No peeing in lifts, fine $500

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Hao and I arrived in the Budget Terminal of Singapore’s international airport. There was a cart that said, “Experience the difference”, from what I recall. I thought that was somewhat humorous; causing flyers to feel like a frugal traveler. Unfortunately they failed at causing me to feel the difference since this terminal is much better than the terminals I’ve experienced elsewhere. A 35$ Singapore dollar airport shuttle van took us to the Inn Crowd, a backpacker haven in Singapore. It is situated in Little India. We arrived at 11:49 PM. The reception closed at midnight. Lucky us, we checked in and jumped into the beds in a dorm style room blasting with ice cold breezes. In fact it is a large room with about twenty bunk-beds.

 

This morning Hao and I decided to venture Little India. From one of the Rough Guide books, it stated that Little India is filthy dirty. It is possible a Singaporean authored the guide because it is far cleaner than parts of Chicago. Little India stretches a few blocks long and is filled with shops selling obscure items and also streets lined with restaurants of Indian cuisine. We chose Banana Leaf Apolo. You get to eat off a big piece of banana leaf. I am a huge fan of Indian food and was excited to try Singaporean-Indian food. We ordered these deep fried battered vegetables (I forget the name), mutton (Lamb) sliced in a spicy sauce with onions and tomatoes, mutton curry, briyani, and roti.

 

Goodbye Little India, hello Chinatown. We traveled to Chinatown via subway. Singapore’s subway is perhaps the most advanced subway I have ever seen. Of course, I have yet to go to Japan. But Singapore’s entire subway system is air conditioned. There are panels with sliding doors separating the seating area from the train, probably to keep the heat generated from the trains out of the subway waiting area, or maybe to blockade any suicides. Three stops later, we arrived at Chinatown. Singapore’s population is made up of predominantly Chinese people, ~70%, which means Chinatown must be bustling! In fact it was. There are so many huge centers with mini shops within at every corner. This city’s Chinatown seems to be set in stone with the marketing practice of 3 for 10$ or 1 for 4$. Hao, with his Texas Instruments solar calculator, converted the prices to USD. Ten Singapore dollars equates to about $6.62USD. I purchased six finely painted Chinese wall scrolls ranging from scenery to animals to plants (flowers and bamboo).

 

There was an extremely tall Singaporean man whose job was to stand outside the extremely large shopping centers towering the street corners and survey people who approached us as we left one of these constructions. I had no interest what his survey entailed, but with his continuous chattering, and the phrase, “If you take the test and are over 50,000 I will give you back your $5, and if you are under, then I keep the $5”, Hao accepted his offer. Thus, I had to walk a few blocks to this tiny office. This new machine reads the amount of anti-oxidants in one’s body to see how healthy one is. Hao and I both seem to be very weak individuals. They attempted to sell us some extremely expensive pills and a drink from the Vietnamese fruit dấc. No purchases were made. Despite our refusal to purchase, the extremely tall Singaporean man was quick to help us in finding sites around Singapore.

 

Walking around Chinatown preceded and purchasing more items. Dinner time, 8:00 PM, crept upon us so we decided to find one of the many eateries around Chinatown. I ate Mi Wonton with char-siu.

 

Until next time.

 

Tran, Q.H.

 

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