I love this City. It is truly a world class city. There are museums galore, neighborhoods to wander, shopping and eats, nights full of light and life and it’s amazingly clean everywhere. The subway is fast and cheap and gets you anywhere you want to go in this 270 square mile city state. There is English everywhere but at the same time there are probably four or five other languages spoken from Malay to Cantonese to Tamal. The architecture is modern and yet there are some British colonial buildings well preserved.
Last night, after learning what the National Museum had to say regarding the history of Singapore, Steve googled Wikipedia for perhaps a more objective description. This included that the Malay parliament voted to throw out Singapore after two years (not that Singapore decided on independence, as the museum said), that there were race riots and tensions in the 50’s and 60’s and that the government borders on authoritarian.
But from our experience so far, it is authoritarian to attempt to plan and create as Utopian a society as possible- that is, their version of Utopia. Some fun facts....
Singapore is a lot like the wealthy Middle East countries in that the Singapore citizens are quite wealthy (1 in every 6 has at least $1,000,000 USD cash, in the bank, excluding property or business assets) but many people living here are temporary workers from very poor countries, like Bangladesh, and don’t have much.
To keep traffic in check they put heavy costs on owning a car, but make public transit easy and cheap. Say you buy a Toyota Corolla for $20,000. You then pay a tax of another $30,000, and need to buy a permit, good for ten years, for another $75,000. That’s a total of $125,000 for a Toyota Corolla, never mind a Mercedes! Or you can go almost anywhere in the city in a clean air conditioned subway for about $1.30. There are never many cars on the big, wide streets and probably never any traffic jams.
Right now, they need to up the population a bit so, want to have a baby? If so, the government pays you a baby bonus of $160,000 USD.
Twenty years ago, there was almost no art scene here. The government decided they wanted to have schools and galleries and art. So, they took a street and incentivized people to create startups in the arts by buying all the buildings, and then subsidizing rents up to 80%. Now there is a thriving art street.
It’s quite a carrot and stick society. On the stick side are the harsh penalties like for drug trafficking. You get a death sentence......period. Fines for minor offenses like littering are also high.....like a couple thousand dollars. The same for not flushing a public toilet. But it makes this city-state run like a well oiled machine.
Last night we spent on Orchard Street, THE shopping haven here, but also somewhat like the Atlantic City boardwalk in the 60’s, the place everyone went every night to stroll, eat, and meet. You cannot imagine how many malls line this boulevard, block after block. There are unique shops such as the sidewalk two story glass kiosk selling ice cream and the Japan Food Town, where we ate, the fourth floor in a mall filled with small Japanese restaurants specializing in different foods. But mostly we went to see the Christmas lights that rival NY’s Fifth Avenue and to walk in the nighttime pulse of the city. Good food and good fun.
Today, with Steve’s hacking cough down to only every twenty minutes, we ventured out for our first walking tour. Our guide Wei (Way or like the artist Wei Wei) was an energetic young man with great enthusiasm for his City. We explored Kampong Glam, Arab Street, and Bugis, where he shared with us not only the history and architecture but many lesser known facts and intimate stories.
He took us to spots we would never know from a guidebook and gave great secret tips, such as the best view of Singapore - the National Library, 11th floor, where you can see the entire city and harbor for free. Who needs to go on the world’s second biggest Ferris wheel (which, by the way, has cars big enough for a small wedding - no, really) to see the skyline? Cocktails on this Ferris wheel are available for $30 each.
Tonight we will retrace our steps from the tour to have a drink, a bite and do some very interesting shopping on Hadj Street where the government has a program to subsidize these incubator entrepreneurs. We may go to the bar called Bar Stories where there is no cocktail menu. Instead you tell the bartender a story and he creates a cocktail based on it. Or we might try the oldest coffee shop, a literal hole in the wall. Or we may find a shop with such a great idea that we want to bring it home. In any case we will have fun and after all that we have a date to meet Dorothy and Serge, a lovely Aussie couple we met on the tour, for a cocktail at the Gotham Building. They have a four story wall of Gins and claim the largest collection in the world - I didn’t know how we would choose.
Part 2
Wednesday night we retraced our steps to Haji St. to explore the funky shops. I immediately found a small store of an up and coming Singaporean designer and, although my suitcase is pretty full, I just had to buy a dress which may be for my nieces wedding and another great shirt. Every store was unique filled with hand made bags and clothes we hadn’t seen in our travels.
There was Selfie Coffee, a rather odd name but an apt description. Now Steve is the king of WTF but now I will try my hand at it. Here is a photo of the sign and WITHOUT GOOGLING IT, send in your guess as to why this store has this name. Really, NO GOGGLING. Winner gets something, TBD.
We couldn’t help but head up to Bar Stories for our first drink. There were actually no stories required in this teeny tiny second floor space. Instead the bartender asked each of us to describe the flavors and spices we liked, and with that created individual cocktails for us. I think each cocktail had at least 20 ingredients. Steve’s had at least six kinds of bitters. And they were delicious.
Dinner was at a small Turkish place with succulent lamb and dessert was at a novel ice cream shop where your favorite flavor ice cream is sandwiched in a choux pastry, like a mini round eclair. Messier than a cone but certainly unique.
We headed back to meet up with Serge and Dorothy for our gin cocktails but alas, Serge, being an Aussie, showed up in shorts where a long pants dress code was strictly enforced. At least we got to see this magnificent Art Deco cocktail lounge that reminded us of Grand Central Station and had no problem finding a cocktail nearby to enjoy an hour sipping and chatting. Perhaps one day, if we venture to Australia again, we will have a chance to visit Margaret River, sip some wine and meet up with Serge and Dorothy.
Part 3
And here we are, Thursday, December 28th, our last day of the trip. Another tour with Wei, an Indian lunch on the riverfront and if the rain holds off we will end our Singapore stay at Gardens by the Bay this evening to catch the light show at the SuperTrees (google this one to see it). Surprisingly, I would love to have another three days here to see the art museum, explore Little India and Chinatown and to have that Singapore Sling for $35 at the Raffles Hotel. But, all that will have to wait for next time. The only thing left on our plate is an early wake up call, three flights and 32 hours until we get to Philly.
We have had a bit of a problem with our blog site lately as it no longer easily works on our iPad. Steve has been needing to find a real computer to add photos and upload. It means we haven’t posted in a few days and this may not show up until we are home, so do forgive us. Hopefully we will be seeing all of you soon enough to share our travels in person over a glass of wine.
For now, we are packing and figuring out what we have to wear home that is clean enough and warm enough. I’m actually looking forward to some cold dry weather. Seven weeks of sweat is enough for me! And even Steve is ready not to be hot and that’s a miracle, just like South East Asia.
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