Wandering in SEA: Part 2: Singapore
If I could summarize Singapore in one sentence, this would be it:
Everything is for your eyes, not for your hands.
Needless to say, by the end of my 45-minute metro trip, I didn't even dare to breathe having watched the "informative" video in the carrier like ten times...
I've heard from many travellers' tales that Singapore is that sterile traveller country, where you could get the mixture of South East Asia without chaos, the culture without conflict, and the delicious things without dirt and/or poverty. Singapore is a city state. You can metro through the whole city in just 1,5 hours and travel to Malaysia through the Johur bridge. Singapore is the new capital of capitalism with its impressive modern skyscrapers and mushrooming bank buildings. Especially after Hong Kong, the West starts to save its money and investment into Singapore. It has everything to it, to be honest: sustainability, security, financial capital and power. It claims to be sustainable but at the same time, it will want to amaze the travellers with its lightning scales. Take for example the Marina By The Bay botanical garden. Some person came up with the idea that it's good to have the park tamed and trimmed, deprive of its native species and force them into those plastic trees, so that tourists can visit it for an unmanly 25SGD cost. Oh wait. Actually, it's a terrific idea because every evening, the trees are lit up and music is heard - that's for free. So even the poor can enjoy that. (Poor = any non-Singaporean tourists.) Again, the same idea:
Come, come, look around, come to the dragonfly lake. But nevermind that you won't see any dragonflies, my friend, the ones that survived the natural flora's deprivation have also already left by now because the light pollution is as big that you can see it from HK!
Singapore is small, yet contradictory. A place where you can get scared by the metro liners, still, the Malay - Bahasa Melayu sound reminds you to be "hepi hepi" which ironically, in their language means "take care". Take care, when you get off the metro because you might get stuck in the rail.
After my cold, I miraculously recovered on my flight from KL to Singapore.
Tip: if you ever fly from Kuala Lumpur, make sure, you're at the airport by 2-3 hours before your scheduled flight. The gates and check-in zones are a mess.
I landed at 1O pm-ish, I quickly ran around the airport (which was voted for the world's best airport for the past consecutive 7 years), and took the metro. It was so cute, I got a Winnie the Pooh metro card! Apparently, every month, there is a different theme, and August was for cartoon figures.
Before coming to Singapore, I have already learnt how expensive it is. I started to look for alternative solutions: there is a new website which hosts people - similar to Couchsurfing - but it's free to register and to be a member at. There I contacted several Singaporeans, but since they live with their parents, none of them could host me. Still, I met P. who showed me around the inner city with lots of walking included, and we had a good chat. He loves to travel too! Finally, I booked a capsule hotel - 5O USD / night just fyi - so for my 3 nights, I stayed close to the Blue Line 18 stop (quite inner city), but paid 15O USD for it.
As I mentioned, the first day (Aug 6) was consumed by my travel and me finding the hostel (which needless to say, I lost my way, so I had an extra trip until midnight - on foot with my 7+ kgs backpack on my shoulders). Ah, the perks of travelling! I took some magnificent shots though and loved the vibe immediately.
On the second day, (Aug 7), I met up with P and we strolled around the whole city. We met up at the Buddha Tooth Temple. Maps.me guided me along whenever I was not walking with him, and it was very accurate and well-made! Yay! The temple was magnificent. The Chinatown part was great, as well. Everything clean. I only saw some old people spitting on the road - which is weird. I even bought mentos at the airport, having known that in Singapore it's forbidden to eat chewing gums, and I also know that spitting is punished. Still... But nevermind, I was the tourist, so I had to be careful of my own things.
With P., we visited a book café, drank a lot of nice teas, and ice-y water, and then later on, we visited the MERLION! OMG!!!! The Merlion is the best ever thing in Singapore! Okay, mind you, it's just a statue, which spits water, but it's so so cute! It's like a lion with a fish tale. According to my local guide, when Singapore got its freedom from Malaysia, the country went through a change. They needed a new flag, a new national symbol, new money, and so forth. Drawers and artists could apply for different things and apparently, Merlion was the winner. Surprisingly, you cannot see it everywhere. Okay, next to the HSBC buildings, there is another, smaller version of it. And there is another park with another one in it. But no graffitis (not allowed), no street vendors (not allowed), and no anything where you would see it (also not allowed). Yes, because it's Singapore! :_D
P. enthusiastically explained the different places to me: what is what and we also inquired about the entrance fees. Since I already paid 4O% of my "allowance" to my hostel, I decided to check out everything carefully on this day, and devote a full day to only one museum the next day. P. also showed some local eateries, so I didn't need to stay alive on 7-11 foods anymore.
Here are some glimpses of that day:
On the third day (Aug 8), I chose only one museum to visit. I loved it!
As I mentioned it before, I chose only one museum. I chose the Asian Civilizations Museum because mainly of my history interest. There was even a temporary exhibition in it, about Batik techniques, and I could also paint something because Singaporean National Day was coming up (the next day, to be exact). Other choices would have been the Gardens by the Bay, or the Glass Garden but I was like... no thank you. I used to live 4 years in the Amazonas (or close to it), I don't need to pay 25 SGD to see tropical plants that I would have been able to see should people here would not have torn it up and put it under a glass dome. I mean... I don't mean to be stingy ( I went on a wild shopping spree in the museum later on ), but it's just like ... I don't know. It feels as if someone would offer Hungarian food for me in an American restaurant, but with the double price. No thanks, I can cook it myself.
The Asian Civilization Museum came with a guide included! The tour was 2 hours long, and then I spent another 2 hours just by looking at the information - until my head started to throb and was about to explode by the amount of information I gained that day. It wasn't only showing the whole history of the islands, but it also showed a lot from the colonization period. I didn't know for example, the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries have moved up into Japan! And there was a whole ship exhibited which wrecked close to the shore of Singapore, carrying many Chinese porcelains - most of them remaining untouched and thus exhibited in the museum! And there was so much about the history!
With the guide, we even observed such tiny details that some St Mary and Jesus statues of Singapore have the typical Buddha-lines (3 lines or looks like a double chin) which represent wisdom, of course. Beads that I thought are looking rosemary are the shape or forms of Buddhist beads - people back in the 16th century, this is how reacted to the Christian missionaries' work: inserting their own figures into the newly demanded statues thus creating a whole culture and a whole Peranakan.
Ruins and myths of the ancient people, the ancient Malays, and Balinese people's myths! What happened and how during the WWII and why.
In the contemporary part, the differences to be observed by Indonesian, Lao, Singaporean and Malay traditional Batiks. Turns out, it's not only the German and Hungarian parts are famous of blue dying techniques! How to make a difference between the patterns and what is the mythological explanation behind. Baku, a Japanese mythological monster that can be found in Indonesia, as well! Kirin, makilins, and etc. - all of them also represented in the Batik patterns! And many many more pieces of information. It was an honor to be there. After that countless information, I only wandered around a bit in the city, took the metro again, and just relaxed in the hotel. :-)
Yes, Singapore was not as divided as Thailand, but I believe after Malaysia, it didn't come to such a cultural shock. It's worth mentioning it though that on my street where I rented my "capsule", there were three churches: a Christian, a Buddhist shrine and a Mosque. All in peace and unity. (As I got to know it later on, there is a law in Singapore even that all three ethnicities need to live together. There is a certain quote or percentage, how the people should live together and in all houses it should represent the % of the ethnicities.)
On my last day, before I took my flight on Aug 9, I quickly visited the hawker centre nearby, a small shrine, and then headed to the airport. Yes, because I believed, being the Changi the biggest airport of the world, it will be the same as in KL. Turns out my worries were in vain! You could easily go to the gate as soon as you didn't have anything to check in, pretty much 2 hours before the flight time. Because in the Singapore airport, THERE IS A MOVING GATE!!!! Yes, two stewardesses, an hour before the boarding, rolled a magnetic gate to the actual gate so once the flight was ready to board, by that time, they could check all passangers' all belongings. Wow! Such modernism! I loved it! And we even clapped for Singapore's national day.
With that and with my happiness, I boarded the flight back to Thailand to my last stop: Phuket.
PS: I almost forgot: I met up my colleague on this trip. I visited him in the workshop where he was making his puppet, and then we walked around a bit and had dinner together. :-) It was nice!
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