Singapore - Hobart
Trip Start
Jan 11, 2009
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2
Trip End
Jan 12, 2009
Singapore, Singapore
Monday, January 12, 2009
But then Singapore is a pretty good place to feel messed up, as I got the impression the whole city is kind of muddled up in its priorities. A little way down Victoria Road from our hotel was a complex called Chijmes, replete with the usual array of bars, restaurants and shops, though it stuck out rather obviously as it just been converted from a large 19th century church. Compare this to a shopping centre on Orchard Road, the commercial strip that gave birth to Singapore’s modern religious obsession with the consumer driven attainment of material possessions, where the marble foundation stone announced in big capital letters “Glory be unto God”
It was a pity Ronald's new friend wasn't...
. There obviously wasn’t quite enough glory going around at Chijmes during its former incantation. The very icon of the golden arches halfway along Orchard Road was in full charm mode himself, a very cheerful Ronald McDonald sat outside on a bench regaling a passer-by with mystic tales of chasing the Hamburglar all over the Orient. It was just a pity his new friend wasn’t really lovin’ it.
But that was nothing compared to the advice I got from a turbaned Sikh who had approached me on Victoria Street earlier in the day. His first words were, rather confidently, that “a penis will come to you next month.” I hesitated for a second, thinking that one is probably enough for the moment. Soon he was closer and he pointed at my face before continuing, “I can see from your forehead you are very lucky man. A penis will come to you next month.”
“Hold on, is he calling me a dickhead?” I thought to myself as I turned to walk away.
“I tell you another thing”, the Sikh began to say, though I continued walking without giving him a second glance, so I wasn’t able to receive another sage piece of prophesy
Shannon and Katie in the Botanical Gardens.
. It took me about another ten seconds to realise he hadn’t been talking about an extra piece of manhood at all. He’d said happiness. As it happened I’d have gladly traded happiness next month for a good map more immediately. Shannon was taking the day off work and we had arranged to meet for lunch in the Botanical Gardens. The previous night I had turned down her offer of picking us up from the hotel on the basis that it was putting her out and that it wasn’t too far for us to easily walk, it looked as if the gardens were just off the edge of the city map we had been given on arrival. Unfortunately it was one of those times where things weren’t quite as straightforward as I imagined it would be, which, my wife is only too eager to remind me, does happen from time to time. Having left the length of Orchard Road behind we passed by some foreign embassies and expatriate residential areas in the Tanglin area before I guessed we’d walked too far in a wrong direction and we turned around. Katie asked a few people for directions, though each subsequent person seemed to contradict the others before them, and this left us even more confused than before. Eventually, we ended up in a quiet and leafy residential street that ended in a cul-de-sac, and just when we debating whether we’d ever get there, we came upon an American woman leaving a posh block of flats in jogging gear. It turned out she was originally from the same city where Katie went to college and, as she was going jogging in the Botanical Gardens herself, was only too happy to lead us there.
Significantly late by the time we met Shannon in the garden food court, she then had to wait even longer on us while we found some lunch. I felt bad that we had wasted her whole morning, coming on top of the fact that we had already established it was her I had hung up on the previous morning in the hotel. This, at the very least, explained why Geoffrey at the hotel tour desk hadn’t seemed all that offended when I met with him.
We had far less time to roam around the Botanical Gardens before making our transfer to the airport than planned, and the gardens themselves occupied a much bigger space than I’d imagined, so we barely touched the southern edge of what was a stunning sanctuary.
But I’m glad there is still so much more to see here (and the city in general), that we didn’t have the time to do. On a subsequent trip to Australia to see my family and friends we both want to return to Singapore again, to enjoy what it has to offer (and of course get some of that good quality sleep that can’t be had in an Economy class cabin).
And so, after this time graciously accepting Shannon’s offer of a lift to meet the shuttle, we headed towards Changi Airport, and I was suddenly struck with the different resonance that that particular location can evoke between people of different generations. For me Changi has been one of the world’s most efficient and pleasant airports to spend a few hours in transit, and at this moment in particular we had the novelty of our impending first flight on the double-decker Airbus A380 Superjumbo (or, the Flying Dugong as I like to call it, due to the distinctive shape of the front of the aircraft). But for those of my grandparents’ generation it has had a much grimmer connotation. My next door neighbour of the house where I grew up was one of tens of thousands of Allied servicemen held in the Changi prisoner of war camp in this area by the Japanese during the Second World War. Apparently there’s a small museum dedicated to the camp not far from its former location. It’s yet another thing for me to check out on a future Singapore stopover.
