Sydney :: Australia
It's still a little bit dull in Singapore
Places: Singapore.
Coolest thing I did: Rediscovered the city from scratch, because it appears I didn't remember anything from 10 years ago. Except it's still a bit yawn.
Coolest thing I didn´t know: The Brits used to swear by importing Sikhs as policemen all over the empire. No other Indian religions, just Sikhs.
I had mixed feelings about coming back to Singapore, a city I should know better than most of the ones I've visited in Asia as I used to come here for work quite a bit back in the disco days of the IT industry. I thankfully found walking around for about half an hour that I don't remember any of it, save for the night safari at the zoo, which I didn't do this time but recall as being good. This meant I could discover a whole new city without having to worry about it being different to last time I was there.
I do remember Singapore as being dull as far as nightlife went and it didn't disappoint, but that may have been more due to the fact that people were all partied out from the Grand Prix the previous weekend. It was interesting to be able to walk around the old colonial district of town without having to worry about cars running you over but you did have to dodge the ruins of a Grand Prix as you went. There were big groups of mostly Indian labourers doing their best to pull down grandstands, fences and temporary walkways, meaning quite often you were walking down the track between two fences looking for a gap that would let you get out.
The weather was unpredictably tropical, going from brilliant blue sky to torrential downpour in what seemed like minutes. This meant I spent more time indoors than I have anywhere on this trip. In Singapore that means one thing: shops. If the KL-ians shopped for recreation the Singaporeans seem to shop all the time. You can walk through most of the downtown or the CBD without having to worry about not being able to buy something. There's also a persistent feeling of dejavu about the whole experience as the brands and shops tend to repeat fairly rapidly, giving a broken fun house mirror feel to the place. Things are amazingly un-cheap, which is definitely different to how I remember it, anything that is branded and can be compared was roughly on par with Australian prices, electronics included (which used to be much cheaper).
Still, all this shopping is probably due to the fact that commerce is woven into the cities DNA, resulting from it being the meeting point of the two big Asian monsoons, bringing ships from China and India to meet at the point of the Malay peninsula and swap stuff. The potential for this to become the linchpin of the Asian subsidiary of the British Empire became the obsession of the first big name in Singapore's history, Stamford Raffles. Raffs (as he was known to his mates, trust me on that) was built in the mould of a proper Victorian gentleman who happened to believe that by getting control of both Melaka and Penang and founding a colony on the island of Temasek at the point of the peninsula (which would become Singapore) the Brits would control all of Asia's maritime trade and become the most complete and powerful empire in the world. I imagine Queen Vic liked the sound of all that and he got to create the free trade haven of Singapore and import all the Indian & Chinese coolies he wanted to.
I especially like the statue of Raffs next to the old Empress Building which has him standing in a b-boy stance with his arms crossed and one shoulder up (you got served!).
The Singapore river used to be the heart of Asia's trade, with the three races (Chinese, Indians and Malays) each playing a big part in the running of the place through private enterprise. In the Asian Civilisations Museum there's a model of how the Chinese coolies used to live, with walls covered in bunk beds and communal eating/cooking areas in the middle. I wonder what they'd think of backpackers living the exact same way now. Only with more booze involved.
In the 1980s the government redeveloped the heavily polluted and legendarily stinky river to allow massive skyscrapers to be built along it to house the industry that would come to live along sea-borne commerce in Singapore's future, international banking. The chop houses are gone, replaced by the big names in world banking but a glimpse out over the bay to the forest of cranes tells you that Singapore's sweet spot at the mouth of the Melacca Straights still gives it a pivotal role in moving stuff around by boat, even today.
Singapore's modern landmarks pale in comparison to such colonial gems as the Raffles Hotel and Cricket Club but since I was last here they've built a concert hall/theatre on the Esplanade which the locals refer to as "The Durain" as it looks like two big spiky balls. While I could point out that putting a funny shaped concert hall (or opera house if you will) on your waterfront has been done before I do like the look of the building, given the number of basically similar square towers on the Singapore skyline it really does stand out. It's much better to end up with only one or two modern architectural oddities on the skyline rather than become the shambles that Shanghai has, with every building looking different.
Well, I had to come back from Asia so I've landed back in Sydney to do a bit more waiting for the UK government to give me a work permit. It was a good way to eat up 7 weeks of waiting though.