Category: Singapore

Well, perhaps my pointing out to the Qantas rep in Shanghai that I bought these airline tickets directly from Qantas may have helped (when they told me I would need to deal with my travel agent. “You are my travel agent”, I was able to say) – but I was fortunate enough to be greeted at Singapore airport by a Qantas official holding a sign with my name on it when I got off the plane. Evidently, I must have been the only transfer passenger because they didn’t appear to be waiting for anyone else. Qantas met me and somewhat clandestinely handed me a piece of paper with the name of a hotel name on it. They verbally gave me instructions “take a taxi to this hotel and tell them you are from the Chinese Eastern flight and they will take care of everything for the next 24 hours – including meals and the taxis.” The next flight to Perth wasn’t until 6:30 pm – arriving at midnight.

It was nice to take a short break in Singapore, but I couldn’t do much on short notice. I was only able to get 3 hours sleep after getting in so late. Changi airport had the longest immigration line I had seen in years and I was not full of energy. I looked into a few things to do there that I have not done before, but reservations were required and unavailable for and my umbrella and shorts were trapped in my suitcase at the airport. I had suggested retrieving the suitcase when I was arriving but was discouraged from doing so due to the time involved in hunting it down.

In the end, I just took a stroll around the neighbourhood and did a bit of window shopping between naps. The meals were great: a breakfast and lunch smorgasbord of local and Western dishes – which were very popular family feasts patronized by the local Singaporeans on this Sunday.

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.

I thought I had pretty much seen everything in Singapore on previous visits, but with any place, the longer you are there the more you discover there is to see and do.

Very early on Sunday morning I snuck out before dawn (which, frankly, is pretty late here on the equator – about 7:30am) to revisit the free Singapore Botanical Gardens and Orchid Gardens. Singapore actually has three botanical gardens, including a new one they are charging $28 to get in, so I opted for the free one. The one I went to was full of European joggers and dog walkers and Western cruise ship tourists being herded around town on their typical frantic day of in-port site seeing. The park is very beautiful, but not a whole lot different from much of the flora I got used to hiking through in tropical Queensland. The Orchid Garden is world reknowned and quite special. They regularly name orchids after famous visitors and had a walk-of-fame so-to-speak. There were orchids named after Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, and Laura Bush, among others.

Singapore Botanical Gardens Visit

As i left the Botanical Gardens it was just starting to sprinkle a bit as I head down the escalator into the subway. By the time I got near my hotel, the sprinkle and turned to light rain. By the time I got into my hotel room, it started to pour. And pour and pour it did for most of the rest of the afternoon. Guess that’s the trade off for living in the lush green tropics. Navigating the subways is quite easy and quick, but navigating the bus system here can be a bit more daunting. After a long wait for the rain to clear in my room, I started toying with the idea of catching a cab to a museum. I finally went downstairs to find a long line of people waiting for a non-line of taxis, which obviously didn’t look promising. The subway was several blocks away, but I did notice a steady stream of buses running by the hotel and ventured out between drops to see if I could figure out where they were going. Fortunately, there was a map of the bus routes posted, and although it took me a little while to figure out how to read it, I eventually concluded that I should be able to get to the Asian Civilizations Museum fairly easily. I hopped on board and jumped off when I felt immersed in a museum district. It was still raining and I had no umbrella, but fortunately I guessed right and found myself within a block of where I wanted to be.

The Asian Civilizations Museum was in an big old colonial-style British government building that once housed a courtroom, jail, and offices. There were some very interesting displays about the history of Singapore as a port and how the British and Dutch became involved in the area. There were depictions of migrant Chinese workers who were lured into opium use to ease their sore bodies from the hard port work to the point of addiction to costed them 2/3rds of their salaries. There were also displays of how various cultures in the area came to be there, how rice came to the islands, and special exhibitions from Thailand. Fortunately after my visit the rain stopped and I was able to track down a subway easily after exploring the downtown waterfront a bit.

Decided to head for Chinatown for a bit of a revisit around one of my favorite, most interesting and colorful places to photograph. It is a very cool part of town full of old colonial-style buildings from the early 20th century that have hints of high water to them with very high curbs and sidewalks that run indented from the street protected under the second floor of the buildings. It is a very photogenic area that I can spend hours snooping around. It could be claimed to be a touristy part of town, but if it is, 99.9% of those tourists are Chinese, anyway, so it doesn’t feel all that touristy to me. Chinatown was getting all spruced up for the upcoming Chinese New Year with lots of hanging lanterns and special items for sale in the markets. Some shops also had ungodly long lines of Chinese consumers waiting their turn to purchase special pork dishes for the occasion.

Some of my work colleagues who travel to southeast Asia regularly can be quick to dismiss Singapore for its lack of grittiness compared to places like Kuala Lumpur, but it does have quite a few things going for it. Singapore is one of the safest places to visit that I can think of, which is great for pulling out expensive cameras and lenses. We have had female Singaporean students tell us how they feel perfectly safe catching subways home at 2am all by themselves here. Singapore is also very friendly to and used to tourists (in most cases). Nobody really seems to mind you shooting pictures on their streets or in their markets. One Buddhist temple usher even came out to insist I come inside to photograph the service they had running. There is also bare minimal targeting/harassing of tourists for sales gimmicks, unlike a lot of other Asian countries.

Singapore is also known for its great food. I’ve managed to already have 2 great Korean feeds and one nice Japanese feed at various markets and hawker huts. Singapore is mostly Chinese, but there are also substantial populations of Indians, Indonesians, Malaysians, and many other cultures (including a fair few expat Westerners) giving it a nice multicultural flavor. There are quite a few trendy bars and cafes these days. I even managed to find a hip little coffee place upstairs in Chinatown called “Group Therapy” this morning that even knew how to make a proper flat white (which I haven’t been able to find anywhere else in Singapore).

Singapore is a small place. A city-state that actually has a national park service (including one with wild monkeys), a wide range of sporting activities and facilities, and a proud tradition of volunteerism and community involvement – but probably a bit too much emphasis on shopping. There are endless shopping centers everywhere and there seems to be no lack of interest in them by Singaporeans because they always seem packed.

The subways are great and probably among the best in the world. I believe there are a few new lines here since the last time I visited. They are very clean, very safe, very frequent, run all over the island, and very easy to navigate with high-tech signage onboard that shows you your precise location relative to the rest of the rail network (an idea that they stole from Hong Kong’s subway, I think).

Arrived in Singapore bright and early Friday morning after catching a 2am flight out of Perth. Thought I would catch the train to my hotel, only to realize half way there that I should have probably just taken a cab. Negotiating the subway transfers with full travel luggage during rush hour in busy Singapore was probably a bit much. Fortunately the hotel, across from nice little district of colonial-style architecture shops, agreed to take my baggage straight away even though I wasn’t supposed to be checking in to my room until 3pm.

I used to travel to Singapore about 3 times a year a decade ago for business, but I have not been back in years. Traipsing through my old haunts in my very jet-lagged state, I snooped around the Bugis and Orchard Road shopping districts trying to stay awake. Fortunately, I checked back with the hotel by noon and they had a room available for me. I went straight to bed for a 3 hour nap and then headed out for dinner in the evening. Probably the nicest hotel I’ve stayed in on my own dime.

Looks like Singapore is getting ramped up for the next two big events: Chinese New Year and Valentines Day. There were large piles of fireworks for sale in many of the Chinese markets which I don’t think airlines would want me leaving the country with. Valentines Day would normally not be worth mentioning except for the fact that they had installed big over-the-top purple light displays for it up and down walkways along Orchard Road.

Well, I really had no plans to visit a ninth country on this adventure, but I decided on a whim to pop into Singapore for a bit of last minute shopping on my way back to Perth. I had a four hour layover in the city-state and felt I knew the town well enough from my many business trips here to make a mad dash on the subway in to Sim Lim Square to buy a DVD burner.

Fortunately for me they were still celebrating the Chinese New Year here, so I was bestowed with nice candies the second I stepped through customs. There were also celebrations going on around town.