Singapore

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I decided to do some exploring today. I usually have my first day anywhere purely exploring, deciding and finding places to go. Usually this is a good idea. But as this is Singapore most people would have thought about the humidity. Not me. I enjoyed my trekking about but admittedly it's like being in a sauna!

I started off going to the National Museum of Singapore which was intensive, beautifully put together and a real pleasure to view. It's not like so many other museums where it's laid out and you read every tab, they give you an audio piece so that you can listen to the tour as you go along, but you choose where you go and what you listen to. There were two routes in the history part of the museum "Events" and " Personal". I chose to go on the "Personal" route and I was guided through the ages of Singapore right from the ancient civilisations, which unfortunately do not have much information on as a lot of it was destroyed. They even have 'The Singapore Stone' which is a large stone that must have been part of a wall at some point, with some sort of dialect inscribed on it, but no scholar, professor or academic knows what it says. Truly a mysterious artifact. It goes through the British invasion, womens rights, politics, industry, the Second World War, education, up til present day. In the basement they had a piece on "1960 Singapore," which you guessed is all about Singapore in the 1960's.
There was also an art exhibition called "Head On," by Cai Guo Qiang, which is a piece using 99 life size replica wolves running in the space, up onto an arc and into a glass wall. It is an incredibly piece which unfortunately I am not able to give justice to through writing about it on a blog. Right now I can't put my photos up but have a look at www.caiguoqiang.com and have a look at the pictures there.

After I walked through to Bugis shopping district to find the tourist information centre. It was tiny but the people in there were so kind and helpful, I even got a free fan! A touristy fan, but none the less it was sweet. I took a look around the shopping centre and it is unlike any shopping centre I've ever seen. The closest thing I could relate it to is a smaller, cramped and busier version of Camden Lock market on speed.
After my experience there I got some lunch (two pounds! I ate so much!) and headed down to Chinatown which is a site for itself. Absolutely entrancing and unlike many other Chinatowns that you get, this is a real-life, living, breathing extravaganza of a Chinatown. I got some great souvenirs, again so cheap, and then melted into a puddle walking back to my hostel.

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