Mar 10, 2015
Day One in Singapore
Here let me try to even begin to describe how wonderful our trip was. I’ll start by saying it went off without a hitch, which is saying a ton for a trip that involved 10 airports, nine airplanes, three hotels, four art museums, 30+ restaurants, 20+ taxi cabs, three countries, and one 10K race in only 11 days. There were so many moving parts that could have thrown us off. But we were really lucky that absolutely everything worked.
One thing I want to say about our trip is that we planned our city visits in an interesting order: ascending in population (Singapore at #68 in the world with 5,155,000, Hong Kong at #45 with 7,106,000, Taipei at #35 with 8,338,000). And also descending in English speakers: everyone in Singapore spoke English and all signs were in English. In Hong Kong signs were in Chinese first but always had English translations. In Taipei some signs had English translations (but not all) and many of the older population had no English words. We figured that because of the languages our trip would go from easy to hard, but more on that later.
I need to break this down into a list because we managed to do so much.
Day One
We arrived in Singapore after 36 hours of flying. That is embarrassing, since I usually would never book a trip that way, but it had to be done because our Sister Cities trip was cancelled and our new plan was to get to Singapore in time for the race. So we had to jig and jag our flight schedules to get down to Singapore from Taipei. We arrived at the Four Seasons at 8 am, and everyone there was so friendly and made it their immediate goal to get us horizontal! They upgraded us to a premium room that was ready right away, and whisked our bags up and encouraged us to get some rest.
Instead, we showered and headed around the corner to a famous coffee shop, Killiney Kopitiam, where we ordered something we didn’t understand then sat at a table with an aging Singaporean couple who immediately explained how to eat our food correctly, then gave us a long list of ideas of what to do for the rest of the day. This was the first in a long line of kindnesses shown to us.
Next we wandered down Orchard Road, which is lined with chichi shops that don’t interest me much–I much prefer to shop from local artisans. But it was fun to look in the windows.
We strolled over to Emerald Hill to see the beautiful colonial buildings that are mostly occupied by ex-pats who tuck into the street to walk their little mop-dogs.
On our way to the Natioanl Museum, we passed the School of the Arts Singapore. It was a beautifully designed building, and there were students spilling onto the front steps. It brought back such lovely memories of my days at Cincinnati School for Creative and Performing Arts.
After that we walked to the National Museum, where there was an informative display about the Japanese occupation during WWII. I had no idea how over-prepared the Japanese were to occupy countries like Singapore. There was a graphic that compared the Japanese forces to Allied forces and the Allies had no chance! It was often 60 to 1 and the Japanese pretty much walked in and took names. We saw a lot of images of the camps where the Japanese imprisoned the British and Singapore people. And then of course there was the payback when the Singaporians deported the Japanese. Very informative exhibit.
From there, John wanted to visit a small bespoke tailor shop near Boat Quay that was supposed to sell great Panama Hats. Before leaving Phoenix, John had his biannual trip to the dermatologist and still had several raw skin sores from having pre-cancerous areas frozen off, so he wanted to get a cool hat to protect those sensitive parts. So we went to Kevin Seah, which was the neatest little shop I’ve been to in a while! He had a selection of Panama hats designed by a Canadian ex-pat hand-made in Ecuador, the home of Panama Hats. How’s that for global? John got a really cool hat that he wears very well.
Kevin’s shop did not have the box the hat came in so we cabbed it over to Hat of Cain, where we met Bill Cain, who designs all the hats, and he gave is a great hat box to protect the hat on the rest of our journey.
From there we cabbed it to Long Beach Seafood to have some famous chili crab and delicious octopus. That was a meal to remember! Very messy but delicious.
From there we cabbed it to Marina Bay Sands to have a cocktail at the Skypark. It was so fun to look out on the city. I’ve determined that the best job in the world would be “Architect in Singapore.” Man I think they might all be a little insane. What strange structures no matter where you look! But it was fun. We loved the view and the staff was super friendly even though I thought they might be snooty since we weren’t staying at the hotel.
From there we walked to Gardens by the Bay, a Dr. Suessical type park. This place was a bit too Disney for me. Not very interesting for adult types, so we strolled down to the harbor and watched some of the ferries and listened to a jazz band warm up for a festival that was taking place later in the day.
Next we went to LeVel33 to enjoy the view and try a house-brewed IPA. It was beautiful. And it was delicious.
Once again hopping a cab, we headed back to the hotel to clean up and head to dinner. We decided to take it easy and just walk up the street to the Food Opera at Ion Orchard. How aptly named! It was singing in both sound and sense. We had a lovely meal.
Then it was back to the hotel where we, as you might imagine, crashed out.
