On my last full day in Singapore, I endeavored to check out a few places I had never been before. My flight to Sri Lanka wasn’t scheduled until 11pm, but I had to check out of my hotel by noon. Fortunately the hotel was happy to look after my bags while I hopped around town. The first place I wanted to check out was a new old place. That it, an old historic home known as the Baba House that was recently bequeathed to the National University of Singapore, restored and furnished to its 1920’s splendor, and recently opened by reservation only to the public. I have long admired these old colonial style homes from the outside, but it was really interesting to get the chance to see what they were originally designed like on the inside. Lots of old teak floors and walls and furnishings showing influences from trading partners around the world to show affluence. Among the surprises was an open area in the middle of the house for airflow in these tropics that was probably 12 feet by 12 feet with no ceiling or windows so rain would pour into the house and just drain out the marble base at the bottom. There were also a number of listening holes and spy holes built into the design of the house so parents could keep tabs on who was attempting to visit (with a spy hole in the floor of the master bedroom) or what they were talking about with children downstairs in the front room. This house was owned by a long string of Chinese descendants who owned a steam shipping company.
Afterwards I made a crazy attempt to visit Singapore’s Zoo, considered by some to be one of the world’s best. Unfortunately, it is not located along a subway line and requires a bus ride in from a distant subway stop. The bus ride turned out to be considerably longer that I expected and my visit was forced to be rather brief. In all, I had about one hour to make a quick loop of the place. It is on a small peninsula surrounded by water and right next door to another peninsula containing an all nocturnal zoo (which I went to several years ago). The zoo was very nice with lots of lush green vegetation and animals roaming outside of cages that seemed to appreciate it. Afterwards, I had to high-tail it back to my hotel to grab my bags and head to the airport for my late night flight to Sri Lanka.
