Xing

Hey darlings! You are so lucky to be reading my first blog entry, of my first job.

This is the way to see the world- everyone should try it. I get paid to stay in Venice, my apartment, utilities, food and transport are all taken care of, and I meet tons of brilliant, or very important, people. And not just any apartment, but a serviced apartment. A good deal of the time at the pavilion I’m hanging out in our cool designer bathroom, commissioned by the artist and conjured up by Isabella Dellio- it’s about the size of three bedrooms and the sink bottom is a mirror. When visitors stroll in to take a look, the first thing they see is me with a cute red pail and matching mop, swishing around at the water on the floor, and they can’t wait to take pictures of me. It’s sooo much more glamorous than being a model!

One of the first things I thought about while coming in on the ferry from the airport was, why don’t we hear more about swimming in Venice? Shouldn’t the whole water culture and canals thing be perfect for enticing sun-loving tourists and scuba divers? I’d expected to see people jumping off the boats. Instead everyone was standing around just like they do on the MRT in Singapore. They should have vendors distributing colourful inflatable floats by the water’s edge, and hawking ice creams and sunglasses, so that all the gorgeous girls and guys could drift around on hot days. Think of the idyllic scene it’d create, the floats blocking the gondolas and ferries so that activity slows to match the speed of the drifters. Occasional little outbursts when a boat bumps up against a girl’s float and upsets her 5 Euro milkshake, but nothing more disturbing than that. Oh, and then I’d set up ice kachang stalls, really good and really cheap, so that the world would get hooked. Once my stalls spring up in every country, I’ll never have to worry about being deprived of it for long periods again.

I’m very glad that most of the Venetian shopkeepers I’ve encountered are not tourist-focused marketeers sprouting stock phrases in English to keep foreigners like me happy. I needed an ATM machine the other day and couldn’t find anyone who knew what it was, I finally spotted one I’d missed along the street.