DAY 494 (4 days since last Singapore entry): Flying across the equator from Jakarta back to Singapore was just one leg in a long gradual journey back home. However, there were still ten days left until The Return To New York, and I had no intention of letting the fun of travel let up just yet.

"Welcome back," Jean greeted me back at the Walkers' Inn, my home away from home in Singapore.

"Hey, how is everything?"

"Okay."

I had arrived back at my usual place where I was the first, second, and only customer, and again I had the entire inn all to myself -- the big dorm, the TV lounge, roof garden, kitchen, and computer lab. I made myself at home and scattered my stuff around, walked around in my socks, and then plugged my iBook into the internet to work the rest of the afternoon with Jean in the office.

It wasn't a dull all-work day though; we took a couple of breaks together, first out for lunch (chicken rice balls), then out later for a walk down to the post office so that I could mail back Henricus' (Jakarta) cell phone charger that accidentally got mixed up with my computer cables. We stopped in at a locally famous food stall selling ah balling peanut soup, a hot dessert soup with peanuts and sweet filling-filled pastry balls. It tied me over until dinner later that night.

"So do you have any suggestions [on what to change or improve about the Walkers' Inn]?" Jean asked me before I head out for dinner that evening.

I thought. "Just posters. And you should have a bulletin board."

"Oh yeah, I got one already."

"Hmmm... I can't think of anything. I was here and I didn't need anything."

"Yeah, but you're easy."

"Yeah, I know." (She had me at "Hello... the internet is free.") As usual, she'd go home and trust the inn to me until I left early the next morning.

"Have fun on your last night," she said before my departure from the last time we'd see each other as far as we knew.

"Yeah, last night in Asia."

Whoa, last night in Asia, I thought after saying it out loud. Suddenly the realization of the inevitable end of my Global Trip sunk in. It set me into an anxious and melancholy mood, an almost suffocating feeling I hadn't felt since the night of Day Zero, the night before I started this crazy adventure.

I bid Jean farewell and good luck, walked down the stairs, and closed the door behind me.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END continued in the company of more Singapore residents; I was scheduled to meet up with Budi (who I met in Krabi) again, this time with his no-longer-sick wife Shwita. "Hey there," I called to them as I noticed them cross the street from our meeting point near City Hall.

"Oh, hey!" they said. The pair was dressed up to party and I knew my last night in Asia would be fun-filled.

We started off dining at Zac's restaurant, Curry Favor, not only for yummy Japanese curry dishes, but to briefly meet up with Zac and my former Lycos producer Carol, who had a gift for me: do-it-yourself mix for Singaporean laksa and chili crab so that I could take the "Uniquely Singaporean" culinary experience home. The Singaporean couple couldn't stay long for they had a previous engagement to attend to, leaving me with the Indonesian ex-patriate couple for "Last night out in Asia," Budi said. "How does it feel?"

"It feels pretty weird." Every time I was reminded of the end, I started to get that "sinking in" feeling again.

"Don't worry, your last night in Asia is going to be a blast."

Blast off of my last night in Asia began at the Long Bar, where there was hardly an Asian face to be seen; the place was "tourist central" where busloads of foreign tourists continued pouring in that evening as they did every. The reason being: the Long Bar was where the original Singapore Sling cocktail was invented, and from what we saw, it seemed to still be the top seller; almost every table we saw in the bar (including ours) had ordered them. Seeing the angmo (foreigners) with the same cocktail wasn't so shocking though; the thing that was shocking was the fact that there was litter everywhere. Peanuts were complimentary and the shells were all over the floor in piles. Very un-Singaporean.

Next door was the Raffles Hotel and Arcade, which wasn't an arcade in the video game sense; it was a shopping arcade surrounding a garden courtyard with chic outdoor cafes and a really good evening jazz band. Wandering Raffles' was also a touristy thing to do, and Budi led me around almost in tandem with a real tour group going through to overhear some information. He learned for the first time with me, just where the suites of the hotel were.

We left the tourist bit and entered the Ex-Pat Zone at the new Liberté bar for drinks with their fellow ex-pat friend Janneke, who I had met my first night out in Singapore before. With her were two new faces, fellow travelers Koen and Marc, Janneke's visiting Dutch friends making their way through Singapore in their jaunt through southeast Asia. After rounds of drinks we eventually made it up to the New Asia Bar on the 72nd floor of the Swissotel, the tallest hotel building in town, to end the night away dancing and drinking with the Thursday party crowd of Singaporeans and ex-pats. While to me the club's vibe felt like being at a wedding reception dance floor more than a nightclub, it was fun nonetheless; the Tiger beer flowed from pitchers and the view of nighttime Singapore from above provided a nice final memory of my last night in Asia.

THE NIGHT WAS FUN but the morning after I was back to my melancholy "sinking in" feeling of anxiety with the harsh realization that my 16-month trip around the world would be over soon. I sat on a bed alone in the inn at "stupid o'clock" feeling a little "lost in translation" (picture above), but pulled myself together to get ready for my early morning eastbound flight ahead. I autographed and left behind my last copy of the Hyenas... book for Jean to wish her good luck on her new hostel (and to finally get that book on the shelf of any hostel since I hadn't seen it anywhere in the world), finished my tea, and left the entry keycard on an empty bed. I put on my pack and looked at the empty and lonely hostel the same depressed way I once did when I looked at my empty apartment in metro New York for the last time, after I had packed it up and moved out to save money for the trip in the first place.

Sigh.

I turned off the lights and closed the door behind me like Sam Malone on the series finale episode of Cheers and moved on. The ending had already begun.

SAVE THE DATE; DAY 503 IS COMING. MARCH 5, 2005, NYC.
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