Singapore: The Perfect City

Saturday, January 6, 2007

And so begins our time in Singapore. We first head to Chinatown for some dim sum at Da Dong on Smith Street (LP recommended) where we consume (thanks for the list, Steve!): bean curd and prawn dumpling, steamed shrimp dumping, pork buns, Chinese vegetables, spinach, and dried prawn dumpling, and banana and prawn fried spring roll with sugar coating. They we walk around Chinatown in what is already a pretty sticky heat, though it is abated because there is tons and tons of greenery along the streets that provide shade and (maybe) some nice oxygen. We wander through a little park to the Thian Hock Keng Temple, gazing at some of the colorful decorations and peering and some little drawers with people's ancestors' faces pasted on it where they can leave offerings. We also passed a health clinic that was mobbed with people, we later found out that this is a place where traditional Chinese medicine is practiced (in a surprisingly moden building) and it either gives its services for free or at big discounts.

We then head to the URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority) gallery, where we spend an unprecedented three hours (!). The museum is basically an homage to Singapore's past formation (from even before the British colonization of Sir Stamford Raffles in 1819) and plans for future development. I took some notes of funny phrases in the captions at the exhibits, including "tropical metropolis," "garden city," "enhancement of lush greenery," "visual corridors of light," and the ever-so-redundant "multicultural diversity." I really do love Singapore.

I had two favorite parts: the quiz show where they asked you trivia questions about Singapore where you could punch in answers and the televised, prerecorded hosts were really funny (I shared this experience with two children under the age of 10) and the part of the museum where they displayed how Singapore wants to improve its lighting so that the skyline, the streets, the promenades, the river, the parks, etc. will look better at night. Wow. Part of this exhibit had a computer where you could click on different cities and see nighttime lit-up photos. We argued about whether the one of NYC looked north or south, Steve claims it was north, and a bridge on the left was the Queensboro and the right was the GW, but I asked where Central Park was, which usually appears as a darker rectangle in the middle of the island, and he could not point it out. Oh well, maybe it was a doctored photograph.

We were starving by the time we got out, and a local had told me to eat at the Maxwell Road Food Center across the way, Stall #10 was also in LP, and it had the longest line in the hawker center (Singapore forbids street food vendors to actually be on the street, so they all congregate in large covered centers with what is likely a much higher standard for cleanliness). While waiting in line for the acclaimed Stall #10, Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, we took turns running off to other stalls to get some snacks for the wait, including: sweet fried balls stuffed with sweet potatoes, coconut, and peanut and a chicken curry puff. After the chicken rice (in which the chicken seemed more than a bit underdone...), we had zhu choy fun (basically slippery wide noodle wrappings that usually have shrimp inside with dim sum) and DELICIOUS dried radish on rice cakes called chwee kway. On the way out, we buy a fried banana and a peanut pancake roll to save for the road.

We are very full and it is very hot, but I am in a great mood even when Steve wants to wander around the financial district "to see what it is like." There were tall buildings. It was Saturday and it was kind of deserted. A side note: when we arrived in Changi Aiport, the best airport in the world (no really, it has won that award), there was a sign advertising Deutsche Bank (which has a big office in Singapore, Steve said) as we were going through immigration. We took that as a good omen. We then went in search of a Singapore river cruise, and after a dead end at the closed Clifford Pier, found an office near the Merlion (half mermaid, half lion) statue at the point where the river empties into the harbor.

After a jaunt through the gorgeous five-star Fullerton Hotel that is inside the old high-ceilinged post office, we cross the river on a bridge that has a sign forbidding cows and horses (hehe) to go to the Asian Civilizations Museum, where we join up with a tour leaving about two minutes after we bought our tickets. The museum was great -- it provided a nice summary of Southeast Asian art, religion, and culture at the end of our whirlwind tour of the area. Our guide ran through a lot of material very quickly, leaving our heads a bit fogged, but the museum was wonderful. We didn't take advantage of these because we were on a tour, but in all the exhibit rooms were these heads on little TV screens, and if you press a button, they will talk to you about various topics. When they aren't "on" the images sort of just hang out on the screen, people with their eyes darting around until you sort of activate them to tell you about the exhibit. Weird. But cool.

Steve likes to go to the tops of buildings, so we go to the top of the Stamford Hotel and find a bar on the 70th floor, where I have coffee and Steve has something alcoholic. We can see all the way to Malaysia from the top! (Singapore is not very big, being a city and a country at the same time. Maybe this isn't that impressive.) We noted that outside of the city centre, most of Singapore consists of tall (at least 20-story) residential apartment buildings. Then we walk through the colonial district north to Little India, where I buy more Indian music CDs and some earrings, then we walk through the Arab quarter and see some beautiful mosques illuminated in dusk.

After regaining some energy at the hotel, we head out for the night -- first going back to the Merlion statue for our river cruise, which we take to Clarke Quay (pronounced "key"), which is a really hopping spot for nightlife that has been built up only recently. We walk back east along the river to Boat Quay, a more subdued version of Clarke Quay, then we had to the Raffles Hotel for drinks at its famed Long Bar. I have some ginger ale and Steve has the signature drink, a Singapore Sling, apparently invented in the early 1900s. There were very cool old-fashioned fans on the ceilings were made of rows of actual woven straw fans, there was cool music, and the floor was covered in peanut shells so it crunched as we walked. Peanuts were served gratis to every table, of course.

Steve was somehow hungry even after the day o' lots of good food, so we went down to another hawker center by the Esplanade (Singapore's cultural center which looks like a durian, the spiky signature smelly bitter fruit of the Malay penninsula) called Glutton's Bay, where we had chicken satay and roti kaya, which is toasted bread cut into strips with and egg and coconut dipping sauce).

Sunday, January 7, 2007

We start at Orchard Road, the main shopping area, and eat in the food court of Wista Mall (Steve's recollection is that we had: a red bean paste bun, prawn green chewy dumplings, a spicy Indian-style chicken curry pancake called murtabak, and roti prata with egg and cheese. We also had yellow watermelon. I then bought some kuih for the road, which had various things like peanut and cocunut inside a sticky rice cake type covering.) I turns out that I could not find a return flight from Bali for less than $500, and to spend 24 hours there before I departed from Singapore for Shanghai seemed not worth it, so Steve and I prepared to spend our last few hours together at the Botanical Gardens before his flight. (I only lost about $65 by not flying to Bali -- we had gotten a good fare on the way there.)

Steve got us lost on the long walk to the Botanical Gardens, but when we finally found it, it was worth it. We saw a plant with giant leaves, lots of beautiful jungle-y greenery (Singapore is very close to the equator), and the famed Orchid Garden. After wandering through tbe beautiful scenery, we cut it close for Steve's flight and cab it back to the New Seventh Storey Hotel, where Steve grabs his luggage and rushes off to the airport, and I get a little lonely.

So I take a nap for a few hours and head out to explore Little India some more, finding that there are inexplicable hordes of Indian men just roaming about the streets. I later learn that Singapore has a large migrant worker population and they have off on Sunday evenings, so that's why all of them were just having social hour out on the street. I enjoyed looking at the pretty facades before heading south on the MRT for dinner at Lau Pa Sat, another hawker centre, where I have the following: carrot cake, which is also called chai tow kway, a diced and stir fried radish dish with flecks of carrot with an egg mixture and soy sauce, some yummy shrimp-and-veggie dumplings, popiah, a spring roll stuffed turnip, shrimp, and lettuce, as well as a kind of icky fruit drink that is apparently popular in Malaysia, as well as ice kacang, which is a mound of crushed ice on a bse of gelatin-like cubes, red beans, and corn, and it had four different flavors of syrup running down the side. See Cuisine of Singapore for more descriptions of how and why Singapore has such good food.

Monday, January 8, 2007

I start with a coffee and breakfast in the Arab Quarter after browsing through some of the bazillion fabric shops there. I befriend a Singapore native and a nice Argentinian couple and we all have a nice chat. I then head to the Mustafa Center in Little India for some shopping and leave with FIVE PAIRS of sparkly shoes and too many (is there every too many?) Indian-hip-hop remix type CDs and a cute bag to carry it all in. I am asked to lunch by a nice guy working in the shoe section and I claim that I have to go meet a friend. On my first day on my own in a while, I was going to embrace flying solo!

I had lunch at a lovely vegetarian Indian restaurant, and then took a cab to East Coast Parkway, which has nice biking trails and a sweet beach north of Little India -- but still only 15 minutes away by cab AND accessible by public transportation. There were palm trees and water and couples out playing with their kids and dogs, and people rollerblading. The weather was perfect. Singapore is WONDERFUL. I people-watched and watched the beginnings of sunset before catching a cab back to the hotel to wash off all the sand. Then I met up with Andrew and Ai Li of Melacca fame and they treated me to dinner at the Bugis hawker centre (right by our hotel, which was at the Bugis MRT stop).

I had the following: a drink with grass jelly and soya beans, rice cakes with dried turnip/radish, coconut rice with pork and chestnuts and vegetables, prawn noodle Hokkien mee, rojak (peanut and shrimp in yummy sauce), sprouts, cucumber, and vegetables stir-fried with bean curd, milk tea, as well as durian and mangosteen for dessert. Yum. I bid them a fond farewell and went back to the hotel to grab my luggage and head to Changi Airport for some quality free internet before my 2 a.m. flight to Shanghai for the next adventure!