Singapore - Exploration

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  Singapore, Singapore
Tuesday, September 2, 2008

I had a delicious Chicken Curry at the Chinatown complex, less than 1 minutes walk from my hostel. There were rows and rows of hawkers, with great food, but dissappointingly little/no bubble tea - this surprised me a little. Aud tells me it has gone out of fashion. I did find a mango green tea which was to my liking however, even if I couldn't have the JR/Coconut Jelly/Aloe Vera contaminants I love so dearly back in the chinese shops in Christchurch. Then I headed back to Outram park (see prev entry), took some photos and recovered my keys from under the bench where I left them (yeah, like, totally meant to do that...).

Singapore definitely lived up to my expectations in terms of cleanliness and safety. A very secure environment. Everything is massive, and sometimes seems over-designed when riding the tubes/public transport system, or loitering in the malls. Then again, the scale of things seems justified then one is strolling down an MRT station underpass (tunnel which goes down below an underground line) during rush hour. While being very westernised, Singapore is very non-western. During the first day, less than half a percent of the people I met were imperialist lang-grabbing whiteys. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of culture in the regions I frequented, and also just that dreading the big-city thing initially, found it to be comfortable, convenient and a down-right ruddy-good adventure.

Then I went onwards to the Chinese Garden, which is further along the East-West line, away from the airport. At the MRT station, I went to the Cheers shop, and got a 1L carton of guava juice with pear chunks. I LOVE this stuff - couldn't wait to get out into the heat to sweat more so I could absorb more of this wonderful drink! As for the Chinese Garden, I just saw the destination on the MRT line map, and thought it might be of interest. Went along with low expectations, and had a fascinating afternoon stroll around the beautiful stone carvings, flowers, and the awesome bansai garden. Wildlife was fairly straightforward - dragonflies, some sort of *giant bee* (think bumble bee, only in a stretched stretched limo variant), a lizard in a hedge, birds and a quick flash of some sort of water dragon which was laying its eggs at a tree trunk. I only got a glimpse, but this was a big lizard.

The highlight was definitely the bansai garden, which I heartily recommended to my UK dorm-mates. I headed off about 4:30pm, opting to forego the sensational lantern/rides/attractions which began at 6pm, as I wanted to meet up with Aud, and Hello-Kitty (the theme of ALL the attractions) was not really my scene. I caught the MRT to Clementi where my friend Aud lives, planning to get online since I had stupidly forgotten to obtain/record her contact details, even though we were expecting to meet up that evening. After wandering till my feet/thighs hurt, and finding no interwebs  (although I did find a carton of Mangosteen and Pomegranite - you know, like, the best two fruits in existance - juice, which was simply awesome. Seems Singapore has citywide(ish) wireless, if you have a login for Wireless@SG - I did not, and moreover it was not linux friendly.

I got back to my hostel, and after finally getting the boss to come in (the Filipino maid had to get him to come in, maybe from his shop), I got wireless, even if I could only use it while sitting outdoors. I got hold of Aud, and since it was too late, we decided to meet up the following evening. I spent a while geeking in the hot singaporean evening, and meeting my shireling (from Devonshire, UK) dorm-mates.

I was also approached by a Malay guy, and 5-6 Pakastani guys who  I discovered the next day were staying in the backpackers (different dorm). They didn't mention this to me, and I thought for a while they were after something from me (came up, shook my hand, and lit up cigarettes and sat around me talking in a foreign tongue - they were all garment merchants after all, so had that charisma about them). The Malay fellow seemed surprised I was not married - I discovered while chatting with a German fellow who showed up the next night that I look 30ish to some of the Pakistanis. They seemed similarly to me, despite claiming to be around my age or younger.

At around midnight, I decided to call it a night, as I had not slept a wink in 40 hours.

[photos for this entry are at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=49580&l=6adef&id=659346291 ]

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