Grazing in Singapore

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We are now in Singapore where we are relaxing (read indulging) and celebrating my birthday.

Simply, we are both quite impressed. If we would have started the trip here, I don’t think we would have appreciated it as much because Singapore is a lot like NYC—only cleaner, calmer, and more organized. (Okay, maybe not that similar....) But after a month of stern self-talk before entering any bathrooms, contraband monkey juice, and constant curries, this place is a playground. We gave up and admitted we could not begin to experience a fraction of this city/country/gastronomical Babylon. As anyone will tell you, Singaporeans wine, dine, and shop—and do it all quite well. So, that is what you do here. Not bad. And it’s all done in such clean, organized beauty—almost to the point of it being creepy. I wanted to litter just to see how quickly it would be cleaned up. (This is an aside, but I’ve never quite seen such a germ-a-phobe place. What is it with this correlation between wealth and paranoia?)

We stayed the first two nights at Hangout at Mt Emily’s after taking an overnight bus from Cameron Highlands. That meant going through Singapore customs at about 4:30 A.M.—which was much easier than what we thought. Chewing gum okay, prescription pills okay, and lines okay. (Ignore Lonely Planet on their cautions, no “descent into hell” as feared.) But we did arrive early at our hostel, so we just konked out in the lounge area for three hours and slept. I put a towel over my head and ignored the vacuums and people.

A couple of places that we loved were the Botanical Gardens and the Singapore Zoo. You will notice a couple of photos of this strange land mammal who was asked to come up to the stage at one of the zoo’s shows, take off his shirt, and dance “tribal.” Said land mammal thought he had the camera, but no.

Also, Robertson Quay is a lot of fun. One night we went out and met two guys from U.S. and Australia who live over here. They made a strong case that we should go to Indonesia and visit them—which we might just do at the end of July.

I leave on Friday for India—which I expect to be a wonderful nuke-hitting-the-mind sort of trip. (Adam’s going to Thailand for some more beaching, and then we’ll meet up again on July 4th.) I’ll be signing off now for a couple of weeks and will post once I get back from India.

Also, many thanks for all the sweet birthday wishes. This has been one of the best birthdays, if not the best.

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Photos

Odd Land Mammal
Adam had no idea that when they asked him to come up to the stage, it would involve quite this much of playing the fool.

Charlotte Vs. Bear
He's just a tad bigger than I am, but I could take him.

Snoozing!
I love how out of it these guys are.

More Love for Animals
Especially those animals that contribute in making ice cream.

The Gallery Hotel
This was the gift from Adam for my birthday. Well, not the entire hotel. But one room of it. We were in that red corner room--the Glass House.

Our Bathroom
I was so excited about this bathroom.

Roof-top Pool at The Gallery
This pool is glass-sided, so that when you swim, you see the traffic go by. My legs here. Adam's head.

Sad Adam
Little stomach issues means he only gets rice. Plain.

Comments

[mom]

rags to riches
Love all the adventures. Wish I could be there too, well, maybe not! The corner "home" reminded me when you used to make your own space wherever you needed to be w/me. XOs

[whynnie]

Hey, welcome to Singapore! It's always interesting to hear a foreigner's perspective of our country. Alot of locals hate Singapore to the core. They label it boring.

[Eric Whittle]

Singapore is boring
I was in Singapore last month for two weeks, and I really felt it to be boring, a bit too organized you dont seem to encounter raw feel of life.