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Singapore
Travel weary at this point (oh so hard-up are we!), the scheduled 4 day pit-stop in Singapore to see two of our good friends Rani and Jon couldn't have come at a better time. The plan in Singapore was to catch up, put feet up and torment poor Rani and Jon with the pictures amassed so far!On landing in Singapore the first thing that hit us was the heat and humidity. Just like being in a tropical palm house at a botanical garden. This was quickly improved when we got into the air-conditioned coolness of Jon and Rani's car. Since we'd spent most of the day flying an early night would have been sensible, however Jon had a trick up his sleeve and introduced me to a cop show that has been aired in the US and UK. It's called the Shield and revolves around the dealings of an effective but dirty cop called Vic Mackie. It has really got us hooked, no wonder the actor Michael Chicklis has won an Emmy for his performances so far. So after about four episodes and good Thai food, we had to go to bed. The next day we resisted the urge to squeeze in a few more episodes of the Shield, and Rani took us on a guided tour of Arab street. This is where rugs, silks and other materials are sold. This was preceded by an Indian breakfast of masala dosa and coffee. The small streets bustled and overhead the sounds of the Mosque's call to mid-day prayer added to the throng. Singapore has a mix of people; Chinese, Malaysian, Indian and Western ex-pats and so is an interesting melting pot of cultures. We also took a trip to Chinatown and went to a cultural museum detailing how life was like for the early settlers in Singapore. There is a reconstruction on two floors of the tiny, dark and smokey rooms that people used to live in. There is some video interviews of the first generation immigrants, illustrating the tough life these people had. In fact Singapore has only really been developed for about 40 years thanks to massive development started in the 1960s. Rani took us to a local indoor market just to get a flavour of the local produce. You can get everything from frog to turtles to durian fruit there. On the subject of durian fruit, we were bought a couple to try. These are spiky fruit about the size of a large mango. Their smell is best left for outdoors hence they are banned from the underground system in Singapore! They taste a bit like raw onions, garlic and custard apples. Interesting taste, but I don't think I will be writing Edger's 101 cooking secrets of the durian. Singapore is a good place to do shopping and electronics goods are a lot cheaper here - no surprises I was particularly interested in the Funan I.T. mall. I was pulled away kicking and screaming until I realised it had been 62.43 minutes since my last coffee so capitulated to the desires to "get the hell away from geek central". The hugely cosmopolitan Orchard street draws a lot of tourists and has all kinds of shops to abuse the plastic with. We spent a few hours wandering there. I finally got my hair cut by a lovely fellow called Dior ("you like to party la?") and told me a lot about the club scene in Singapore. Sunday morning was brunch day with a chance to meet Rani's mum and dad. We were taken to the American club which is a club, where you've guessed it, American ex-pats congregate. Brunch was an absolute massive buffet spread and by the end of the session we couldn't move. We had a good time chatting to Rani's mum about the parts of Singapore we'd seen so far, and a bit more on the history. 
No stay in Singapore is complete until a few drinks at the Raffle's hotel have been quaffed. We wandered around the hotel grounds for a bit and we eventually found the "Long bar" for Singapore slings. Great! The floor was covered with used peanut shells and we contributed by working our way through the pile of nuts on our table!One of the best things about having our stay organised by Rani and Jon was that we got to parts of Singapore that the locals enjoy and had some really good local food. We certainly owe them a good lobster dinner when they visit us next year! :: posted by Lliam 8/12/04 |