singapore - easing into asia

Jordan munches on honeydew and keeps a watchful eye to make sure none of the critters around steal it from her.




so here we are, on our last full day in singapore and we may just have become adjusted to the time. sort of. we are calling our current schedule GST (Greg Standard Time) - affectionately named after my stepdad who falls asleep on the couch at 9pm and is at starbucks by 6am. we don't have a couch, but we do have a starbucks in the lobby of our hotel...

which brings me to our impression of singapore - there is a distinct lack of local character. the character, i guess, is that of global commerce. the tourist maps highlight shopping malls; in fact, there is roughly a 3:1 ratio of shopping malls to other types of attractions. i love banana republic or starbucks as much as the next guy because i know what i can get or how to order. but having flown halfway around the world i was just a little bothered to see them.

so yesterday morning we decided to leave the starbucks to the less adventuresome and headed out to a 24 hour food hawker area instead. this is the perfect plan if a) you can eat wheat noodles and b) you like fish for breakfast. even though neither of those work for me i still very much enjoyed the experience of watching the hawkers tempt people into their stalls with promises of cuttlefish soup and the like. we had fantastic pulled iced teas with sweetened condensed milk that were as fun to watch them make as to drink! then we narrowed down our options to a chicken curry and piece of honeydew. for dan, this was the highlight of our day. decidedly different from home.

we walked around the major shopping district, and did stop into borders, on our way to the highlight of my day - the national orchid garden. amazing. we learned all about how they hybridize varieties and then name them after celebrities that come visit the garden. the jackie chan is quite beautiful, the laura bush, not so much. dan made a bee line to the "coolhouse", more for the "cool" part than the fact that they grow orchids indigenous to the mountain areas of asia. we had trouble leaving the coolhouse as it was about 11am and getting really hot.

the rest of the day was kind of like being in vegas. back to the pool for a dip and some poolside lunch. this was followed by a trip to the Raffles Hotel, which is incredibly beautiful, and incredibly expensive. two of the famous singapore slings (invented at the hotel) cost us a pretty penny. while this is one of the major colonial outposts of the 19th century, and the hotel is the original building, there was a distinct disneyfied feeling to it all. we got the feeling that everyone was a "cast member" and behind the scenes there were surveillance cameras and people changing into their "costumes". while the location was authentic, the feeling was not.

continuing with the theme, we headed back towards our hotel and had dinner at Clarke Quay, a very plasticy looking outdoor entertainment center on the Singapore river. it's like santana row in san jose or the third st. promenade in santa monica or even a vegas mall. we munched on tapas while watching golf carts full of gigantic bottles of belvedere vodka drive by. there is some crazy belvedere event going on here so of course i had to indulge in one of the signature Clarke Quay belvedere cocktails. kinda generic tasting. go figure.

we wanted an easy introduction to asia by landing in singapore. i think it's safe to say we got it and are ready for something a little more exotic. next stop penang, malaysia.