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Singapore: A Fine City Indeed

So reads the ubiquitous t-shirt, in the surprisingly- able-to-have -a-sense-of- humor-about- itself dictatorial city-state on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula.

We arrived weary after a few hour flight on airasia.com (yes, that's the official name of the airline), to a hypermodern airport a striking contrast to those we saw in Indonesia. (And, I believe, the highest ranked airport on the great website, sleepinginairports.com, and yes, they really do have free foot massage machines there). Customs was simple, taxi was seamless. Zipping down clean new highways, past billboards advertising- what, yes, the Women's World Championship Netball Tournament is RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW in SINGAPORE! We could even go! How totally random! We were dropped at our hotel- a cheapie by Singapore standards but still more than twice what we were spending in Indonesia. The place was a little cigarette-smokey, and a little prostitutey. But hey, the price was right and it was basically across the street from the eat-off-the-platform clean Singapore mass transit subway/skytrain thingy.

Day one we wandered around the city center, or tried to find the city center. All the buildings seemed like new skyscrapers, and the heat and humidity and lack of breeze could only be described as "punishing" even well into the afternoon. In terms of aesthetics, I can basically describe Singapore as "like China, but clean," we is not exactly a ringing endorsement. But we strolled by the river and past little shops and pubs that were touristy but charming, kind of "Wee-Britain" district of smaller scale colonial buildings along the water. From there we wandered to the "colonial district" which distinctly lacks colonial buildings, although there were a few cute old British Empire-Era government buildings that were nice to look at, and imagine what it might have been like once upon a time. Not much else besides malls, although we did stop by a high end mall food court for lunch, where we had some kick-ass dumplings and dim-sum, watching cooks behind glass and wearing surgical masks preparing our food with the utmost hygienic care. Re-energized we headed out to walk in this apparently unwalkable city that is built for either subways or SUVs, and soon found ourselves exhausted by the heat again. Searching for something besides air-conditioned mega-malls to cool off, we followed signs and wandered up to a park, historic Fort Canning Park in search of shade and relief.

Again, a charming old British era fort and park, and we headed up to an old colonial building, only to hear pounding noise as we approached. Sure enough, we rounded the bend and saw handmade signs advertising Singapore DethFest 2011, and legions of black clad, tattooed and pierced, chainmail wearing pan-Asian death metal fans milling about, selling merch, and greeting friends each time the door swung open to blast more music outward into the park. Now this was a definite incongruity with the image of a sterile Singapore no doubt, but what made it more hilarious was the fact that literally steps away, a traditional wedding was setting up. Next to the dethfest sign was a sign pointed to Steven and Ashley's wedding, which meant watching well-heeled evening gown clad guests walk past dethfest attendees and up toward the white rose covered trellis and enjoy lemonade and quiet conversation while every few minutes the muted death metal roar exploded outward as the doors opened. We just sat and people watched the whole thing, each group seemingly oblivious of the other, and not seeming to mind the presence of their celebratory neighbors. And, in that cool Singapore way, both groups were as diverse internally as externally- Chinese descendants mingled with Subcontinentals, a few old British folks and Malaysians wandered around in each group, and really showed the best of Singapore as a successfully diverse, pluralist, multicultural place. And yes, English is the official language, but its a strange English, like India - sort of British, and sort of its own thing, peppered with odd (to our ears) idioms and accents, and responses that give pause, like when you say "thank you" the response is "never mind."

Finally, as both the sun and mosquitos began to descend, we headed down and back to the streets before wandering into the national museum, free after 6PM. A great interactive exhibit traced the history of hawker food from the British colonial days through the present, and other exhibits showed off Singaporean pop culture from film to fashion to music, all housed in a grand old colonial building. The food exhibit certainly got us excited for dinner, and we were now armed with notes on what we wanted to eat and headed to a hawker center for some "carrot cake," Peking duck, and a few other local specialties, washed down with cool iced chrysanthimum tea. And all this while watching on all the TVs, yes, once again, the world netball championships! Back on the refreshingly AC subway home to our hotel, a nice walk in the now tolerable temperature past some smaller scale buildings and the reeking durian fruit stand across the street. (Which is weird, because I thought durian was illegal here, maybe its just illegal to have inside or something.)

Next day we were off again early, wandering our small scale Chinatown like neighborhood, enjoying a Vietnamese style iced coffee at a local coffee shop, and then back on the SMRT train to downtown. As I said, the trains are like a spotless version of the London Tube and ultra air-conditioned, with signs in English, Malay, Chinese and Bengali, and the announcement voice the same woman as the London Underground, making the same warnings. We wandered Chinatown, a great, though touristy neighborhood that was setting up for the day, selling "A Fine City" t-shirts, trinkets, and assorted Merlion merchandise (the Merlion, half-lion half-fish, is the symbol of Singapore- mythical since the mid-60s tourism campaign.) Wandered past the Buddha-tooth temple (the number of temples in Asia with tooth relics of the Buddha would suggest however, that that man had a LOT of teeth...), which I realized had been done in gold leaf by an old friend of mine Dave from Providence. The buildings were charming and looked like old China or the Victorian Asia of the imagination, brightly painted two-story wooden structures with shutters above and shops down below. Some good looking food sold in a few windows, including some historic pork jerky place that advertised "pork floss," but we decided instead on Hainan Chicken and a few other specialties at the nearby hawker stalls. Oh, and who should we see wandering the streets that day, but ALL THE WOMEN'S NETBALL TEAMS out on the town, with locals asking them to pose for pictures, and the first black people we'd seen in months.

What else to report? Not much, spent the afternoon in the megamall district of Orchard Road, watching the luxury shopping, (Singapore's national pastime it would seem), and Asian tousrist posing outside of the rows of Louis Vuittons and Pradas, hands in victory poses. We didnt spend much time inside, but did enjoy an amazing pork rib noodle soup somewhere. One thing I couldnt help noticing in the police state, was that none of the stores had anti-theft devices, I guess it never even occurs to anyone to steal. And up early the next day to fly to a VERY different airport at Kuala Lumpur, basically a giant temporary airport made of corrugated metal, sweating in the Malaysian heat. The only interesting thing there being the electric fly swatter employed by the Starbucks employees. And from there on to Burma.