Singapore

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Just twenty-four hours after I landed in Kuala Lumpur, Inna turned me around and we flew out of KL for a weekend expedition to Singapore.

This blogpost covers just that weekend side-trip. You can read about the rest of my two weeks in Malaysia here, and our other weekend side-trip to Thailand in another separate post, here.

Saturday, 17 March 2018

We got up early Saturday morning for an hour-long cab ride back to the airport. After being dropped at KLIA’s main terminal, we discovered that our airline, Scoot, flew out of the separate KLIA2 terminal. We had some stress and confusion finding the train between terminals, but eventually got there and passed through customs, where I added a Malaysian exit stamp to my passport. Along the way, we passed a saffron-robed Buddhist monk, which delighted me to no end.

Singapore at Night from Dragonfly Bridge

Sands & Helix Bridge

Supertrees at Night

Inna Posed at the Merlion

Selfie with Supertrees

Rocking Out to the Bear Necessities

The Flowers & The Trees

Cloud Forest Dome

Sands Framed

Sakura in the Flower Dome

Enjoying the Roof Pool Skyline

Singapore Roof Pool Panorama

Full Singapore Photoset

As we’d find at other airports, there was no central security checkpoint at KLIA2. Instead, you go through security screening at the entrance to each gate. That meant waiting in the airport hallways until the checkpoint was manned an hour before the flight, and until then you couldn’t get through to the copious seating at the gate. It seemed inefficient and inconvenient.

After a 90-minute flight—which felt trivial to me!—we were on final approach when I noticed the dozens of cargo ships moored in Singapore’s harbor. We landed, passed through customs to get our passports stamped, changed money, and stepped aside for a casual breakfast at a place called Paris Baguette.

At less than two degrees north latitude, Singapore is only 85 miles north of the Equator. That’s farther south than some parts of Brazil! And also a new record for the furthest south I’ve ever traveled. Yay!

We picked up some MRT tourist passes and hopped a train into town. We successfully made a couple transfers, while Inna marveled at the changing indicator LEDS on the train’s subway map, and I “marveled” at the natives’ indifference toward body odor; Singapore may be clean, but its citizens still stink! We exited into a strange semi-outdoor shopping plaza (South Beach Avenue) and dragged our bags a few blocks in the ultra-humid heat to our hotel: Naumi.

Naumi is one of those chic boutique hotels, and its interiors are an interesting example of trend-conscious but user-unfriendly design. There’s an immense glass foot (sculpture, apparently) in the lobby. The room numbers were hidden, lighting controls were unintuitive, and the electric windowshades were difficult to control. Both the shower and bathroom had glass windows into the living area, which only turned opaque at the flip of a switch… and the switch was eerily located on the *outside* of those rooms, rather than the inside! Having set out early that morning and lugged our belongings around all day, Inna and I both collapsed and siestaed from 2 to 6pm.

When dinnertime sneaked up upon us, we faced our first decision, and a difference of philosophies. I figured we should consult a map and decide where to eat before leaving; Inna wanted to walk toward the Singapore Flyer ferris wheel and pick something up at random along the way. I skeptically gave in, and off we plodded, down the street, through two malls, all the way to the Flyer, without seeing anything to eat that we could agree on.

Although the Flyer—the second tallest ferris wheel in the world—had been Inna’s destination, there weren’t any people around, and it appeared idle. There was no obvious indication, but we’d later learn that a couple weeks earlier they had shut it down due to “technical issues”, and it would re-open two weeks after we left. Disappointing, but not the end of the world.

A bit grumpy from flying, humidity, walking, and lack of dinner, we regrouped along the Marine Promenade and made our way slowly across the Helix Bridge toward the famous Marina Bay Sands hotel and Inna’s main objective for the weekend: the Gardens By The Bay.

There we faced more confusion as we tried to navigate toward the Gardens. We walked around the Sands, then back through it, then around again, and finally found ourselves at a landing across a small lagoon from the Gardens, whose man-made 165-foot Supertrees were captivatingly lit up in their regular evening light show. We sat down and rested our weary feet and watched the end of the show, then fought against the flow of a huge crowd across the Dragonfly Bridge to a tall platform that offered a closer view of the Supertrees and the walkway—suspended in mid-air 75 feet off the ground—that encircles them.

By then it was after 9pm and the walkway had closed, so we reluctantly turned back toward the Sands, which was still a chore to get around. Eventually we gave up and hopped a cab back to the hotel. Still hungry, we arived just before the restaurant’s 10:30pm closing time. I had a tasty rogan josh, but Inna was sickened by the acrid smell of the chemical air freshener the hotel used, so she ate quickly and headed straight upstairs. While the Trees were nice, it had been a tiring and trying evening for both of us.

That night I could only sleep from about midnight to 4am. Inna woke up and we had a nice conversation before she fell back asleep, and I used the early morning time for my daily meditation.

Sunday, 18 March 2018

Sunday—our only full day in Singapore—we headed out early to try to beat the heat. The plan was to walk to a quick photo op at the nearby Merlion statue, then hop a cab and spend the balance of the day exploring the Gardens By The Bay in detail. However, barely a block into our walk, Inna announced that she was already getting cooked by the heat and humidity.

I convinced her to carry on, and we kept to what shade we could find as we walked through the WW2 War Memorial Park, past the Theatres On The Bay, and down some stairs to the Waterfront Promenade, a short way from the Merlion.

Visiting the Merlion was my idea: the one thing I wanted to see in Singapore. Not because it’s particularly impressive; rather the opposite. It’s a bit of a story…

Although I’m not much of a mass media maven, one of my side interests is anime. One show that was running at that time was called “A Place Further than the Universe”, wherein four Japanese high school girls join a scientific expedition to Antarctica. In Episode 6, which aired a couple weeks before my trip, they spend a couple days in Singapore, which is depicted in realistic detail, including the Sands, the Flyer, the Theatres, the Gardens, and much more.

At 6:15 into the episode, one of the girls expresses particular interest in taking a posed shot in front of the Merlion statue, which is famous in Japan for being one of the “Three Major Disappointments of the World”. While getting their shot, the girls express chagrin that it’s just not as disappointing as they had heard. With that as background, the one thing I wanted to be sure to do in Singapore was recreate their photo.

When we arrived, I just about spewed myself because the Esplanade, the footbridge across the harbor, and the platforms around the Merlion were all absolutely jammed to overflowing with—who would have guessed it?—Japanese tourists!

Between the walk, the heat, and the crowds, Inna wanted absolutely nothing but to find a cab and go somewhere else. Trying to be sensitive to that, I quickly positioned her, got something close to the image I wanted, and got out. It’s unfortunate that we couldn’t enjoy it in the moment because it was all so rushed in our desperation to leave.

A quick cab ride later, we arrived at the Gardens By The Bay and found a little cafe for breakfast. I had a raspberry donut while Inna regained her spirits thanks to their air conditioning.

From there, we went back out into the hotness to walk around and explore the grounds. I spent some time exploring the cactus section, while Inna danced along to the sound of Disney’s “Bear Necessities” song being played at their kiddie splash fountain. We took our time and did a full circuit of the park, which included an immense sculpture of a floating baby, some interesting topiary, a mushroom den, and lots more. Leaving aside the obscene giant baby, the plantings and displays were satisfying and creatively done.

We bought tickets for the two massive greenhouse exhibits: the Cloud Forest and the Flower Dome. The former was absolutely breathtaking, beginning with a 115-foot waterfall, climbing up a 140-foot forested mountain, then descending down a suspended walkway encircling the mountain… all man-made and within the greenhouse dome! It deserves a much longer writeup, but the photos will convey the experience far better than I could describe.

After successfully exiting through the gift shop, we secured a table and had lunch at a nearby restaurant. I had a spaghetti carbonara, which seems to be a staple tourist dish in Southeast Asia. By the time we finished, some taiko performers (Japanese ritual drummers from the local group Hibikiya) had begun performing, which amused me because I was already signed up to take a four-week taiko class myself beginning four days after I got back to Pittsburgh (which you can read about here)!

The taiko group were part of the Gardens’ spring sakura matsuri (the Japanese cherry blossom festival). Inna and I made our way into the second greenhouse—the Flower Dome—where a chorus was singing amidst dozens of cherry trees, with an incongruous bonus anime cosplay demonstration taking up a far corner.

Besides the sakura, and as compared to the Cloud Forest, the Flower Dome’s displays were somewhat mundane: simple regional collections from succulents to baobabs to a “California garden” featuring such exotic plants as thyme, beets, pumpkin, and carrots!

With heavy legs after a long day of wandering, and tired of fighting the increasing crowds, Inna and I decided to bolt, walking back through the Sands hotel and taking another cab back to our hotel, where we rested and downloaded our pictures.

Instead of wandering around at random looking for food, I made an executive decision, choosing a nearby Swensons, an American franchise ice cream shop. We’d walked past one in the Singapore airport, which had brought back memories of being taken to a Swensons in NYC’s Greenwich Village on one of my first dates with my ex-wife. The dinner was mediocre, and very expensive for what we got.

Completely spent, we walked back to the hotel and crashed.

Monday, 19 March 2018

After my first lengthy sleep since arriving in Asia, we had the morning to kill before our late-afternoon flight back to Kuala Lumpur. I decided to mosey up to the 10th floor to spend some time in the hotel’s rooftop infinity pool. There was a wonderful view of the Singapore skyline, and in the distance you could clearly make out the profile of the Merlion statue and the jet of water he spews out into the harbor. Eventually I was joined by a couple Japanese girls taking selfies, and Inna came by and hung out for a while. I was surprised to see a tall high-rise where people had long poles projecting outward with clothes hanging from them like clotheslines.

As I air-dried, I suddenly realized that after leaving a snowy Pittsburgh, I was sunbathing, at the Equator, on the day before the vernal equinox, when the sun passes directly above the Equator. I took a few minutes to appreciate that fact and catch a few extra sunbeams before rejoining Inna downstairs.

After packing, we checked out and walked back through the shops at South Beach Avenue, opting to have lunch at an Italian place called Atmastel, where I had a delicious ziti in tomato cream sauce with sweet sausage. Between the call of nature and my curiosity about Singapore’s reputed fastidiousness, I stepped outside to a public bathroom and found it had a push-button electric sliding door, heavy HVAC and scenting, and was of course spotlessly clean.

We took the train back to the airport, returned our MRT passes, then killed some time at a Krispy Kreme (egad!) before making our way through the computerized immigration stations. Having gotten through first, I watched as Inna navigated the automatic stalls and unintuitive fingerprint scanner. Sadly, no exit stamps from Singapore for my passport. Hanging around outside our gate (due to the at-gate security checkpoints), Inna decided to try one of those free leg-massage chairs, making the most diverse set of faces I’ve seen in ages, ranging from pleasure to confusion to horror!

On the flight back to KL, I did my daily meditation, which garnered me two “achievements”: 60 consecutive days of sitting, and 1,200 days total. Arriving at KLIA2 and getting another Malaysian entry stamp, I exchanged my Singapore dollars while Inna hit a convenience store, then we cabbed back to her hotel. I had my first Malaysian dish at the hotel restaurant: nasi lemak (aka chicken drumstick in curry gravy with coconut rice). Then we went back upstairs and turned in.

My overall impression of Singapore is that it’s attractive, comfortable, artsy, and very expensive. For the most part, I felt at home, since English is the primary language. Surprisingly, the widely-publicized police state wasn’t visible, and seems to have succeeded at making the place cleaner and nicer than anywhere else I’ve been. I particularly noted the lack of sirens being heard, as compared to other large cities I’ve visited.

Despite a lot of fatigue and some irritability, we both enjoyed Singapore, and are glad we went. The architecture was a constant highlight, and the Gardens By The Bay were amazing.

While I’ve shared a few good photos here, be sure to check out my full Singapore photoset. Then get Inna’s perspective in her own Singapore Day 1 and Day 2 blogposts.

As mentioned above, you can continue reading about the rest of my trip in my separate Malaysia blogpost, as well as the side trip we made to Phuket the following weekend in my Thailand blogpost.