Singapore, Singapore
Good morning, today we arrive in Singapore, the city and the country, at 10 in the morning. We are still having some trouble getting our heads around this unique city state. The island is called Singapore. There is a city called Singapore. There is a country called Singapore.
The country consists of approximately 64 islands. The largest is Singapore. Exactly how many, it changes. Singapore fills in the bays between islands to make more land. One island is the island of Singapore. Another is Sentosa which is a popular island resort with myriad attractions. We are pulling into the bay where the cruise terminal is located. From here we can see the cable car that runs high above us, going to Sentosa. There are smaller island which are havens for nature lovers like Pulau Ubin, St John's Island and Sisters' Islands
In all there are about 275 square miles of land, smaller than the State of Rhode Island. Singapore is inhabited by over five million people, of which the resident population comprises four major communities; Chinese, Malay, Indian and Eurasian. It is easy to get confused between the city of Singapore and the country of Singapore. Truthfully they are all the same, technically no, but in reality it is all run as one.
We are pulling into the dock. It appears to be some distance from the CBD, Central Business District. Google maps suggests the overhead cable car system starts about five miles from the CBD, and we don’t appear to be too far from at least one platform for the cable car system.
The purpose of today excursion is to try and experience Singapore like a local. We will be spending the day engaged in activities that offer an authentic snapshot of daily life. Sounds like a big task to us. Making it through the customs and immigration system appears to be challenging. We applied for a visa sometime ago. Yesterday we got a notice about having to fill out a landing card on line and get a bar code to enter Singapore.
The whole visa system across the world is evolving. No one wants to have people stamping passports. Facial recognition is changing all of this. It won’t be long before you do it all online months in advance and then just walk through customs and immigration. Until then it remains a mix of different methods. Here they want to see the passport, bar code and our ship id card. It is the most secure boarder crossing we have done some far.
There is a long line in the cruise terminal. The 10 am excursion won’t begin at 10. If we get through this line by 11 it will be a surprise. A ferry arrives from who knows where and hundreds of people get off. Apparently if you are a resident you have to scan your card to enter. They seem to stream through.
Finally, we are through immigration and off to the bus. There are a lot of people here. A huge number of students, identified as such because they are all in their smart school uniforms, are arriving and leaving the terminal as we do. We can see a guy holding a number 10 regent sign, our tour this morning is number 10. It isn’t one of the huge buses but a much smaller one.
The first stop is at the URA, Urban Redevelopment Authority. Across the street the Maxwell Food Center. One of the place hawkers, street vendors, can sell food from stalls. We don’t head in that direction but it looks extremely well organized and clean. We both would really like to try these out. We are hoping we will have an opportunity.
There are people who will look at the URA as a really good example of propaganda. This place is extremely modern, uses every form of media there is, and is a learned space to telling you about Singapore’s city and country planning. It is also called the Singapore City Gallery. It tells you the history of urban planning over the last fifty years. Through multiple interactive exhibits lets you understand how this planing has shaped the way its people live, work and play.
There are several finely detailed architectural models you can look down upon to get an amazing bird’s eye view of downtown Singapore. From a Socialist’s point of view this is the ultimate planning. Planning, by the way, that has worked! It works because the government has included everything in each of the huge estates, public housing complexes. There is public transportation, supermarkets, movie theaters, food vendors, pharmacies, police stations, and government services. Each estate is a town unto itself.
Although it is “public housing” you are allowed to “buy” your unit. Buy is in quotes because it is really a 99 year lease. After five years you can sell your unit if you want to. If you can’t afford to buy it, and the guide has repeatedly stated there are a number of programs to help people, but to rent a rent or to buy a unit. There are no homeless here.
The guide is taking us to Toa Payoh estate. We are having trouble getting our heads around the difference between the City of Singapore, estates and towns. Singapore is a city state. The Island of Singapore has many towns and cities (estates). Each housing complex is either a town (small) or an estate (large). Each estate is a city within itself.
The bus arrives at Toa Payoh. We disembark and walk through the estate. There are people everywhere. It is a workday, but there are elderly, women with children, office workers, just literally everybody. There are, not literally, hundreds of shops, selling anything and everything you could need. There are food vendors galore.
The guide passes out metro cards. He is telling how to use them. You can buy a metro card or simply used your debit or credit card. Most people just use a debit or credit card. Everything is incredibly clean. There is no trash on the ground anywhere. It looks like there are two floors of shops and services. You can look up and see hundreds of housing units in the multi-story building above us. Toa Payoh was the first of these developed neighborhoods in Singapore.
The guide leads us through the “city” to the metro. The first thought in our head was, really these tourists don’t have a clue about how to ride a metro? We love riding the metro. It is such a good way to get around. The metro is clean and well lite. There is a clear barrier between the platform and the tracks, much like there is in Torino or Milano. Ok, not all the lines in Milano but the new ones. On the ground are lines and arrows telling you where to stand and where to keep clear so people can get off. It seem intrusive or overly controlling, but it works and keeps the flow of people moving.
We are going to Ang Mo Kio just three stops away. The Singaporeans just seem to ignore the strange tourists. The train itself is remarkable clean. We are pulling into the Ang Mo Kio station. Despite the number of people getting on and off there is no congestion or pushing, probably due to the lines on the ground. This station is above ground rather than below like Toa Payoh.
He walks us from one side of the station to the other to wait for the train going back to Toa Payoh. The metro is pulling and we reboard for the ride back to Toa Payoh. He is telling us that the ride we just took cost about one Signapore dollar or seventy cents US. It would have been cheaper if we used a debit or credit card, or purchased a pass.
We arrive in Toa Payoh. He is leading us back through a different part of that Toa Payoh complex. There is actually some green space here. Grass and trees. We take the escalator up back to the street level and our waiting bus. The guide is telling us that this is how normal or average Singaporeans go about their daily activities. More propaganda? Didn’t look like it. Too many people involved to have been staged.
Now, he says, we are off to the slightly more affluent estate (neighborhood) of Bishan where we will visit with a local family and see a “typical” apartment. More propaganda? The bus pulls up to the curb and we alight. There are trees and grass areas. People with children playing and rising their bikes. Basically a park-like setting.
There are several BBQ looking things in one area. We ask what they are. Are they BBQs? He laughs and says no. They are for burning paper offerings. The Chinese make up about 70% of the propulsion. It is their custom to burn paper offerings during certain feasts each year. The government has taken this into account by providing a place for them to burn their offerings.
He follows this up with the fact the fireworks are banned in Singapore. However they do have state organized Chinese New Years parades, where fireworks are used by government employees. He follows this up with the housing is meant to mix people us. The population is 70% Chinese, 10% this, 5% this, etc. Etc. That when the government sells the housing the percentages must remain basically the same as the percentages in the community. He is making it clear they do this to help avoid creating neighborhoods of one ethnic group or another.
We walk towards the building. The open-air design is nice. There is a good airflow through the building. There are CCTV cameras everywhere, even in the elevator. The elevator is small, but we still get eight or so good-sized people in one trip. We are on our way to the fourteenth floor.
Yes, it is all grey concrete. The design is open so that air flows through even up here. The final elevator car of people has arrived, and we approach unit 14-105. The owners great us at the door. The guide is telling us it is normal to remove your shoes before entering a home in Singapore. Everyone does. Good thing I brought a shoehorn so I can get them back on.
The home is compact. There is a Chinese couple who live here with their daughter, currently at school. Actually, it turns out she is going to school at Berkeley! The kitchen is compact and looks efficient. Not going to cook any Thanksgiving dinners here, or if you do one person will have to be in charge because two of you aren’t going to cook at the same time. No more or less efficient than many of the kitchens in the air B&Bs we have stayed in in Europe.
It is small but doesn’t feel cramped. A couple and two children could live here nicely. We are sat around the dinning room table where we are offered cake and chrysanthemum tea. Ok, it is a setup, but you can’t really just drop in one some one can you. It is a lot better than Benoa, Surabaya, or Semarang in Indonesia were. There aren’t the shanty towns that exist in those cities. Good? Bad? Fair?
Our next stop is the Marina Barrage, a massive reservoir in the heart of the city. The guide explains that its main purpose is to supply Singapore with water and flood control, but the barrage has also been designed as a recreational space. It is the middle of day and there are some school children here, one would guess, learning about the purpose of the barrage.
The guide walks us through and around the complex. It is very much a par like setting. He says to come back after five and we will see hundreds of people out on the lawns enjoying a picnic and flying kites. It’s obvious by the kites caught in the wires around that this is what people do here. There is a young couple flying a kite. Another young couple taking, probably, engagement photos with a professional photographer. More than propaganda here?
Back on the bus the guide tries to answer as many questions about Singapore as he can. The most obvious one is – are people happy with all this planning. He appears to find it almost a funny question. Yes, the organization into estates and towns work. The chewing gum question. Why is it banned? The story goes that a couple of kids used chewing gum, pardon the pun, to gum up the doors on the metro. They doors would open. After this had happened a few times, it became unlawful to buy or sell chewing gum. There is probably more to the story than that, but that is the unofficial story.
We are being dropped off at the Harborside Mall which is right next to the cruise terminal, one of two in the city. Now we have reservations to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse for dinner at 19:00. It is all of 16:00. We could go though immigration and reboard the ship, and then go through immigration and take a taxi to dinner.
We are a little hungry anyway. We have heard that the mall has a fantastic food court. We choose to walk though the mall and get a little something to eat. We find a Chinese restaurant called Song Fa Bak Kut Teh. There are a lot of people having lunch, there are no caucasians in the place. We’ll try this one.
The server spots us and offers us a table. She also gets chairs with backs for us, everyone else is sitting on low stools. We get a menu with photos and the names of the food in Chinese with English subtitles. We have no idea on what to order. So choosing by photo and English subtitles we order Fragrant Garlic Fried Chicken, they had me at garlic, Spicy Pork Belly, here the word spicy enticed us, Dough Fritters. There is nothing wrong with a little fried dough. Add to that an order or two of plain white rice and two drinks.
Well the chicken dish is garlicky and full of flavor. Spicy pork belly is a bowl of bacon, yes bacon is pork belly even if you don’t want to call it that, with two types of peppers, green chili peppers. They are akin to jalapeños. And hot red peppers. This dish as spicy but wonderful after the mild meals on the ship. I picked out and ate the peppers. It was very hard to avoid filling up. After all we had dinner at Ruth’s Chris tonight.
This meal was 26.50 Singaporean dollars. They automatically added a 10% tip and 9% GST bringing the total to 31.77 or about $22.25 US. Well worth it.
We are going to walk some of this off before going to dinner. As we are doing so we notice a nail place. Perhaps spending the time between now and dinner could be best spent getting a manicure and pedicure? How much? The young woman says $48 (less than $35 US). Ok, let’s do it.
The next two hours are spent getting manicure and pedicures. We added massages, leg and arm wraps, and whatever. It was great and a lot of fun. The total bill was a lot more than the original $48. But it was a lot less than getting it done on the ship. It was from a chain of shops called Nailz Gallery. They have fourteen or fifteen shops in Singapore. Afterwards we needed to head to Marina Bay and dinner.
Marina Bay is Singapore's newest district, created on reclaimed land just east of Riverside. It includes a mix of business, shopping, entertainment and culture. The label "Marina Bay" is a little fuzzy. The bay is the body of water created by reclaiming land around the mouth of the Singapore River and blocked off from the sea by the Marina Barrage. Singaporeans associate the name "Marina" with the Marina Square shopping mall and the many hotel developments around it on the north shore of the river.
The Marina Bay Sands hotel and casino, dominates the city skyline while sharing the spotlight with the super trees of Gardens by the Bay. We could probably spend two or three pages describing the Marina Bay Area, but honestly we haven’t seen it. That is part of tomorrow’s excursion.
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse in located in the ParkRoyal Collection. With a name like that you know it is an upscale place. We get into a taxi; he says it is $40 for the trip. Not knowing better we agree and we are off. It isn’t very far from one thing to another in Singapore. There just isn’t that far one can go on a island. Fifteen minutes later we are at the entrance of the ParkRoyal hotel.
This place is beautiful. It makes the grand places in Las Vegas look like a mess. The construction is obviously much better than Las Vegas. The glitz in a lot more. We take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Curious thing. It doesn’t feel like you are trapped in a building. There is no sense of claustrophobia. It is open airy, green and light.
There is one couple in the restaurant when we arrive. Mary orders a Singapore Sling and I get is a bottle of Ruffino Chianti Ducale. This is followed by lobster bisque and a chopped salad. Mary gets the 8oz filet and I get the 12oz NY strip, medium rare. We choose to share a baked potato.
The soup and salad are wonderful. The lobster bisque tastes like it should. Perhaps it is because I think that is the way it should taste, not necessarily because it should taste that way. Oh, call bullshit on that. This is how it is supposed to taste! The meat is equally pleasing.
The glorious meal lasts about two hours. It ends up costing about $752 Singaporean dollars ($619 US according to my credit card, although this isn’t a very good exchange rate). So, about what one would expect with a good bottle of wine in any Ruth’s Chris in the US. It was more than worth it.
Then it was a $20 (Singaporean) taxi ride back to the ship. Stuffed to the gills. Happy as clams. And more than ready for bed. Looking forward to tomorrow’s excursion.
Buonanotte e Ciao. Enrico and Maria
Opmerkingen