The weather is steadily hot, but the sun comes and goes and the city is full of trees - and indoor walkways through shopping concourses - so it really is lovely. Tuesday was only the second time since we've been here that a good thunderstorm made us change our plans. We had gone by bus to Harbourfront but decided that taking the cable car to Sentosa in the steady rain would be a waste of money; then the thunder and lightning confirmed our choice! We'll try again Thursday when the Sentosa Cove docks open to the public for the festivities of the Volvo Ocean Race Singapore stopover.

In the meantime yesterday we went to the Singapore Discovery Centre. What is this place? You could call it the Museum of Celebrating Singapore, or the Singapore Shameless Propaganda Centre, depending on your opinion. It consists of a set of very cool multimedia & interactive exhibits, like a high-tech science museum without any pretense of actual science, and a giant flat-screen theater in which we watched 2 movies in rapid succession. The overall message is: be proud of Singapore because it is unique and a wonderful place to live, and take care of Singapore because it is fragile for many reasons. Most of the displays are things like: a set of huge video games in which you have to try to save future Singaporeans who have dispersed across the galaxies to other planets, who are suffering from problems or disasters that are fictional versions of real concerns of modern Singapore; or cultural celebrations (folk dancing, with a high-tech interface, or an interactive Singapore-trivia game set up to feel like you are on a TV show), some optical gadgets like a floor you can kick a virtual ball around on, or see a virtual underwater city until you move and send ripples across the water....etc., etc., all with a heavy-handed Singapore Is Great theme.

One exhibit is very different: there is a theater in the round (marked clearly with NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN! NOT SUITABLE FOR THOSE WITH HEART CONDITIONS, PREGNANT WOMEN, THE ELDERLY etc.) where you can experience a virtual terrorist attack, a backpack bomb on the MRT at Raffles Place. You're getting off the train; the train blows up; people panic, fires burn, it's dark, blood and bodies everywhere. They REALLY want people to think about how they could help prevent or deal with such an emergency, and to be grateful to the Singapore Armed Forces for protecting us.