My Daily Life: Singapore
Okay, so Singapore is not a part of my daily life...but I do have to worry about visa issues every
several weeks. This time around, I found out that my visa could not be extended, so when I ran into an acquaintance
from school who had a similar problem, we decided to go traveling together. We had both already been
to Hong Kong, and the next cheapest airfare was to Singapore.
I've never taken a trip without someone to visit, or at least a specific destination that I saw on the
side of a cereal box, and I wasn't even able to find anyone who had been to Singapore to give us tips
before we headed out. Well, it was just like I expected--okay.
We got to the hostel on Friday afternoon and decided to take a walk around the neighborhood. As it turns
out, our location was quite good--right between Chinatown and the Riverside. So we visited those two
areas the first day.
The decorations and the shops were clearly intended to draw tourists, so we did some slightly uncomfortable
browsing. Afterwards, we decided to walk up to the river and stroll. By that time it was dark.
We had a couple extra hours, so we went to Orchard Road, the classy shopping area of Singapore,
and that was it for the night.
We had decided to spend Saturday in Sentosa, a resort-type island that my friend's roommate had recommended,
but first we went to Little India for a nice vegetarian lunch. Unfortunately, it happened to be
Deepavali, so most everything was closed, despite the hundreds of Indian men milling around. (Where
are the women?)
After spending ten minutes trying to get rid of an extremely talkative creepy guy and his mute friend,
we stupidly headed to Sentosa Island without any food. Sentosa was basically a big theme park. Contrary to what
our eight-year-old guidebook said, everything cost money. But there were a lot of fun things to do
there, including a multi-animal show and some manmade beaches.
But the most popular attraction on Sentosa, and perhaps the strangest thing I've seen with my own two
eyes, was the Magical Sentosa light show at the Musical Fountain. To my extreme surprise, my friend was
determined to wait in line for an hour and 40 minutes to see this show, which only runs twice a night.
As it turns out, besides boasting the biggest fountain in the world and the southernmost point in Asia,
Singapore is also home to the craziest, freakiest light show ever made. If I'd known the potential that the green
monkey and his robot brother had to give me nightmares, I don't know if I would have been willing
to wait in line for so long.
Anyway, after thoroughly destroying our feet from nearly ten hours of walking, we decided to take
a cable car back to the main island, eat some sandwiches, and go to sleep.
On Sunday, we wanted to spend the afternoon somewhere that had more of a natural feel, so after a
hearty vegetarian meal in Chinatown, we took the public bus to the northeast corner of Singapore and
hopped on a two-dollar ferry to the absolutely free island of Pulau Ubin.
Pulau Ubin was the exact opposite of Sentosa--not nearly as packed with visitors, but with more
natural beauty, though dirtier than any other place we saw in Singapore.
We noticed that most visitors were renting bicycles, but we decided to go on foot. Why spend the
two bucks when our feet had had all night to recover? Well, this dim-witted decision turned into the biggest
joke of our vacation. At least we saw some wildlife
that we might have missed on bicycles. If I could only have gone to one of the two islands, I would
have chosen this one.
We took the ferry back before sundown, took the public bus to an unknown location, subsequently
got un-lost, and then spent the evening downtown following other tourists from
one landmark to the next (including the world's biggest fountain). We had a late dinner at a giant mall
and talked about our plans for the next morning, our last day in Singapore.
We woke up relatively early Monday morning so we could walk through Arab Street and Little India before
we had to leave at noon, but unfortunately it was a ghost town at ten a.m., so we went back
to check out of the hostel and walk around that area until we had to get on the train to the airport.
After packing up our things and checking out, we took some last-minute photos and bought a few trinkets
to bring back home. Nothing special...the highlight of that day was definitely the personal video screens
on the four-hour flight back to Taiwan. China Airlines, you really outdid yourself this time.
My final message is that anyone who is thinking of going to Singapore should just go to Taiwan instead.
If you can get past the fact that most people don't speak English here, it's a much better place to
travel: the food is cheap and plentiful, the people are nicer and way less creepy, and it feels
more real and not like a place where you go just to renew your visa. I'm trying not to be biased
here...if you don't believe me, why not experience it for yourself? Taiwan: Touch Your Heart.
Sorry, I guess the heavy dose of tourism is still making its way out of my system....
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