Waking up at 4 a.m. had taken it's toll on us by the time we touched down in Singapore that morning. Luckily, we didn't have to navigate the Singaporean public transit system (which actually turned out to be quite nice), or put up with the inevitable snorers at the rather expensive backpackers in town.
An old friend of John's from boarding school in Ireland, named Steve, was there on hand that morning with his car to collect us from the airport and bring us to a friend's place who had a spare room for us to stay in. From the moment he yelled out "Shapiro!" as we exited the baggage claim it was a joyous reunion. And from that moment, the reminiscing began . . . . and lasted for the next 5 days. I couldn't blame them though, as it had been ten years since they last saw each other and much had changed--though much had not. As a party to their conversations all week, I was blessed with the opportunity to hear them relive and recall every single possible memory they could conjure up of their crazy times together--many stories recounted several times to the point where I could tell the story myself. But still, it was nice for them to catch up and nice for us to have someone take us around Singapore!
My first impression as we drove through the city was that it was ridiculously clean. Like insanely clean. Even the construction sites that were always present, as they tend to knock down and rebuild any buildings over 30 years old, were neat and tidy and didn't spill over to public areas. It's a point of pride for them and it was actually cool to be able to experience such an uncommon characteristic of large cities. Though some of the rules they have to keep the place on the straight and narrow are rather archaic for a city obsessed with modernity. For example, as a sacrifice for a squeaky clean city, chewing gum is illegal. You cannot buy any chewing gum in any store, it is only available via a prescription from a doctor (for maybe stress or dental reasons), but even after that you cannot chew gum in public and you certainly cannot spit it out on the street. For that, or other acts of vandalism, or for other transgressions such as violating your visa the punishment is caning.
Such a modern, progressive city that prides itself on being the best in Asia, and they still cane people like an old English school teacher.
Taking things a step further, drug trafficking is punishable by death. So, best not get caught with any cocaine or morphine in Singapore--or in several other Asian cities for that matter--if you value your life.
But anywho, after being picked up that morning we made the drive over to the other side of the island to the place of a friend of Steve's named Yo. Both Yo and Steve are doctors and went to medical school in Ireland together, and eventually ended up in Singapore as well. Steve is also married, which was such a surprising advancement in John's opinion, as he often remembered Steve as the same crazy, devil-may-care kid he was back in boarding school.
The room Yo had was perfect. A nice big bed, an en-suite bathroom, and we were able to use his kitchen, washing machine/dryer, and his unlimited internet. Such luxury after Australia! He was also a really nice guy, and very laid back for a doctor, as we would discover when we met him later that evening.
But after dropping off our bags we realized we were quite hungry and so Steve took us out to try some authentic Singaporean food. Now, for what Singapore lacks in culture, as it's basically a gigantic shopping mall with a lot of western influence (minus the caning), it makes up for it in it's extremely authentic and equally delicious food. A lot of the western restaurants in the city are quite pricey and they have a lot of the same places you can find in Europe and the States--what you want to go for are the hawker stalls. It's like a small food court with numerous kiosks or stalls set up, selling all kinds of different foods. The one thing they have in common is that they are cheap, and delicious!
Steve brought us to one in particular that already had a line of people waiting patiently for their food. It was called Kway Teow, and this particular stall was famous in Singapore for having some of the best (hence the line). So we waited with everyone else and luckily since Steve speaks fluent Mandarin, he was able to order everything for us and ordered one spicy for the boys and one non-spicy for me. It was so good. It was noodle based, with some kind of delicious sauce, vegetables, mussels, and the best part--pork crackling. One plate of this stuff and I was already sold on Singapore, but Steve wanted us to try more!
So after Kway Teow he came back with these traditional rice ball soups in the flavors of almond and the more common, peanut. The almond soup was actually really good and the rice balls were filled with ingredients from rice to sweet potato. He also had two different traditional triangle-shaped chinese dumplings for us to try. One was really nice and had some kind of nut--maybe hazelnut or walnut--cooked into it, though they were nice and soft and just gave off the extra flavor. He also brought us Sugar Cane juice which we were hesitant to try at first, but it turned out to be really yummy--and not overly sweet as one would expect--just really refreshing.
After all this food, we were stuffed--and exhausted! Since Steve had to work the night shift at the hospital that evening, we decided to head back to Yo's place where we could rest and Steve could go back home to get some shut eye.
With all this food digesting in our tummies, and the fatigue from waking up at 4 a.m. setting in--sleep came easily. Especially since we were able to enjoy the air con in our room. It doesn't matter what time of year it is, you can count on Singapore to be hot and humid.
The next few days were spent exploring the whimsical shopping wonderland that is Singapore. Not that we had any money to spend, but we enjoyed browsing and sampling some of the ethnic cuisine that is available at shopping malls. Which, by the way, are numerous and very large. The one item we needed to get was a cheap belt and pair of dress shoes for John. After checking out the way exorbitant prices at most of the major stores, we decided to try our luck at Lucky--the Chinese shopping mall where we could shop to our cheap heart's content.
The first store we visited had some promising belts on display, but alas, no price tag. This was an immediate red flag for us as we knew we were going to be offered what we would eventually call "The White Price." A ubiquitous pricing scheme whereby if you are fortune to look Western you will be quoted something that is most often at least double what it should be.
Upon asking the gentleman he gave us a price of $20. . . Called it!
We tried to bargain our way down to $10, but to no avail. So we went to the next shop immediately next door where they had cheap belts on sale priced at $5! Ha! We had learned our first lesson in bargaining--one of which is never accept a first offer as you can usually go to the guy right next door and get a better one.
So we managed to find some cheap shoes as well on our budget and made our way back to the apartment. That night we were going to enjoy some more authentic Singaporean hawker food. In addition to the copious amounts of Tiger beer that the boys enjoyed, we also had some delicious fried Tofu--which I was not expecting to be so tasty, some equally surprisingly delicious marmite pork, and some fish head curry that I opted not to try.
We decided to take a little walk the next day among the shopping theme parks to stretch our legs and work off all of this delicious food! We moseyed close to the harbor and across this bridge that led to some island that we later figured out was a big entertainment park placed called Sentosa. It only cost $1 to get onto the island, but entry into anything worthwhile cost a cool $60, so we took a pass. Getting caught in the rain on the way back and running back to the apartment from the train station was fun though.
The following was one of our last days in hot and sticky Singapore. We ventured out to the Botanical Gardens with Steve. It was actually a very beautiful place, and free, so that's always a plus. We enjoyed looking at all the different plants and trees and not paying the $10 to go into the Orchard Garden with a flower named after Ricky Martin.
Afterwards, we made a quick stop at the Singapore Museum of Modern Art, which was also free after 5 pm--thank goodness--because I would have been upset if I had to pay for what they passed off as "art." A 5-minute video of a guy putting a whole Filet-o-Fish McDonald's value meal--fries, coke, and all--into a blender and then drinking it. Not even kidding.
We met up with and finally met Steve's wife, Rei, who is also a doctor. John up to that point was convinced that she wasn't real. That night it was time for some more stuffing of our faces with the famous Hainanese Chicken Rice! It's a special style of preparing chicken that comes out all succulent and delicious and you pair it with yummy sauces and different sides. I didn't get a picture of all these delicious foods, which I should have, but I guess you will just have to make it to Singapore to try it out for yourself!
The last food item that we had to try (unfortunately we missed out on the famous chili crab) was Kaya toast and coffee. It's a special kind of toast prepared in a sandwich style with some Kaya filling in the center and a really strong coffee made in a similar style to Turkish but with the Vietnamese addition of sweetened condensed milk. It was a very delicious breakfast.
Our last day was just a day of relaxation and reveling once again in the free, fast, unlimited internet at our disposal--as well as a proper washer and dryer. John's friend had his real job to attend to so we had most of the day to ourselves but he came by that night for one last hurrah--and to sleep on the couch since he had to drive us to the airport the next day at 4 in the morning. They had a nice time drinking and staying up way too late, having only a couple of hours asleep until we had to wake up the next morning.
They were pretty suspicious at the Singapore airport--this guy questions you before you can even get in line to check in at the counter. He was asking us all sorts of questions about where we had been, where we were going, and wanted to see our reservation--but of course we were flying standby so we just had a listing. This guy pretended to know a thing or two about flying stand-by on Delta. Yeah, no. Been doing this for a long time buddy. He tried to tell us it would be "close" but I had checked the loads and knew we would be fine. Heck, I even got up front! Champagne and lay-flat seats my friend! John got in coach but he did have the seat next to him empty and could lay down so he was fine.
6 hours later and we had left behind the sunny, warm weather of the southern hemisphere that we had grown accustomed to and had make it to Japan!
