Exercises - Putting on a Show

The USS Pearl Harbour — in town.
The USS New Orleans: docked.
The USS Reagan: present and accounted for.
(The last a nuclear powered super-carrier, mistakenly named by the informant The Megan. Understandable error.)
All three in at Changi Naval Base. Around 2500 men taking turns to visit the town. Precious carefree shore-leave here with not too much to worry about. Prices can be expected to be jacked to match the wallets: bars, hotels, the girls. A little bonanza for the local economy. As the informant this morning suggested, not the slightest whisper in the newspaper. Nada. It's not happening. Double page Rolex ad and Hublot (a competitor) weighing into the market with a page of its own. Reviews of the "good, bad and ugly" of the year from China in pics: disaster, pandas, protests &etc. Chrissy pics across the globe. Harkening back to Vietnam, the local prostitution industry caters to all tastes, temperaments and budgets. Five nation exercises, the cabbie reported. Were it not for the concerns in Syria, the evolving situation over there, the Kitty Hawk might have cut across from Diego Garcia to join the power-show, according to the man. That would make it the better part of five thousand yearning foot-loose souls needing welcome. Needing specifically transportation. (In fact informant a little out of date in the last regard: the Kitty was de-commissioned some years ago; projections for a museum in one of the U.S. ports.) The other day in the papers a surveillance pic of the first Chinese air-craft carrier riding blue waters; article listed the various national numbers: the U.S. so many, Russia, Great Britain, France. And now, worryingly, China joining the club. Putting on a big show here has to help negotiations over the troublesome terms of trade; coalition of democracies possibly able to press human rights for the Tibetans, Taiwanese, Uyghur and other minorities at the same time, work on pollution emissions—the whole she-bang.