So, I’m back on the road again! Well, nearly… I’m actually in a small town/suburb north of Perth, where I’m planning on settling down for the next 6 months - providing I find work. It’s beautiful here, by the beach, the smell of eucalyptus… feels like California somehow. So I’m really hoping to find work, and make some friends, now the jet-lag’s finally wearing off.
On the way to Perth I stopped in to visit an old work mate in Singapore for a few days. It also coincided with my Birthday - well I figured I hadn’t spent a Birthday in Asia yet! And I’m still not sure that I have. Singapore is very much “Asia-lite”. It’s westernised facilities with an Asian cultural background. They even speak English lah! (OK, well “Singlish”, but technically it’s the same language). There are lots of rules and laws. It’s illegal for two men to have sex. Apparently it’s OK to be a lesbian though. I wonder whether that’s because the politicians don’t mind watching the ladies? Which leads me onto the next bizarre law: It’s illegal to be naked in your own home. Unlike at home, if someone’s watching you through the windows of your home and you’re naked, they’re not a peeping-tom, you’re an exhibitionist! So how do they take showers…?
In Singapore I mostly ate at home, and we ate European food (and some very delicious Tzatziki at his Greek friends house). I did, however, get to try some traditional Singaporean cuisine on my first night in Singapore, in a very lovely seafood place around the corner from my friends compound. I had Chilli Crab - basically a whole crab (on which I broke a tooth. On my first night out of the UK, at least it was on something yummy!) swimming in a sauce of chilli sauce. Also deep-fried whole prawns coated in cereal - a bit like eating a bowl of warm muesli dry and finding prawns in it! Apparently you can eat them whole, crunching through the shells. I was more keen on removing them and eating the delicious prawn inside! Apparently the locals suck the brains out of the prawns as they believe that it gives them “power”. That seems to apply to a lot of foods. The more gross, the more power seems to be the rule with food! But only to be eaten in a designated area. No eating or drinking in many places - including on trains and on station platforms. But it’s so hot does this include water? There are so many rules that I wonder whether that’s why everyone seems to smoke - maybe it’s the last rebellion allowed?
I didn’t really do much sightseeing in Singapore. To be honest there aren’t really many sights. Unless you’re interested in shopping. There are a lot of malls. And most of the shops are incredibly familiar. Either from the UK, or Australia. I did take a wander around ‘Little India’, which was full of impressive moustaches and shops selling gold and saris. To be honest it reminded me of a warm, sunny Bradford. So not Bradford at all!
We also went out on Clarke Quay. The best way I can think to describe this is “Disneyland for adults”. It’s bright - almost garish - with lots of places to eat and drink, all a bit quirky, and various rather strange sculptures… One of the bars we passed was clearly based on a medical theme. People sat on benches made from hospital gurneys cut in half and had drinks hanging from bags on drips. Fortunately I didn’t notice anyone actually taking their cocktails intravenously, instead they seemed to drink from syringes. I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were sterile sealed syringes, or from the local hospital… We later went along to Boat Quay where we had a drink in a classic British pub (I assume it was British rather than Irish because of the name: “The Penny Black”, but we went there for the Guiness). Interestingly this row of pubs and bars, along the waterfront, seemed to be where all the ex-pats and tourists hung out, whereas parallel to the water, one street further in, was where Singapore hung out - complete with very bad karaoke issuing from most bars.
My last day in Singapore was spent wandering along walkways above rainforest in a
nd connecting the park areas of Singapore. We got caught by an approaching thunderstorm and so took a cable car down from Mt Faber (I think) back to “civilisation” (another shopping mall) just as the rain started. This afforded a fantastic view of the jungle behind, and the jungle of cranes at the docks ahead, both of which were quickly obscured as the rain grew heavier!
To be honest all of Singapore is a jungle. There’s the green canopy of trees, and above the grey canopy of high-rise buildings. On the ground, instead of leaf-litter there’s, well, strict fines if you drop litter, so it’s pretty clean. It does feel like the city is growing as part of the forest though. And I guess there’s not a lot of choice than to grow up. Singapore is a small country. On the plane on the way to Perth I spoke to a man who lives in Malaysia. Except his closest airport is Singapore. So he hops across the border to catch flights, but lives in the green space allowed by having just that bit more land.
So that’s Singapore really. An interesting place that seems to be an Eastern caricature of Western life.
On the way to Perth I stopped in to visit an old work mate in Singapore for a few days. It also coincided with my Birthday - well I figured I hadn’t spent a Birthday in Asia yet! And I’m still not sure that I have. Singapore is very much “Asia-lite”. It’s westernised facilities with an Asian cultural background. They even speak English lah! (OK, well “Singlish”, but technically it’s the same language). There are lots of rules and laws. It’s illegal for two men to have sex. Apparently it’s OK to be a lesbian though. I wonder whether that’s because the politicians don’t mind watching the ladies? Which leads me onto the next bizarre law: It’s illegal to be naked in your own home. Unlike at home, if someone’s watching you through the windows of your home and you’re naked, they’re not a peeping-tom, you’re an exhibitionist! So how do they take showers…?
In Singapore I mostly ate at home, and we ate European food (and some very delicious Tzatziki at his Greek friends house). I did, however, get to try some traditional Singaporean cuisine on my first night in Singapore, in a very lovely seafood place around the corner from my friends compound. I had Chilli Crab - basically a whole crab (on which I broke a tooth. On my first night out of the UK, at least it was on something yummy!) swimming in a sauce of chilli sauce. Also deep-fried whole prawns coated in cereal - a bit like eating a bowl of warm muesli dry and finding prawns in it! Apparently you can eat them whole, crunching through the shells. I was more keen on removing them and eating the delicious prawn inside! Apparently the locals suck the brains out of the prawns as they believe that it gives them “power”. That seems to apply to a lot of foods. The more gross, the more power seems to be the rule with food! But only to be eaten in a designated area. No eating or drinking in many places - including on trains and on station platforms. But it’s so hot does this include water? There are so many rules that I wonder whether that’s why everyone seems to smoke - maybe it’s the last rebellion allowed?
I didn’t really do much sightseeing in Singapore. To be honest there aren’t really many sights. Unless you’re interested in shopping. There are a lot of malls. And most of the shops are incredibly familiar. Either from the UK, or Australia. I did take a wander around ‘Little India’, which was full of impressive moustaches and shops selling gold and saris. To be honest it reminded me of a warm, sunny Bradford. So not Bradford at all!
We also went out on Clarke Quay. The best way I can think to describe this is “Disneyland for adults”. It’s bright - almost garish - with lots of places to eat and drink, all a bit quirky, and various rather strange sculptures… One of the bars we passed was clearly based on a medical theme. People sat on benches made from hospital gurneys cut in half and had drinks hanging from bags on drips. Fortunately I didn’t notice anyone actually taking their cocktails intravenously, instead they seemed to drink from syringes. I couldn’t help but wonder whether they were sterile sealed syringes, or from the local hospital… We later went along to Boat Quay where we had a drink in a classic British pub (I assume it was British rather than Irish because of the name: “The Penny Black”, but we went there for the Guiness). Interestingly this row of pubs and bars, along the waterfront, seemed to be where all the ex-pats and tourists hung out, whereas parallel to the water, one street further in, was where Singapore hung out - complete with very bad karaoke issuing from most bars.
My last day in Singapore was spent wandering along walkways above rainforest in a
nd connecting the park areas of Singapore. We got caught by an approaching thunderstorm and so took a cable car down from Mt Faber (I think) back to “civilisation” (another shopping mall) just as the rain started. This afforded a fantastic view of the jungle behind, and the jungle of cranes at the docks ahead, both of which were quickly obscured as the rain grew heavier!To be honest all of Singapore is a jungle. There’s the green canopy of trees, and above the grey canopy of high-rise buildings. On the ground, instead of leaf-litter there’s, well, strict fines if you drop litter, so it’s pretty clean. It does feel like the city is growing as part of the forest though. And I guess there’s not a lot of choice than to grow up. Singapore is a small country. On the plane on the way to Perth I spoke to a man who lives in Malaysia. Except his closest airport is Singapore. So he hops across the border to catch flights, but lives in the green space allowed by having just that bit more land.
So that’s Singapore really. An interesting place that seems to be an Eastern caricature of Western life.
