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Published: August 7th 2007
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Chinatown - Market
So right when I stepped out of the Chinatown MRT station I found the shopping, that's Singapore for you... It was off to Singapore for a quick two night/three day visa run. Have just fallen in love with Bali, I just couldn't bring myself to leave forever on the May 13 so on May 10th I decided to plan a visa run. The unexpected bonus being I get a chance to visit a city I've never been to...
Overall my impressions of Singapore are a city that strives too hard to be Utopia. What's wrong with a little dirt? What's wrong with being able to chew gum? What am I supposed to do if I need to spit? The whole place gave me the creeps, everything seemed so planned. I got the feeling I was being watched by "Big Brother" all the time I was walking around on the streets. I'm not saying that a city shouldn't be clean, but the place almost feels like you're in a doctors office, it's just sterile! It's as if Walt Disney himself planned the entire city. Walking down the streets felt like being on "Main Street Asia" All the buildings are extremely new, lots of pastel colors, every building looks like it belongs, note one thing ever looks out of place. Even
all the trees are the proper color green, you don't see any dead leaves or god forbid a fallen branch. But on the flip side all the planning brings with it some benefits. Public transportation here was second to none. I was able to catch the MRT (subway) directly from the airport right to my hostel. Took the MRT a couple other times and the bus once, both were extremely easy too understand and cheap! Plus the ariport was amazing, even had free Internet!
Don't take the above comments to mean I didn't enjoy my time in Singapore. It's just not my kind of place. First off there is way, way, way too much shopping!!! But with way too many shopping malls comes the benefit of new movie theaters so I was able to squeeze in Spider Man 3 (They should have stopped at 2), movie dragged on a bit and I found myself less than entertained at points but it was still nice to sit in a movie theater eating nachos and drinking a coke! I was able to find a nice hostel to spend my two nights at, Betel Box Hostel, highly recommend it. It has a
Hindu Temple
Felt like I was back in India. very welcoming staff, unlimited tea and coffee, AC dorms, free Internet and a great lounge area with lots of people around all the time. So it was great to have people to chill with especially since it's been over a year since I stayed in a dorm. At least nobody was snoring so that was a definite plus as well. I didn't really have the time to head to any of the many attractions that fill the city so I spent one day walking Chinatown and my second day heading to Kinykomo (spelling?) which has to be the greatest book stores in the world. That's when I was over on Orchid road, which is shopping hell. I've never seen so many Shopping malls squeezed into a smaller area. During a ten minute walk to the bus stop from one mall I must have passed five other malls. All look new, not surprisingly.
I spent about two hours walking the streets of Chinatown, but it got old after a while. All you see is shops, plus Chinatown is supposed to be dirty! With vegetable and fruit sellers clogging up the side walks. They don't have any of that here! The
More of The Hindu Temple
Don't know which of the more than 30,000 Hindu Gods these represent. But they sure are nice sculptures. wo highlights of Chinatown were the Hindu Temple (go figure) which had a very southern Indian feel to it, nice sculptures as you can see from the picture, but I didn't actually go inside. Just walked around the outside, admiring it from afar. The other great thing turned out to be lunch. I got quite hungry while I was walking around and wandered into this random place that was filled with mostly locals, always a good sign. Plus it was dirt cheap by Singapore standards. Had steamed dumplings, Hot 'n Sour Noodle soup and a Coke for less than ten bucks, score. Plus as it turned out the chef was famous and I got to watch him teaching his apprentices how to make noodles. The walls were covered with pictures of him from a Citibank ad that he appeared in. For those of you who don't know how both ends of the dough, pulling, while waving the dough up and down. Then they use their fingers to make the individual strands. It looked quite difficult but the chef made it look so easy. And to top it off the food tasted delicious, best Chinese food I've had since Beijing!
Well I'm back in Bali now, driving around on my motor bike again, enjoying the good life and planning my next stop in Indonesia. I've uploaded tonnes of pictures for Bali and I'll post a blog in the next couple of days so stay tuned...
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Brian Moskowitz
Orchid, Orchard, close enough
Wudup playa! Glad they even let you in to Singapore being that I'm sure your presence there dragged the cleanliness factor down quite significantly. Zing!