KvZ. Did you know that chewing gum is illegal in Singapore? Turns out there’s a lot I we didn’t know about Singapore..and we are suffering from acute culture shock having come straight from Kolkata in India to this impeccably clean futuristic dream city. We weren’t sure whether Singapore was a country or city…it’s both! And did I say that Kathmandu was “Switzerland clean” compared to India? Well, Singapore is not even in the same league. The airport feels like something out of a sci-fi movie…Tim was walking along mumbling something about George Jetson…as we walked straight from the airport into the “metro” where you could eat off the floor…AND it’s air-conditioned. That amplified, sci-fi sultry-but-sterile voice fills the air, telling you which stop you are at, while everyone ignores you in order to read their text messages or play with their PSP’s. I love it! It’s actually a relief to be ignored (only a few people have taken photos of us) and I think it’s because Singapore is such a diverse collection of people that Western tourists are just one more group in the crowd. Normally I don’t like modern cities because I just feel like I’m in Miami or something, but this is SO contemporary that it’s eye-candy for the Architect in me. Also, we haven’t been in a developed modern city for sooo long…I guess it’s a welcome change. When the metro raised up into an elevated track above the city and we got our first glimpse of the skyline, I swear it looked just like an architectural rendering of a city-scape….the sky was blue with big, white puffy clouds, little tiny people far below were running around- immaculately dressed, ultra-contemporary buildings everywhere you looked, no congested traffic….really just the ideal futuristic city. We tried to figure out why it was so clean, because we didn’t see janitors running around. Then we noticed that people were not throwing trash everywhere! Can you believe this? And nobody, I mean NOBODY was spitting! Incredible! In India and Nepal everyone chews that awful, red tobacco and then they spit it out anywhere…someone will choose a spot on a wall to spit the first time…and everyone else will follow suit until the wall becomes completely red…then they’ll move onto another spot. When we found out that chewing gum is not allowed to be sold in stores here it hardly surprised us. I think spitting is probably illegal too..there are signs everywhere that say “No Spitting”.
Orchard Road, Singapore’s popular shopping street
after a red-flight from Kolkata Singapore’s ultra modern MRT was much appreciated
Segways on Sentosa Island
We decided to stay in “Little India” (which at first we could not keep accidently saying “Little Italy”) because it was cheap. But we also thought it might be a good segway out of India…so we wouldn’t miss it too much. A good decision because it is SWAMPED with Indians and Indian restaurants…except that the buildings are all new and sterile and there are no rickshaws or beggars. I have not seen one beggar in Singapore…not ONE. I would bet that is illegal too. In a country where drug trafficking is punishable by death, and free speech isn’t even a concept readily understood, I wouldn’t risk begging either. One night we happened to come back to our hotel on a Sunday evening on the bus, and weren’t paying much attention to the stops, when all of a sudden at least 20 Indian men piled on. Sure enough…the Little India stop. We jumped off and the entire town was swarming with Indian men in their 20′s to 40′s. Evidently they get 2-year contracts to come over here and work (construction jobs, manual labor mostly) so they are here without their families. Sunday night they all come hang out just stand around in groups talking…hundreds of them. Pretty cool for them really, to socialize this way.
bridge at Clark’s Quay
world’s largest ferris wheel the Singapore Flyer at 528′ high sits next to a floating soccer field
Drew and Becca getting a luge lesson at Sentosa Island
dining pod at a restaurant at Clark’s Quay
We’re staying in a hostel and we have a room with 2 bunk beds..perfect. Typical hostel with breakfast included and a “living room” area with TV and internet. It’s very clean and about twice what we’re used to paying. There is no possible way to stay on budget here. Have you ever heard that Singapore is great for shopping? Well, only if you happen to have a couple of thousand bucks in your pocket. One night we went out to a Mexican restaurant on the river and nearly spent our entire daily allowance. We also splurged and went to Singapore’s “playground” which is an entirely man-made island just across the water and complete with well-placed sand beaches and a complete theme park called “Underwater World”. The kids loved it…it had a complete aquarium (cool fish we’d never seen before such as huge cuttlefish. sea angels, giant spider crabs, and the mammal “sea cow”.) It had a rotating tower from which you could see all of Singapore below, a “luge” ride where you speed downhill in go-carts..plus we got to try out those cool “Segway” motorized upright vehicles that you stand on and zip around. The next day we walked through the Botanical Gardens that are so neatly groomed that you felt like you were on hotel grounds. The “Theater on the Bay” is an amazing pair of theaters (one outdoor and one indoor) right on the water, and of course there was Chinatown. We took the metro everywhere. Speaking of China, we were annoyed when we had to fill out so much paperwork for our China visas, indignant to pay so much for our Indian visas, but downright insulted when discovered we couldn’t even begin to think about going to Russia without a “written invitation”. Besides that requirement, you must also be in your country of residence WHEN you apply for the visa, which of course is impossible for us. I was incredulous at to why they would make it so hard for us to come just for a visit. Then I remembered the requirements for getting a visa into our own country and was quickly put in my place. The US demands more paperwork, red tape, and money than probably all the countries we’ve been to put together. Still…we can’t help be feel let down that we will not be able to go to Russia..especially when it is SO CLOSE! So we’ve scratched that one off our list and have settled for seeing Malaysia instead, a few extra days in Singapore when we come back from there, and maybe tacking Japan onto the very end. Hmmm. Just writing that last sentence reminds me that I don’t really have much to complain about. Bye bye to Russia….Here we come, Malaysia!
looking down from high atop the tower at Sentosa Island
Sentosa tram // Becca finds the first store with lots of cheese in a long time
checking out the sharks at Sentosa’s aquarium
