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Published: August 9th 2005
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Today was a crazy day of variety. Prepared to be out for the whole day, past the fireworks at 12, it was the day that I combined walking tours, and sit downs - like restaurant meals, guided tours and festivities.
Captain Jack, a bus driver from today is watching me write this, and has told me twice to make sure I write his name in whatever I'm doing here, so there it was. All the people on the tours AREA great, I recommend them to anyone visiting (That's the open hop-on, hop=off buses, the aqua duck and the bumboat rides. But I'm getting ahead of myself. If I don't write it down in order I'll forget cool stuff, so I'll leave Captain Jack for a sec and talk about this morning.
Today was time to leave all the interesting ethnic areas of Singapore and look at the river, the CBD and the colonial aspect. I managed to take in a shrine, a temple and some kind of Chinese housing-help area, all on the outskirts of Chinatown, so I got my fix for the day hopefully.
I relaxed by boat quay, with its view of a narrow part of
Their "double edged sword" bldgs
Standing alone, Chinese businesspeople will not build alongside them, fearing the swords will 'cut' their business. the river and many quaint shops and stalls, all along the side, then towered over by skyscrapers. I saw colonial buildings and the centre of the CBD, such as the Singapore Cricket Club that still has a man's only bar (!), the city hall, Victoria Theatre, Raffles Hotel, Raffles statue, the Fullerton Hotel where they have a chocolate buffet, the Merlion statue, war memorials, the Padang (square), Suntec city (5 towers), the "double edged sword" building, the only 6 star hotel in Singapore the Ritz Carlton, the "spaceship" (Supreme Court) and a couple of nice churches.
About a couple of those places - the Victoria Theatre is still used as a theatre, though I know the one in Chinatown that had Chinese Opera was closed down for lack of customers and made into YET ANOTHER shopping centre. What a shame!!
Raffles is the guy that made Singapore the commercial hub that it is now. If anything has Raffles' name on it, it's good quality, e.g. The Raffles Hospital is the private hospital.
The "double edged sword" will always stand alone. Actually as 2 buildings - 2 swords, no Chinese business person will build there, as the swords
will 'cut' the business on anyone that builds next door. So it's surrounded by parks basically. A lot of the buildings are built with the ideals for luck in Chinese thoughts - e.g. the octagon windows, mixed with water take away bad luck, so the 6 star hotel has octagon windows with baths or showers up next to them. And the direction of fountains is where the wealth goes, so you'll notice that Chinese fountains go towards the building, or at least inwards, not outwards. Some spray from the floor up onto the wall of the building, for example.
And the Merlion statue,...the Japanese guy that was supposedly the first to come here saw a lion firstly and named the place "Singapura" Lion City. So the Merlion statue is a lion head on a fishes body, showing Singaporean's where they came from, and not to forget that they have made this from a little fishing village.
Back to my day, I had breakfast at Lau Pa Sat hawker market, lunch at a Japanese restaurant where I had sushi, apple chips as a snack, dinner of Teo Chew Dumpling noodles in an eating gallery, I tried Singapores favourite (gross!)
fruit, Durian (number 24) and had an indian coconut milk cake dessert. Cool day for food hey?!
Getting onto the tours before I bore you, I took the aquaduck, then one of the 6 tours on a super pass - the Heritage Tour, then also took the Red Lantern (red light district) Tour, to fit in before the festival and fireworks of the National Day Countdown. As I was saying before, all the tour people are fantastic.
The first tour was the aqua duck, which I thought I'd go on cause I live near the Gold Coast ones, and I'd much rather go on one in an interesting place like Singapore. Now I can just say I've been on one like it and can avoid that one. The guy was great - asking about where we're from, doing a kind of multi-lingual tour, giving out presents and prizes (one of which I won for guessing how long it took this lady to race up the highest hotel's stairs - the Swissotel - I was the lowest at 10 mins, it took 6 mins 55 secs for 70 something stairs!!).
It was bumpy and fun. We saw the
Merlion, the opera house and more from the view of the water. He was great, taking photos for us and all sorts of stuff. I basicall saw a lot of what I saw earlier today, from a better perspective, with a guide.
The driver, Captain Jack, WAS a star! And the girl was the sweetest little thing. She did everything she could, catering to our nationalities, our questions, and our sex (all female - so she sppoke to us about traditional "waxing" etc.) By "Heritage", the company means the different types of cultures that come together to make Singapore, so we visited what I saw yesterday (Little India and the Malaysian Kampung Glam) plus Chinatown. Really great stuff! She pointed out small interesting things I missed and gave more details on what I'd learnt so far. Then in Chinatown, I got a look at what I'd probably focus on tomorrow. She was lovely, I even saw her later and she recognised me, smiled and waved.
Finally, the Red Lantern Tour took us to places we may not have gone. A place with great local food, a place with local prostitutes and Indian cuisine. Fascinating too.
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Terri
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Cheers from Australian Working Person
Hiya Rachael, glad to see you are already packing in so much!!! Wow, you only left 4 days ago ... how are you managing it! Don't forget to sleep at least 4 hours per 24 ya silly! Recommended career for you: travel writer. Recommended career for me: your PA and baggage carrier. Love Terri. Looking forward to more!