Singapore

First Impressions of Singapore

We arrived early to Singapore and  took a Grab (the SE Asian Uber-like service) to our hotel.  There must have been a special rate for the airport since it was quite a distance and every other Grab ride we priced out just going a few blocks was at least 8 dollars.  We're used to 2-4 dollar cab rides within the city in our other destinations (Phuket and Koh Tao being exceptions).  We haven't been used to these kinds of costs since we started this leg of our trip in January and it's definitely a shock.  Singapore is a notoriously expensive destination, and we're feeling it.

We couldn't check in to our hotel, so we decided to get out and explore the city a bit.  We're staying in a hotel that's about a 7 minute walk to a metro (called MRT here) station although there isn't much in the immediate neighborhood other than a few other hotels.  We decided to just pay per ride as we'd need to take 6-7 rides on bus/MRT to make the daily cost of a 3-day tourist pass.  You can tap your credit card at the gates so you don't need a special transit pass.

The pattern of development here is interesting.  In many ways in the parts of the city we've visited, it feels like mostly a big downtown that would have been built or redeveloped in the late 20th century.  The roads are wide and multi-laned with big blocks filled with buildings that typically occupy the full block.  But then there are pockets of blocks with narrower streets and one or two storey row houses.

Singapore is notoriously fastidious about cleanliness and aesthetics.  The chewing gum ban is one example; there is a $500 fine for eating on the MRT.  The collection of hawker street food stalls into organized centers is another.  The city has an eerie calm and quiet to it, even as the 5.8 million people more about their day.  This is not New York.... or Tokyo either, for that matter.  With that said, there are some things that would break that stereotype.  Clotheslines are one.  They are huge and jut out far from the windows.  And they go all the way up the tallest highrises.  We even caught someone airing out laundry from their office building window.

Singapore was actually very briefly in the Malaysian federation, but was kicked out due to a political squabble between factions about the role of set-asides for the Malay speaking and indigenous populations to make up for their treatment under British colonial rule.  You can sort of guess which faction was on which side of that debate.  The multicultural and multiethnic composition of the city-state, though, is on full display.  Within 2 blocks of our first stop, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, we also saw a Hindu temple and a mosque.  Although hard to see, we tried capturing all three in a panoramic photo.  We walked through Chinatown, which is mostly those low-slung buildings (although they've covered the main street with a canopy so that it's shaded when you walk though).  

We stopped in at the City Museum, but it was closed, so we went instead to the Asian Civilizations Museum instead.  The collection was vast and varied, and the current trend of low lighting with dark backgrounds makes the items pop in photos.  We especially appreciated the narratives about how there was lots of organized maritime trade going on for quite a while before the arrival of the Europeans, as early as the 6th century as evidenced from a shipwreck found in the Singapore straight.  They showed examples of how goods from India made their way to China and from China back to India and to the Islamic world as well, incorporating designs and motifs for their export markets from one to the other.

For dinner, we walked to a Sri Lankan restaurant that was in an old apartment block with units facing one direction and a catwalk that looked as though the majority of apartments (at least on the first few floors) had been converted to commercial use.  Kotuwa was great and we're far enough from our time in India that we are craving a bit of those flavors after feeling like we needed to give our taste buds a rest for a bit.  Kotuwa did not disappoint.

Durian: The King of Fruits and Cultural Icon of Southeast Asia 

Durian... love it or hate it, it is an important part of Southeast Asian culture.  We've mentioned it a bit before, but we thought we would take this opportunity to expand a bit further on it.

Durian is often referred to as the "King of Fruits" in Southeast Asia. It plays a significant role in local cultures, with festivals and events celebrating the durian season. In some places, it’s even used as a symbol of wealth and prosperity.  It is so important to culture here that the performing arts center in Singapore is colloquially known as the durian (you can see the resemblance in the photos).  They've gone so far as to encourage people to tag #mydurian when they post about performances at the center.  You can actually do tours of the interior of the center and they will talk about the architecture, but they only do them two days a week and you have to book way in advance.  We weren't able to do that, but it inspired us to write about durian more extensively, as we hadn't really before.

According to our food tour guide in Kuala Lumpur, durian has become prized in China now, and so the majority of the high quality durian is going for export; it's made some durian farmers across Southeast Asia millionaires.  And as if the New York Times was listening in on our conversation, they just recently published an article about this trend.

There are over 30 recognized species of durian, but only about 9 of them are edible. The most popular variety, known as Musang King or Mao Shan Wang, is especially renowned for its creamy texture and bittersweet taste.  These are what are now being exported to China.  Durian is a nutritional powerhouse. It’s rich in vitamins C and B-complex, potassium, dietary fiber, and healthy fats. Despite its high-calorie content, it is also known for its antioxidant properties.

Once tasted, good durian is sweet and creamy, but getting it to your mouth can be the challenge because the smell is definitely funky.  We've tried it a number of times (our favorite being in cendol-- the icy, coconutty milky concoction on the tour). On balance, we definitely like it, but, whoa, the smell!  It's instantly recognizable and the smell travels far.  It's the reason that, as much as there is love for durian, hotels and public transport ban the item.  When we were waiting for the light show at Marina Bay Sands last night to begin, we caught a whiff of it.  Someone was eating it as a snack.  We looked around, but could not identify the culprit.  Clearly, they were not in visual distance.  That's how powerful the smell is.  Although the smell is completely different, think of it like the way marijuana smoke travels and is instantly recognizable.

Stephen asked our food tour guide about how people store them in their homes to minimize the smell, and he said that they don't really.  Most people here love the smell.  It's only in public buildings where there is a crowd that, given the strength of the smell, the small minority of those who can't stand it win out over those that love it (at least among the resident population vs. tourists).  While we like durian overall, we're thankful for the prohibition.

All of the countries we've visited in Southeast Asia hold annual durian festivals, attracting locals and tourists alike. These festivals often feature durian eating contests, tastings, and the opportunity to purchase rare varieties of the fruit.  We could imagine it would be fun to be here during one of those and get the full durian experience!  What do our readers think of durian?

Discovering Marina Bay: A Day and Night Guide to Singapore's Iconic Attraction 

Today was all things Marina Bay.  We liked it so much, we went twice.  We figured we would want to see it both in the day and at night.  We started by taking the Tomson-East Coast Line, which is right by our hotel, to the Marina Gardens Bay stop.  First mistake.... it was quite a ways from all the parts of the Marina Bay Gardens that we would want to see.  Much better to take the Downtown or Circle lines to Bayfront station and go from there.  The most famous part of the park are the Supertree grove and skyway.  There are also two greenhouses that were added later.  The flower greenhouse is the largest enclosed glass space without any internal columns.  There is a charge for the two greenhouses ($32 Singapore Dollars for a combined ticket) and to climb the skyway and central tree, but to walk around the grounds of the gardens is free.

We started in the Flower Conservatory.  The contrast of the soft plants with the hard glass and steel canopy made for some interesting photos.  It was also nice to have climate control, and apparently the buildings were built with LEED certification, so there are tons of environmentally friendly practices going on behind the scenes,  They hold rotating exhibits on the main floor.  The current show was roses from around the world.  We didn't think we'd be visiting Cappadocia and Pamukkale from Turkey and the Cycladic islands from Greece again (they had dioramas from those locations).  The Cloud Forest Conservatory had a display of orchids of Cambodia, so we got to revisit Angkor Wat as well.  We walked by the Supertree grove, but it didn't look very interesting in the daylight.  In our opinion, the supertrees looked a little scraggly.

From the grove, we walked to see the Science museum, which is shaped like a lotus, and then walked through the Marina Bay Mall, stopping for lunch at Yardbird (food here is SOOOO expensive), on our way to the Red Dot Museum.

The Red Dot Museum is billed as a museum of design.  We were expecting something like the design museum we went to in Copenhagen.  The Red Dot Competition, is actually a yearly world-wide competition in human factor and industrial engineering.  They had on display some of the products (or photos of the products) that had one this last year's competition.  They also displayed some past "best of the best" winners from the human factor competitions.  The products were really interesting (and maybe a bit esoteric sometimes), but we wish they would have displayed more of the actual items, rather than relying on photos.

We returned later that night to see the Spectra fountain and light show on the bay and the Garden Rhapsody at the Supertrees.  The Spectra show is typically at 8pm and 9pm.  The Garden Rhapsody is at 7:45 and 8:45, so you can do both in the same night (one early show and one late show).  The shows last 15 minutes.  We did the 8pm Spectra show and the 8:45 Garden Rhapsody.  The best place to view the Spectra show is from the dock in front of the central door of the mall.  From there it leads directly to special escalators that will take you up to a skyway to walk to the gardens to see the Rhapsody show (or the reverse).

The shows were nice, but nothing spectacular.  We did get some great shots of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, though, as we were walking back and forth.  We ended up watching the Garden Rhapsody show from the elevated skyway about 300 meters from where the trees actually are, rather than going into the grove and having to stare up.  It may have impacted our feeling about the show, but we thought it was just "meh."  

Uncovering Daily Life in Singapore: From Orchard Road to Toa Payoh to Katong 

We met a former colleague of Eli's who lives here in Singapore for lunch in the Orchard Road area of town.  As we walked from the MRT station, this area, which is known for its high end shopping, was the most active and noisy that we've seen since we've been here.  It was nice to catch up and to get his input on interesting things to see and do.  He recommended that we check out a government housing development (almost 80% of Singaporeans live in government built housing) to see how most Singaporeans live, and then go to the Katong neighborhood and Joo Chiat street for a more upscale and trendy historic vibe.

We went first to Toa Payoh, which was the second government housing development to be built in the mid 1960's, although it has now been expanded with newer building surrounding the original core.  The complex was built with a faux traditional retail core of narrow alleyways mimicking a traditional market, while also heeding to the clean and functional aesthetic of the city overall.  As time has progressed, they have added a enclosed shopping mall and have expanded the original housing block.  This is far from the kind of "housing project" we think of in the united states from this period.  The addition of retail, the mixed income nature of development, and the fact that many of the residents "own" their flats on a 99-year lease (and can resell with certain conditions), are very different from what we did in the US.  Some of the prime 3 bedroom flats can go for more than a million dollars.

Katong is the heart of Peranakan Singapore.  Peranakan refers mostly to descendants of the original wave of Chinese who came here during the colonial period, but as with most things ethnic, it's more complex than that simple description.  We walked down Joo Chiat road and stopped in at a coffee shop to cool off a bit.  We took some photos of the colonial bungalows, known as shophouses as they were typically for merchants.  Katong is also a nighttime hangout, so we'll have to visit again maybe tomorrow or the following night.

Understanding the Urban Wonder of Singapore at the City Gallery and Mobility Gallery

After Eli's colleague recommending it and it being listed as a bib gourmand, we headed today for an early lunch to Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken and Rice in the Maxwell Hawker Stalls.  We enjoyed the silky texture of the meat and the rice had good flavor.  In the end, though, it's poached chicken and you've got to be ready for its simplicity.

Today we visited the Singapore City Gallery and the Mobility Gallery to learn more about how the city develop and some of the unique way it functions.

We started first at the City Gallery.  It's free, but somewhat hidden in an office building.  We found the building and got to the first floor where there were some half-completed exhibits.  We asked if we were in the right place, and the guard said that we should go up to the 2nd floor because most of the permanent exhibits are there.  Even still, it took a little exploring to find most of the good stuff, which is hidden up a half stairway from the 2nd floor kind of tucked in the back.  The overall impression we were left with was how focused, detailed, and integrated the development of Singapore is.  That might partly be because it is at once a state and a city and so there are at least one fewer set of competing interests.  But even still, the thoughtfulness they put into land use, housing, commercial, transportation, gardens, land reclamation, water, energy, environmental, trash, is all planned together and to the finest detail.  And all their thinking seems to be very integrated vs. siloed.

We then headed to the Mobility Gallery.  It's actually housed in the Land Transportation Offices, which is the central planning agency we learned about in the City Gallery.  Their offices look a bit like a converted 1960's school complex.  As we tried to find an entry without having to walk all the way around the building, we actually got scolded by an employee that we couldn't go in the gate we were trying to.  We had just decided to walk in, even though their website said you have to make a reservation.  Once we got to the right gate to the campus we told the security guard we were there for the gallery and he just asked us for our IDs.  He took his sweet time checking us in, but then once in, we were all good and there wasn't anyone else staffing the gallery to question us once we found it.  The gallery was aimed much more at children than the city gallery.  It had some cool interactive VR exhibits, but none of them really worked the way they were supposed to, and we were overall disappointed by the experience.

Rainy Day Adventures in Singapore 

Today we were supposed to meet up with Mun.  Mun is Singaporean but we met him singing in the GMCSF.  He was in Florida working on his PhD but then had to return to Singapore for his job.  He and his husband are doing slow travel as well, but Mun was back in Singapore for the week tying up loose ends.  They have an Instagram, too, at @TheAndanteLife (love the musical reference).  Unfortunately, Mun wasn't feeling well so we just did a video chat, which was fine because it was raining pretty heavily this morning anyway.  He was going to take us around Fort Canning to show us some of the work he did upon returning to Singapore.  It was good to catch up, and we're going to plan to do a video call each time we each get to a new location.

Since it was rainy out, it was the perfect day for soup.  For lunch, we headed to Song Fa Bak Kut Teh for some pork rib soup.  It's a bib gourmand, and it's amazing how a simple soup was so good.  The broth was rich, the rib meat was tender (we got a spare rib version and a loin rib version), and the only other ingredients were white pepper and garlic.  Afterward, since the rain had pretty much stopped,  Stephen headed out to Fort Canning to check out Mun's handywork and also to head to the Sultan Mosque, which is the heart of little Malaysia in Singapore.

For Canning, as the name would suggest, used to be a fort (and it still currently has some sort of military installation).  It's also a beautiful hilly park, which makes sense as forts were often built on high ground.  It's got some nice forested areas and also some more lawn-like areas and Stephen barely encountered anyone else.

The mosque is the center of Little Malaysia, and the area around it is full of small lanes and two storey shophouses like Chinatown was.  The area is a lot more lively that many others we've been to.  Part of that was possibly because it was just after Friday afternoon prayers.  There were also all kinds of shops and restaurants representing from around the Muslim world; there was a Turkish Doner shop and an Egyptian style falafel restaurant, too, in addition to all the Malay shops and restaurants.

For dinner, we headed to a dim sum restaurant that Mun had recommended.  It was good and not too expensive.  We had a specialty of theirs, pandan buns, which we haven't encountered anywhere else.  They're a mix of sweet, coconutty, and salty with the barbecue pork; Stephen liked them more than Eli.  The restaurant is in one of the red light districts of Singapore.  We wouldn't have expected that Singapore would allow red light kinds of things, but they do.  There is another street in town that is similar (and a bit bigger and more developed than this one).  

Jewel Changi: Is It Worth It?

Since our flight out of Changi didn't leave until 2pm, we figured we'd leave a bit early and check out the Jewel at Changi Airport.  Jewel is the shopping center attached to terminal 1 with the famous waterfall.  They offer early bag check-in for some airlines so you can check you bags earlier than 3 hours before your departure and then walk around the mall.  Our airline, though, didn't offer this.  They also had a luggage storage shop, but it was $10 per bag and we had 4.  We didn't think it was worth paying 40 bucks to store our bags for the 30 minutes or so we were going to check out the fountain.  So we ended up lugging our bags around with us.  The fountain is in the atrium, and it reminded us of the conservatories at Marina Bay.  We wondered, since it was raining, if the waterfall had extra volume as the water passes over the roof before falling down.    The fountain was cool and we took some shots from the lower level and then took an elevator up to the top level to get some more shots.  It was crowded, however, with all the other travelers at Changi who were doing the exact same thing as us, mostly also lugging their bags around too.  The most unusual thing we witnessed was a Pilates class going on in the atrium with the participants being cooled by the mist of the fountain.  That's not something you see every day.

With that said, while clearly iconic, we kind of felt meh about the whole experience given the crowds and the baggage situation and would not choose to go back again.