walked in on me. When he saw me he had the look of a man who just saw a Styracosaruas playing a fiddle while wearing a pink tutu, glittery pink lip gloss, and a leotard.

“Wha….?” He said in disbelief.

“Ehe.” I mustered with a smile plastered on my face.

“What in the-how did you…? Huh…?” He exclaimed not finishing his incomplete sentences.

“IwasjusttryingtogetmyKindlebecauseMadhavanscaredmebyscreechingreallyloudlyandIgotscaredandsothat’showIendedupinthispositi-onpleasedon’thurtme.” I said quickly catching my breath.

We then had a heated conversation by blinking.

*Blink blink: WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING.

*Blink Blinkity Blink Blink: Did I not just explain to you without breathing father?

*Blink Blink: The End

Anyway, I settled into the bed, my right shoulder leaning against the windowsill. But then the hurricane hit:

“Kanmani.”  My little brother asked.

“Hmm?”

“Kanmani.”

“Uh huh.”

“Kanmani!”

“Yes.” I said nodding towards the spot next to me so he could sit.

“KANMANI!”

 I leaped, rolling onto the floor and jumped up onto my feet. I did a battle cry. “MADHAVAN TELL ME WHERE THE TITAN IS AND I’LL BEAT HIM UP FOR YOU.” A sharp pencil was in my hand and I was in a fighting stance.

“Kanmani I just want a story, my god.” He said.

“Oh.” I said in shame, I was blushing furiously. I have a tendency to read a lot of books including things like titans, giants, monsters, hellhounds, beasts, manticores, revenants, venomous flying snakes with fangs as sharp as a knife and have poison oozing out of there eye sockets… You know the usual.

My little brother settled down beside me and he pointed to the text that I was currently reading in the Kindle. I didn’t think he would understand any of Charles Dickens’s work but I read it anyway. He seemed so eager and I couldn’t resist. So I read:

“It was the best of times;
It was the worst of times.
It was the age of wisdom;
It was the age of madness.”

“It was the era of belief;
It was the era of doubt.
We had everything to gain;
We had nothing to gain.”

“It was the season of Light;
It was the season of Darkness.
It was the Spring of hope;
It was the Winter of despair.”

“We had everything before us;
We had nothing before us.
We were all going direct to heaven;
We were all going direct to the opposite of heaven”( I altered it so it was appropriate.)

“Do you like it?
Yes we do
Are you happy?
We’re so happy now.
Recalled to life?
Yes it’s true!”

“You had time to change your mind, now there’s no turning back.”

“Red wine has stained,
the blood of men.
Hunger and pain,
and their time will come.
The grindstone turns,
once again.”

“Why should we be blamed for this, our forefathers’ bliss.”

“Footsteps echo on the path below.
As people watch their new cross put on its show.
And the Rings of Saturn roll along the street.”

I looked at my dumbstruck little brother. About four and one half of a minute later he simply muttered. “Wha…?” I totally understood though. I bet he was expecting something a little less…. Explicit.

Anyway, as my brother and I were just sitting around in the bed, my mom was moving a mile a minute like, I would see her in one place and then I would just turn away for like two seconds and then POOF. She’s gone. And then there was my father scrolling through his phone, not responding to physical contact or speech. “Okay ready.” My mom FINALLY said. We walked out the door and I strained myself when we opened it, expecting harsh heated weather hitting my skin like a comet hurtling towards it’s next victim. But instead I stepped out, all of our expressions changing. The sky was filled with dark hale navy clouds. The sky felt extremely dense( now here’s a short science lesson:

People tend to think that when the weather is legitimately “dense” we have a tendency to assume that, that specific identification for that claim of climate and weather defines it all. That claim is very much, false. Cold air is quite dense, unlike warm heated air where it is quite thin. People think the complete opposite though. The molecular structure binding this process has multiple molecules that are very close to each other, the bonds are absorbing much less energy and therefore lead for the climate to be this way.) Yes you heard me right. Singapore weather was actually manageable.  I THANK YOU O’ MIGHTY BALL OF LIGHT AND HEAT WHO HAS APOLOGIZED FOR BARBECUING US IN THE PAST 96 HOURS OF OUR LIVING HERE. YOU HAVE PLEASED ME AND MY FELLOW TRAVELERS ON OUR JOURNEY THROUGH THE TERRAINS OF THE EASTERN REGIONS OF THE WORLD.

We continued walking, we then halted to a stop in front of a beautifully built temple. I saw groups of students walking in different directions. Groups wore shirts that indicated what school they were from, name tags were sported around their necks. There were different schools with different types of students. Some seemed no younger than a first grader. Some seemed so tall that they couldn’t even see the small children below. I became self conscious about my physical appearance.  I mean my pediatrician told me before the trip that I wasn’t going to grow that much. He said that I would only increase a few inches before high school. He literally told me that I would have to expect to look up at people a lot.  Right then and there I stood squished between high school students that were taller than my own father. I felt like an ant in a colony of giants.

We walked inside and I instantly fell in love with the intricate designs carved into the stone ceiling. It reminded me so much of the temples in India. As if a crane lifted a solid structure and then dropped it into this specific spot in the eastern regions of the world. The architecture of the building was incredible. I’ve seen videos of how the configurations and formatting was done but I am always shocked by the finished product. We sat down on the cold( but quite soothing) stone floor. I was sitting smack on the center of a painted flower trifecta. The petals burst with a rosy pink, the leaves looked so ripe and lively. We soon walked out into the open, the sun peaking out from behind a cloud. The rays would soon start penetrating the floating glob made up of water droplets and dust( also known as a cloud;)

We then went to Komala Vilas, an Indian restaurant that seemed to be nearby. The food was pretty good, and I was stuffed were the rest of the day. We went to a jewelry shop, we walked in and looked at earrings and rings for my mom. We found this solid ring and these really pretty earrings for her. My mom then started looking for a pair of small earrings for me. I sat on an abnormally high stool that stood right in front of a huge glass case filled with a lot of different jewelry. My mom(FINALLY) found a pair of small gold earring with little spheres that dangled a millimeter underneath attached to a thick strand of gold.

We then went to a big shopping center, it seemed to be like the cornucopia for people obsessed with anything that glinted under the sun. I got blinded by shiny watches in glass cases displayed in the entrance. We went to the second floor where the clothing department was to get sari’s to give to our relatives in India. I touched all the different fabrics and silks. One was so soft that a baby could sleep soundly on it. One was so rough and covered in sequins and glitters that I was left with faint red marks on the tips of my fingers.

I noticed that every place we had gone to so far was in Little India, almost every place we had went to was either on the same street or really close by to the location we had been in. We soon left to go back to the hotel room, my dad, Ganesan Mama, and Deepak all went to this tech store, while my mom, Sumathi Athai, and I were all left in the hotel with nothing else to do. Basically all I did was read, and read some more. Once they came back from that technology store we wall went to Bala Thatha’s home for dinner.

I watched as the day came to a close and the night flooded in. Faint stars dotted the sky  like drops of white paint on an extremely dark navy blue canvas. We parked in front of rows and rows of small box like apartments, the windows glowing with light. We walked to one of the floors that seemed to overlook the parking lot, we knocked on the door. We were greeted with smiles, hugs, and pats on the back. I loved the interior design of the space. I met my two uncles and my aunt( my mom’s cousins) Divya Auntie, Naveen Uncle, and Dhivan Uncle. My parents ate the dinner that was prepared, while my brother ate pizza. I felt terrible afterward because Parvathi Aachi prepared an entire meal and yet I nibbled on a piece of cheese and bread, but I sucked it up and enjoyed the rest of the night. We all took one group picture with us all standing in the living room. We said our brief goodbyes and walked back into the car.

We then went to Amirtham Aachi’s house next, when we got there I was instantly brought into a bone crushing hug, I felt like I was being suffocated by a cloud shaped like a bear. We walked inside and were offered homemade jello, cake, and noodles. It was all really good and I had a fun time. It turned out that my other aunt, Jaya auntie made the cake and jello. And aachi and Jaya auntie made the noodles together. Before we left, my brother and I were given little goodie bags. The goodies were adorable, and I thanked them for everything before we had gone of to the car.

Bala Thatha pointed out these beautiful festival lights. We had decided to take one drive around Singapore, and the lighting’s were incredible. But my favorite was still though festival strobe lights. I became more and more drowsy, my head dropped on the edge of the glass of the window with a little Thump.

• Pictured below is the temple from Little India. Veera Kaliammam