The City and the Safari

Jan 22

Well, what a day John had! He booked or arranged stuff, through the hotel's travel advisor, to do for his entire stay. So, it started off with exploring the hotel. He found the pool and the pub. Every time he went outdors though his camera lens steamed up, such was the difference in humidity from inside to outside.

The hotel has six restaurants if you call two fast food places, restaurants. There is the buffet restaurant off the lobby, Tony Roma's, a posh bar, an Irish pub, a Subway, and a Texas burger place. And it has its own shopping arcade with beauty salons, spas, and wedding planning stuff including a wedding dress store.

As his camera got used to being outside, John then went to video the shopping both high and low. He got back just in time to take the city tour.

Unlike the other city tours he has been on, this guided tour also took you to places and you got out to explore with the guide. He saw little India, Chinatown, the old Imperial sector, what was supposed to be a jewelry factory (but turned out only to be a fancy jewelry store). Finally, they had precious little time to see the National Orchid Garden. John was not happy to have wasted time walking around a jewelry store where the people tried to sell him stuff when he could have been taking more time seeing the buggest collection of orchids in the world. They were magnificent. The highlight was the new variety of orchid that was created in Singapore in honour of Nelson Mandela (even though it was not the prettiest one).

Little India was fascinating too - the culture, the smells, the street decoration. A major Hindu festival had just finished so that the streets were still alive with colour. It was almost, John imagined, like an authentic street in India itself. The Indian population is not that large, though, some 5% of the total.

Chinatown was great as well. John got to walk through a Buddhist temple as a service was going on. He also bought some candied pineapple slices and sweet lime balls at the Chinese market on Smith Street and ate them before getting back on the tour bus. The woman at the stall had asked for $2 but John said he only had one dollar on him (which was sort of true; he only had one $1 coin). So, she screwed up her face, took a few pieces out and sold him the rest for $1. John had never bargained before. He doesn't know if he really got a bargain or not.



The guide explained the the population is made up of Chinese, Indians and Malays and that of the 5M people about 1.2M are expatriates from other countries living and working there.

Anyway, he also saw the Raffles Hotel, in passing. A Singapore Sling drink costs between $24 and $28 there. Just because they invented it. He saw the Singapore Opera House, the Supreme Court building, and many, many malls that the bus passed. Honestly, you can find a specialized mall for any conceivable thing you might want to buy. Think of Masonville and multiply by maybe 100 or more and you have Singapore's malls.

The National Orchid Garden was amazing. It covers three hectares with hundred if not thousnads of species of orchids. There is the VIP orchid garden, the orchidarium with its wild orchids, the Tan Hoon Siang mist house, the refridgerated cool house where the mist spray allows high altitude tropical orchids to flourish. The whole garden takes up 40 hectares.



Coming back from the Botanic Gardens, they ran into a huge traffic jam. The guide had said that traffic in Singapore is good because they have an intricate road toll system and a limited number of vehicle registrations. Every so often the government puts some more on the market and lets the people bid for them. It currently costs between $20,000 and $22,000 for the document and it only lasts for 10 years. Then you would have to bid again. Nobody does that. They sell their cars. So Singapore, which does not manufacture cars at all, is the world's second biggest exporter of used vehicles (after Japan).

Beside the vehicle registration, there is a 100% sales tax on cars' MSRP and gas is $1.79 a litre. So, you have to be rich to drive a car. They even have special registration for cars that cannot be driven in peak hours. So those are for the weekend drivers.

Government housing is not cheap. They build huge high rises - 50 stories - but charge people current real estate prices (from $200K to $15M) depending on location and size. Almost everybody lives in government housing. Expatriates have the best housing and some even have their own detached houses on their own property (a real rarity in Singapore). John thought his faculty should set up an international programme here. hahaha The poor people, however, have to rent. But rents are based on income alone and you can get a bachelor apartment for $35 a month if you earn less than $1500 a month. So their system is capitalist and socialist at the same time.

When they got back to the base, John switched buses and went to the Night Safari. It was breaking his resolution to see only free animals but this is a 'first of its kind' in the world. The place only opens at night so you can see night animals walking about. There was a tram ride but John's camera could not see in the darkness well enough to take any video. Then there was a cultural performance by Malay people of the tribe who orginally inhabited the area. He shot good footage of that.



Anyway, he is up early tomorrow morning so he will have to upload the video when he gets a chance. Right now it is late and he needs to get his sleep.

TRB