Cleopatra

Visited the excellent National Museum of Singapore.
Like so much of the British influence in this part of the world, it bears the mark of Queen Victoria.  Rotunda?  More like So-so-tunda.  Okay, not my best.  Let me workshop that one.
This is the Singapore Stone dating from the 13th (or as early as the 10th) century.  The curator told us the inscription was written in Old Javenese or possibly Sanskrit but remains largely undeciphered.

Its cultural significance can’t be overstated.  For such a young country (dating only from 1965!) its important to have a touchstone (not literally) that they can point to (sometimes literally) and say, “See?  We’ve been here a long, long time!”My favorite part of the museum was this section on “amusements” that was built like a drive-in movie theater with cut out car facades as seats.
Um, how am I just now discovering now discovering Southeast Asian exploitation flick heroine Cleopatra Wong?  (Hypothesis:  if your title contains the name “Cleopatra” you are either intentionally or unintentionally making an exploitation flick.)There was a harrowing section of the museum dedicated to the Japanese invasion and occupation of Singapore during World War II.  It was all chilling, but I found the desperation to eat durian seeds particularly haunting.