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...obviously, since it's 3:30 and I'm awake.
I went to sleep just before 11, but woke up at 1 (my son got me up), and couldn't fall back asleep. So I figured I'd catch up on a few things.
Of course, my son went right back to sleep after his drink of water....
From Little India, I went on to Chinatown.
via flickr
At first, having a Chinatown in Singapore struck me as a bit odd, given how much of the city is Chinese. Isn't it like having a Little New Jersey in New York City?
via flickr
But of course, Singapore is actually some distance from China: Hong Kong is about 1600 miles, or about 3 hours as the 747 flies, considerably farther than, say, Seattle is from the Mexican border.
No matter where I go, I need my in-room supplies: the secret futurists' diet.
Diet Coke and McVities' Digestives, Singapore version, via flickr
Diet Coke and McVities' Digestives, London version, October 2005
Last year I wished for a script that would grab my location from Plazes and include it as a Technorati tag. Tonight I discovered a script that doesn't quite do that, but still very nicely grabs your location and adds it to your post.
Not something I'll probably use much when I'm at home, but potentially a cool feature when on the road....
Posted from the end of cyberspace via [ plazes.com ]
Technorati Tags: blogging
On my last morning in Singapore, I took the MRT up to Little India.
I didn't go very far, just through an open-air market and restaurant area called Tekka Centre, then a few blocks around the train station.
via flickr
My camera has had trouble talking to my iPhoto on this trip, so at the airport I bought an SD card reader. There was one with a 2GB card, so I now have a lot more memory than I know what to do with. And I'm taking pictures as fast as I can! (In fact, I was going to burn a DVD of my Singapore pictures-- all 3.8 GB of them-- before I got on the plane, but it looks like I've got too little free memory left to do that. So I've got to transfer some of them BACK to one of the new cards, to free up enough memory to burn the others. What a pain.)
When I buy the kids digital cameras, they're going to have to use SD cards.
[To the tune of Oleta Adams, "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me," from the album "Two Rooms - Celebrating The Songs Of Elton John & Bernie Taupin".]
After checking in and getting my seat-- I've got an aisle seat this time-- I walked around the terminal for a while, then headed through security and customs. My habit is to take off all metal and electronics, and put them in my bag before I go through the metal detectors; but this time they didn't do that. The guard looked at my boarding pass and passport, and the customs people stamped something, but that was it.
From customs, you go to the World's Biggest Mall and Duty Free Shop. They cleverly hide the food and drinks in back, in a long arcade that has a view of the planes. Still, despite the view, one can get thirsty looking for it. But still no additional security.
Turns out the serious security check is at the gate: that's where they have the X-ray machines, laptop inspection, etc.. Interesting how different places do things differently. In Frankfurt, I had to remove everything: wallet, Chap-Stik, Moleskine pocket-sized notebook (well, those are French). Here, it's almost like they want to give as many opportunities to spend all your money first, then search you.
[To the tune of B.B. King, "The Thrill Is Gone," from the album "Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: B.B. King".]
Getting from downtown to Changi Airport via MRT turns out to be extremely easy, and amazingly cheap. It was $1.50 from City Hall, and took less than 40 minutes from station to station. You have to change at one point, but that just means walking from one side of the platform to the other.
The taxis are pretty cheap-- my ride from the airport to my hotel was less than $15, if memory serves-- but the subway is definitely better. Even easier than taking the Underground to London, or the El out to O'Hare, to say nothing of the Caltrain-BART two-step to SFO, or the Metro-Washington Flyer combo to Dulles.
Why every major airport isn't directly accessible by whatever the dominant form of public transportation serves the nearby city-- why this isn't an IATA mandate or such-- is beyond me.
More generally, I love the MRT, the Singaporean subway. It's relatively cheap, very fast, air-conditioned, and the stations are really nice. Plus just about every square inch is chrome or a flat-panel monitor, so it's great for those of us who have short attention spans. I bought a lot of one-way tickets, but next time I'm here I'll have to figure out the passes.
[To the tune of Gladys Knight & The Pips, "Midnight Train to Georgia," from the album "'70s AM Radio Classics".]
I walked around Little India and Chinatown this morning, then stopped for a quick lunch at Jason's Market Place again. Now it's a quick shower, and checking out of my room.
Since it's 11:30 and my flight doesn't leave until 5, I think I'm going to try the subway to the airport. The concierge says it'll take about an hour, which should be just fine.
More from Hong Kong, possibly, or more likely, California!
My dinner last night: sushi from Jason's Market Place, in Citylink Mall.
But not just any sushi. Individually-wrapped pieces of sushi.
via flickr
Environmentally unfriendly, I know, but very interesting nonetheless. And very, very good.
via flickr
One of the pleasures of this trip is that my dad comes to Singapore several times a year, and before I left, he suggested a bunch of places I should go-- including the sushi counter at Jason's. It's been interesting following in his footsteps.
And the sushi was better (and much cheaper!) than the sushi I had in Paddington Station, even if it wasn't served up in little UFOs. I may have lunch there.
[To the tune of Marvin Gaye, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine," from the album "The Very Best Of 60's Gold, vol. 3".]
A bar along Circular Road, via flickr
A glass-enclosed seating area on Clarke Quay, via flickr
Fort Canning Centre, via flickr
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes," from the album "Secret World Live (Disc 2)".]
Technorati Tags: Boat Quay, Clarke Quay, Fort Canning Park, park, Singapore, travel
Below Canning House, and near the spice garden, is a wall with memorial plaques. Some of them date back to the 1820s or 1830s.
via flickr
The thing that really strikes you is how young most of the people memorialized were. Lots of women in the 20s or 30s, and a depressing number of young children.
via flickr
We have some friends who are relocating to Europe this summer for a couple years for work, and one of my daughter's classmates spent two years in Shanghai. I occasionally daydream about spending a year in Europe or Asia, and I think of it as an opportunity for the kids to be exposed to a new culture, and an adventure. Like most professionals these days, the logistical and schooling challenges loom large, but I never imagine I'd be putting us all at risk of being struck down by typhoid or malaria.
That was a calculation you once had to make.
via flickr
Of course, child mortality rates were considerably higher 200 years ago than they are now, but still....
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "A Different Drum," from the album "Passion: Music For The Last Temptation Of Christ".]
After walking through Clarke Quay, I crossed River Valley Road and went into Fort Canning Park.
The Park is part of a steep hill, at the top of which is a reservoir; there used to be a fort, and there are still some cool gates and other antique signifiers of its former military importance.
via flickr
Mainly, though, it's a beautiful park. I've always loved these tropical parks-slash-botanical gardens, even though I once got lost in one as a kid. The flora is so amazingly different from what you see in North America or Europe: seeing bromeliads or palms or lotus plants in a hothouse in a botanical gardens in Oxford is definitely not the same thing as seeing them in the wild.
It must have been a mind-blowing experience for Victorian naturalists to step off the boat into what, for them, would have been an alternate botanical universe.
via flickr
At the top of the hill is Fort Canning Centre, which is now a visitor's center, and, interestingly, houses a cooking school.
via flickr
People were setting up for an event-- a concert or fashion show, I never found out-- and several people were busy inflating giant balls.
via flickr
Not something you see every day.
via flickr
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "Games Without Frontiers," from the album "Shaking The Tree".]
Technorati Tags: Fort Canning Park, park, Singapore, travel
Clarke Quay, yesterday:
via flickr
No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own...
via flickr
...that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. (H. G. Wells, War of the Worlds)
via flickr
(This may seem familiar.)
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "Shaking The Tree," from the album "Secret World Live (Disc 1)".]
Technorati Tags: Clarke Quay, quay, Singapore, travel
The side facing the river, with lots of restaurants:
via flickr
The side facing away from the river, along Circular Road, with lots of bars and clubs (closed in the afternoon when I walked through):
via flickr
And the street in between:
via flickr
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "Red Rain," from the album "Secret World Live (Disc 1)".]
It's just after 5, and it's raining like crazy. Someone I met yesterday said that Singapore has two seasons, wet and wetter. Normally this is the wet seasons, rather than wetter; but like just about everywhere, this year isn't normal.
I was planning to go out last night, but I fell asleep before 8, and woke up about an hour later. Having already walked around a lot, I took the cue, and decided to just stay in. And I've got this morning to wander.
[To the tune of Peter Gabriel, "Come Talk to Me," from the album "Secret World Live (Disc 1)".]
In another hotel room-- one floor down, and one room to the left. Why I had to move at all is beyond me....
Had a fascinating morning at Biopolis, then walked along the river and quays (I'm going back to Centre Quay tonight, if I can stay awake long enough), and through Fort Canning Park. One of those afternoons that's so full, you have a hard time believing the morning was part of the same day.
Finished off with sushi at Jason's Market, which was surprisingly good. Some cool pictures of it to follow.
[To the tune of The Rolling Stones, "Gimme Shelter," from the album "Forty Licks (Disc 1)".]
Technorati Tags: Singapore
There's a koi garden in the basement of Suntec, right beside the undergarden parking.
via flickr
It's about the most unlikely place imaginable-- for someone accustomed to American urban planning and design, anyway.
via flickr
But these urban gardens can be anywhere.
[To the tune of Sound Tribe Sector 9, "Possibilities," from the album "2004-12-31 - Tabernacle".]
Technorati Tags: Koi Garden, Singapore, Suntec, travel, water
On Wednesday, during a break in the conference (they scheduled half-hour breaks between speakers, which I think was intended to give people lots of time to go look at the exhibits, network, etc.), I was walking around the entrance hall of the Suntec convention center, and taking pictures of the water sculpture-slash-fountain.
via flickr
It's hard to see, but the sculpture has water running down the sides.
via flickr
It also has lights that change color. And it's big. So it hits the triefcta of Singaporean public sculpture.
As I walking around the floor, I noticed that the tiles seemed to make a map of South Asia.
Technorati Tags: Buckminster Fuller, Singapore, travel
I've gotta switch rooms today, as the cushy "the conference is covering it" part of my trip comes to an end, and the "I have to pay my own way" day begins.
via flickr
So I packed up everything, which didn't take long, as I don't have that much (though the number of kids' presents is growing quickly).
I'm going up to National University of Singapore and Biopolis today, which should be pretty interesting.
[To the tune of Sound Tribe Sector 9, "Open E," from the album "2004-12-31 - Tabernacle".]
I think I'm going to fall asleep pretty soon, so check my Singapore photoset on Flickr.
via flickr
Spent the morning with government folks, and the afternoon at the RFID conference. Then after resting up a bit, I went out to Bugis Village, a kind of shopping arcade, and got stuff for the kids.
via flickr
Walked back via Victoria Street, and am now bone tired.
Tomorrow it's up to Biopolis. Good thing I bought a 4 GB memory card for my camera....
[To the tune of Keith Jarrett, "Sand, Part 2," from the album "Staircase".]
I'm going to start a new game with myself: when traveling outside the U.S. or England, take pictures of streets whose names are the same as streets in London or Oxford.
via flickr
via flickr
I wonder if there's a Victoria Street in Turku or Budapest?
[To the tune of My Morning Jacket, "One Big Holiday," from the album "The Wired CD".]
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Street Names Project, travel
Well, I got through my talks, and most of the conference; I ducked out a little early because jet lag was catching up with me, and would have fallen asleep during the networking session (an insult to one and all). So I went back to the hotel, had a nap, then took the subway up to Orchard Road, and walked back to the hotel.
The long evening walk is a long habit. In Rio, Pop and I would go walking around the city in the evening (after work, now that I think about it-- yet another example of how we end up unconsciously reproducing the habits of our parents), and it's something I like to do after I've taken care of my duties when I'm on the road.
After doing a little shopping for the kids, and getting accosted by about fifty people outside tailors' shops (man, those guys just don't quit), I stopped for dinner at an open-air place, and had what in China would have been chow fun. However, it's spiced a bit more curry-like here; not unpleasant, but a bit unexpected.
via flickr
A few things jump out at me about Singapore.
I'm really surprised at how many white people there are here. I suppose I shouldn't be. Its status as a regional center of services, high-tech industry, and trade make a substantial expatriate community perfectly logical, and a safe, English-speaking city in the tropics is a natural magnet for all kinds of tourists. My reaction is a bit like someone from an ethnically homogeneous part of the U.S. visiting San Francisco for the first time: it might still be a majority white city, but man, there are a LOT of other kinds of people there!
The architecture is pretty stunning. I've not seem much colonial architecture, but there's a vibrant high-tech modernism that rivals anything I've seen anywhere else.
The National Library, via flickr
In lots of little ways-- architectural details like the abundance of little gardens in front of apartment buildings and hotels; the broad streets; the underground shopping arcades; the amazingly luxuriant tropical foliage-- Singapore reminds me of the Rio of my youth. Of course, it's also quite different; but the similarities are strong enough to make me think that this is what Brazil could have been like, had the generals who ruled the country through the Cold War been better managers.
Okay, I'm falling asleep. Time to go back to bed.
[To the tune of Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale," from the album "Greatest Hits".]
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