Singapore Video
Alright! Here’s the video recap for my 2 days in Singapore. Just in case you’re totally lost, the first clip is a taxi driver discussing local cuisine. He’s saying that Singapore has such a tendency to incorporate their cultures, that authentic dishes are hard to come by in spite of living among genuine ingredients and people. Singapore has a tendency to blend, you see. I found that to be true. He’s taking us to the Singapore Night Safari. I cannot recommend it enough - it was too cool! The idea is brilliantly simple. Lots of animals are nocturnal or just more active in the dark. Let’s bring people through when it’s dark. The animals are not likely to be asleep under a rock in the corner of their pens. And they weren’t! We saw all kinds of cool animals. I saw my first live hippopotamus there.
The one thing I’ll quip about with the Night Safari is that it had the most incredibly kitsch shows. We caught the one featuring a “tribe from Borneo.” They may have belonged to one of the tribes in Indonesia or Eastern Malaysia (can’t really imagine them being from Brunei), but they seemed pretty well adjusted to their carnival-type tourist trade. They danced to techno music while breathing fire and dancing with Maori poi. Cool? Heck yeah. Authentic? Ha ha ha ha ha. Seriously? It was fun, but the animals were way cooler. Oh - I lied - I’ll quip about one more thing. The tourists at this place were hilariously irresponsible. There were posted signs everywhere asking people not to take flash photos. And yet, loudspeaker announcements were required like every 2 or 3 minutes because someone would take another picture. I was shocked that people around the offenders weren’t intervening to help explain! The poor announcer got really frustrated. Ha ha.
You’ll also see a clip of me making an espresso in my hotel room - obviously, I was way too thrilled by the prospect of a complimentary espress machine. Sorry. Next, a brief pan of the Buddhist temple in Chinatown that surprised me - it was airconditioned! It was really geared for tourists as well. I asked if photos were allowed, and they told me to shoot away. It has to be the most modern Buddhist temple I’ve ever been in. After that, you’ll see some quick clips at The Long Bar of Raffles Hotel. The Singapore Sling was just as sweet, fruity, and outrageously expensive as I had imagined. The peanuts were even better, though. Singapore’s famous stringent laws on littering (and everything else) are jovially suspended in the bar, where you’re encouraged to cast your peanut shells on the floor. The result is a crunchy underfoot puddle of shells around each table. And while I’m convinced that the mechanized frond-style fans do nothing, they are pretty awesome.
The Singapore Flyer makes its appearance next. It is billed as the world’s largest Observation Wheel, which led me to wonder whether it was true - if only because I know of no other observation wheels…only ferris wheels… It was really pricey, too. But I’m still glad I rode it. The time wasn’t half rotten, actually. My only gripe is that all of the interesting stuff is visible on the climb up…the other side is rather…dull. And the muzak could go too. And the green screened photo… Ha ha ha. It was far from perfect, but some other people thought it was cool enough that they rented the whole thing out for a corporate dinner. As each cabin came to the dock, they load another course on for the passengers. Fascinating idea. I dunno if I’d enjoy it in practice. Anyway, the last clip is of my first fashion show, which I caught at the Esplanade area mall. It was fun…for a few minutes. The red chili crab dinner afterwards was much better. But alas, no clips to share of that! I’ll update again soon about the Malaysia portion of the trip. Hope you’re looking forward to it!