Shopping in Singapore
Trip Start
Jun 07, 2004
1
49
50
Trip End
Nov 27, 2004
Singapore,
Singapore
Sunday, November 21, 2004
Naturally when travelling first class, there are acres of legroom, plush carpeting and a butler who brings drinks. My belly is full from a junk-feast at the KL railway station branch of MacDonald's. There are four Scandinavian girls in the carriage. Border formalities are simple and quick. I am stamped into Singapore, meaning I must have visited three countries in the past week alone. Its dark when we pull into Singapore railway station, I am a little travel weary and still not up to full strength. Yet here I must overcome my ailment and begin walking the streets with a full backpack in search of a cheap hotel in an unfamiliar city.
There are very few buses from the railway station, actually none. Taxis will not stop to pick me up. And the reason for this is that it's now somewhere between 11pm and midnight. After midnight, taxis can make a surcharge. So they drive around pretending to be busy while waiting for the meter clock to strike 12. Then you'll have no trouble getting one. Eventually, I see what looks like a backpacker hotel and indeed it is, but its pricey. The helpful chap in reception suggests another and calls me a taxi. Apologising for the fact I have had to walk. I am taken to the Cozy Corner which is reached up a flight of stairs. And I check in to a clean and comfortable place that's cheap enough. Internet use is also free, but that's not always a good thing - it means the machines are constantly in use and you'll have to sit and wait. The breakfast is a fair offering of your standard continental fare - bread and jam, cereals and tea and coffee. The place is very busy and I move into a dorm bed on day two. Having previously had the use of a bed in a corridor.
As I turn left at the bottom of the stairs, within a small number of minutes I am standing outside the very famous and exclusive Raffles Hotel. This strikes me as a bit odd. Sort of like having the Salvation Army positioned next door to the Savoy. Perhaps it's because Singapore and its outlying islands are so small, that everything is next door. It's the smallest country in south east Asia.
I jump on a tube, and get out at ' frenzy-central ', being Orchard tube station. The Oxford Street of Asia. It's nearly Christmas and I trudge the length of the world's biggest shopping bonanza dodging people's oversized shopping bags. Huge bloody great handfuls of brightly coloured bags with designer names plastered all over them. There are gaping entrances to shopping malls promising to be bigger and better than the one next door. An absolute circus of consumerism gone mental. I hear they enjoy higher then average standards of living in Singapore and it seems to me that they greedily crave more and more of the excesses of the West. Crowds of nicely dressed people are chatting into their wireless BlackBerrys as they strut along Orchard Road. From aircon office to aircon shopping mall for a cappuccino with their dog's hairdresser. This place ain't for me - and it certainly doesn't feel remotely like Christmas ! The tropical heat makes sure of that.
Next ; The best thing about Singapore is leaving.
