News from the Boat: Singapore

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Coruscant. Or, at the very least, something that looks just like it. From my window, I can see several of the blue and white skyscrapers that mark the cruise terminal, as well as an overhead cable car that connects mainland Singapore with the island Sentosa – the Disneyland for adults. TV screens all over the city not only play trailers to upcoming movies and ads for attractions around the city, but also the accompanying soundtrack. The malls (and there are a lot of them) have not only everything the Western shopper could desire, but also everything the Asian population enjoys. Pedestrians don’t cross the street, they use underpasses – underpasses that are three stories deep, house everything from Starbucks to Apple Stores, and are big enough to get lost in (which we did, repeatedly). Asking white people for help doesn’t do much good: They’re usually tourists themselves. But the locals are all fluent and gracious enough to help you out, or at least mutely point you in the right direction.

For my American friends who rave about the public transportation in the Bay Area, the Bus and MRT (Metro) system were the cause for boundless wonder. Buses that run on an actual schedule? Clean trains? Or, even more amazing for the SAS-hardened traveler, fixed prices for taxis? While I wasn’t raving at every turn, I have to admit that I was impressed as well: While fairly similar to the BART system, meaning scanners at the entries and exits, the Metro is designed to be a lot more user- and eco-friendly. The ticket machines have a touchpad where you select your destination on a map of the entire transit system (--> no double and triple checking that you have the right number or dollar amount to take you where you want to go), and after you pay, it spits out a small plastic card that you return at your destination at the same machines in exchange for 1 Sing Dollar – no tree-killing here, no sir.

Considering the size of the city, the amount of cool things to do is also astounding. Despite it being a Sunday night, Halloween was everywhere. I went on a Halloween-themed Night Safari at the zoo (supposedly one of the best in the world). We ate food from pretty much every continent, because that’s what Singaporean cuisine is, and crazy, crazy deserts like Dragon fruit and Chinese layer cake, which is basically just rainbow-colored strips of Tapioca stuck together. The night safari itself was crazy fun. The zoo doesn’t have cages, so all that divides you from spotted hyenas, elephants, lions, tigers, water buffalo, hippos, and a bunch of mind-bogglingly exotic animals that I’d never heard of in my life, much less actually seen up close, is a ditch. The ditch is deep enough to keep animals and humans on their respective sides, apparently, but it was still humbling to realize that all of those animals are HUGE. You can’t really get a feeling for it in a regular zoo or on a game safari, but seeing them laying just a few feet away really makes you realize that if we lived in the wild, we would *not* be the top of the food chain.

The Halloween decorations just made it all the more awesome. They were fairly tame, considering that there were a lot of kids around, but it was still creepy to see zombies and ghouls (or zoo workers dressed up as zombies and ghouls, anyway) emerge from the trees or appear out of nowhere to jump on our tram, and our guide had the creepiest laugh I’ve ever heard on a human being. Needless to say I had a great time even though I didn’t get to see the elusive Pontianak that our guide kept referring to, which I’m assuming is the Asian version of a White Woman – the lack of internet makes it hard to look these things up. :(

After the zoo, we decided to hit Clarke Quay, the party zone. It was obviously a Sunday night, but there were still a few people around. It was fun, but I wouldn’t really make a note of it except to say that I have never seen a party district like that: There is a roof spanning the entire area to make sure all the dressed up guys and gals don’t get rained on, an elaborate water fountain, crazy places like something called The Clinic where you sit in wheelchairs and drink your drinks out of IVs. There’s even a sign directing you where to “Q” up for taxis home. And, of course, it’s all ridiculously clean, considering that this is where the drunk people go.

Bright and early (a little too early for my taste >.>) the next morning we hit up Sentosa Island, the playground for adults. There are casinos, beaches and beach bars, shopping malls, resorts, giant candy stores, and, ah yes, Universal Studios. We didn’t go. Instead we ate at one of the top ten restaurants in the worlds, the name of which I’ve forgotten, and spent a good half an hour in a gigantic candy store. Did you know that there are pillows that look like bags of M&M’s or Hershey’s bars? I was sincerely tempted to get one, because those are adorable.

Our group split up after lunch and Amanda, Kelly and I went to ride on the Singapore Flyer, the biggest Ferris wheel in the world. It’s around 40 minutes ride in air conditioned capsules that fit 28 people. There are 28 of them. You do the math. But it was a Monday afternoon, so we got a capsule to ourselves. The Flyer is designed to follow Feng Shui guidelines, which is among the reasons why it rotates in a clockwise direction, and why everything revolves around the number 28. But you tend to forget about that once you look down and you realize that yes, you are actually pretty darn far up. Sadly not quite high enough to see the top of the three-building hotel with the infinity pool on the roof that some SASers were staying at. And we also didn’t get to go see the pool, even though I would have totally paid the 20 bucks, because we had to start heading back. The Flyer was worth it, though, if only to see the thousands of ships heading away from and towards the harbor. It’s one thing to hear that Singapore is an important trading port and another to see cargo ships covering the ocean all the way to the horizon.

Our last stop in Singapore was Max Brenner’s, a store that sells chocolate everything: Hot chocolate drinks, cold chocolate drinks, chocolate pancakes, chocolate soup, and then just plain old chocolate. There’s one in New York City, so for you East Coast chocolate fiends, it’s totally worth checking out.

So, we’ve got a city that’s pretty, friendly, and green. After a tree-planting campaign in the sixties, there is as much greenery as there are skyscrapers. Everybody has a mandatory savings account that holds 20% of their paycheck, and 80% of the population lives in government housing. Let me tell you – those apartments are nothing to scoff at. The public transport is extremely effective, and immigration was the most streamlined process I’ve ever seen.

It sounds pretty heavenly, right? Well, it is, until you consider that the only reason everything is so clean and nice and safe is because state control is ridiculously high. Female non-residents are tested for pregnancy every three months, and if they are, they are either forced to have an abortion of forced to leave – all in the name of limiting the number of foreign babies who can claim citizenship. There is a $5000 (yes, three zeros) fine for carrying flammable liquids on the subway, and let’s not even talk about the mandatory death sentence for everyone who gets caught with more than 2 grams of heroin or 15 grams of weed. There was a member of a royal family (people were strangely reluctant to tell me which one) executed for possessing marijuana a couple of years back. So yeah, not my dream city. But if it eased up on the imprisonments and ditched the hangings, it could be.

Lots of love from 07˚ 7.6N/107˚ 9.7E
Alexa

[My apologies for posting this blog before the one about India. India was hard for me in the way that the other countries weren’t, and I’m still figuring out how to put my experience there in words. But I also didn’t want to leave everybody hanging until after Vietnam, so I’ve moved Singapore to the front of the line. Sorry! I’ll try to update on India as soon as I can.]