Out of New Zealand, into Singapore

Wanaka is hard to get to, and just as hard to get out of. Bus to Queenstown, plane to Auckland, looong plane ride to Singapore. One very long day. The Jetstar magazine showed a route over the ocean but our plane actually crossed Australia diagonally. Saw lots of the outback - truthfully, that's what most of Australia is. Braided rivers are really pretty from the air. Streams meander back and forth in a broad channel which is only filled in flood conditions. Not very often, in Oz. Lots of mountain ranges, too. About Jetstar. They do charge less. Then they sell you everything but the seatbelt. Not that 3 bucks for a cup of coffee is a big deal, I just object to being such a captive market. Especially for an eleven hour flight. If my belly had held out, they could have stuffed their fifteen dollar TV dinner.

So now we're in Singapore, a place Liz has wanted to see for 20 years, ever since she read about it in the New Yorker. Very clean, very modern, very full. over 5 million people, 272 square miles. The harbor is unbelievable, row upon row of cranes with cargo ships lined up under them, swapping cargoes. Downtown full of highrises, retail shops on the bottom floors, offices above them and apartments above them. Miles of them! Underground, it's a similar story. We went looking for lunch in the lower part of the Sun Tec complex and emerged two streets over. Good, cheap lunch though. I counted over forty different food stalls available there. KFC, McDonalds and Subway among them. I suppose over here that's exotic, where prawns and noodles is commonplace. Chinatown is in the throes of Chinese New Year, making the area even more crowded than usual. Cross streets are jammed with hucksters of all kinds, from hundreds of specialty food stalls to every kind of cheap and colorful gimcrack with bunches of gewgaws thrown in. Worse than Christmas at Gibraltar Trade Center (If you haven't been there, it's worth it, just to understand the word kitsch).

Always budget conscious, we found the perfect tour. For 33 dollars each, we boarded the Singapore Hippo Duck tours. Double decker buses, four different routes and a riverboat, hop off and hop back on for 48 hours. THIS is a bargain! For two solid days we rode and walked ourselves into exhaustion.

We marveled at the multitude of architectural styles. It seems every new building needs to outdo its predecessors in some style or other. If you can't be tallest, how about being football shaped and covered with diamond plates? Two of them, side by side. They're called the durians (a particularly exotic fruit with a very strong odor) by the locals. Maybe a cruise ship on top of the casino, or a flying saucer to house the supreme court in the justice building? Use intersecting helixes (helices?) to house a walkway? You get the idea.

                                                   Singapore's Supreme Court Building

                                                                                Casino

World's Largest Foutain, "The Fountain of Wealth" is surrounded by 5 Buildings representing 4 Fingers and Thumb (so that Money will flow from the palm of your hand)

Raffles Hotel with colonial architecture is where Singapore Sling was invented. Raffles, an Englishman, put Singapore on the map.



                                                           River connects Singapore.

The Flyer. Each car holds 8 people. Have dinner during 1/2 hour trip.

Sunday, we hit Sentosa. This is Southeast Asia's Disneyland. Fortunately, they didn't pay much attention to Walt. A lot more in the way of nature walks, free stuff to do, very minor admission fee (Don't worry, you'll get nicked later if you go the independent attractions. Universal Studios in particular is expensive). On the other hand, we rode the luge and came back up on the chair lift 3 times for 10 bucks each. We got lost on the nature walk and covered almost half the island on foot, in the woods. Much of this was on a boardwalk looking at the top layer of three canopy jungle. Came out somewhere near the gun pits where the old coastal defense artillery had been. Had a hell of a time finding our way back to a bus stop. Seriously, Sentosa is a very cool place one couldn't fully cover in a week.

Luge - 680 meter downhill with plenty of curves

Sky Tiger - see all of Singapore from the top. Spins as it slowly rises.

Nature all around.

Waterfall on the nature trail

Liz at the little nature park under Flyer

View from Zipline tower.



An aside: car ownership in Singapore. This is the most expensive place to own a car in the world. Check this out: http://www.expatsingapore.com/content/view/1152. Due to these laws, Singapore exports more used cars than anyplace but Japan.  Nevertheless I saw dozens of Ferraris, Maseratis and Porsches. This despite tough traffic laws and universally slow traffic. I feel so sorry for the high performance cars that never see more than about 50 mph all their life.

Liz with Suspicion in Singapore or I am an amatuer traveler and feeling it.

Suspicion started when Mike exchanged his Australian $50 for Singapore dollars in the airport and the exchange he got was one for one. He said he met a thief. Then we got to the hotel, check in and charged our room. The female clerk said that SGD to USD was $1 for $1. Wow, I thought I was out of touch, Gee the US Dollar must be in deep trouble! However we only get 3 TV channels in our room, not even a news channel but CNBC financial news reports that SGD = 1.29 to USD =$1. So the clerk has an attitude and Chase Visa will manage the currency exchange no matter what the check-in clerk says.

Yesterday Mike and I jay-walked in Chinatown. No traffic was coming. Why not cross instead of waiting. Looking back it really stands out that we were the ONLY people to cross the street on a red light. I wonder if that will get us a ticket or future embarrassment. They monitor with cameras here.

Our hotel is in the Kepple District, a huge shipping complex but we'd never know it. It is hidden from view. I selected this hotel for price and convenience to Sentosa so we might visit the famous Disney-like Park there and ride the luge. Mike is not keen on cities but he saw the travelogue on TV with the luge ride and he thought Singapore looked like fun when I asked. But somehow we cannot take a bus from our hotel to Sentosa but rather we must return to the city and go out again with the tour ticket we bought.

                                                             The Year of the Dragon

We return to Singapore on Jan. 22. So what? Jan. 22 is Chinese New Year's Eve! Dumb time to be on the move! No thanks to Air Treks agent. Even though I tried to anticipate cultural events and dates like this by enrolling with a GM website who warns of this type of conflict, I missed this huge date on Chinese calendar. All I can say is "Kong Si Fa Chi" (Happy New Year! ) Don't ask me if that is Mandarin or Cantonese. I get them mixed up. I hear both and the accent is slightly different. I started practising "Kong Si Fa Chi" (think KFC) since a Chinese clerk in New Zealand said "Merry Christmas" to us. It is the least I can learn to say.

We return from Bali on Jan. 22 and spend one night in Singapore. Then on Jan 23, we take a bus to Melacca, a very historic trading city. The bus is booked through luxury.com.sg and costs $46 per person. We are paying more for a bus ride than we typically pay for a room. But we selected our seat and it is a sure way out of Singapore to Melacca. Melacca is also spelled Melaka and many other ways.

I like to make note of government messages to people. Singapore is intensely capitalistic so corporations buy their advertising before the government does. Nothing is free. It is not a "nanny state" Mike agrees that fewer messages are on display here than in Australasia. The most powerful two were heaped with guilt.

"Do your children speak proper English?"

"Your life. Your fight. Dengue."  (I saw these two only once and at a glance. I don't think they want them in neighborhoods with tourists.)

Trash cans say "Do your part. Let's Bin it.". No Smoking symbol By Law.
Army recruiting posters say, "Your Country". Singapore has some friction in region. It is a lot richer than neighboring Malaysia. Birthrate is 1.1 per couple. Workers are imported from India. 85,000 hotel maids congregate on their day off on Orchard Road, equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.  

Luxury shops on Orchard Road

President's mansion

Mass transit is great here. Buses run the same on Sunday as any other day. Choices are tandem buses, double decker buses and regular buses. We have not tried the trains.

Green spaces are terrific and prolific. Reuse is great too. I meant to mention this about Australasia too. The only place where plates and utensils were thrown away was in Sentosa Park and even there the clerk took our Chinette plates and forks from Mike as he was about to put them in trash. She did not let him throw it away. We don't know why. The stands in Chinatown even use red plastic chop sticks. They do not waste money putting paper in landfills. They must run a lot of dishes through dishwashers.