| Submitted by: Evelyn C. LeeperUnited States |
| Submission Date: 09 February 2005 |
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This
involved more Singapore-style regulations--in order to keep traffic
in the central business district down during rush hours, cars
(including taxis) need a daily license to be in that district
between 7:30 AM and 10:15 AM (unless they have four people in them).
The custom/rule is that the first taxi passengers of the day who
want to go into the CBD pay for the license, another M$5 (US$2).
Mark and I were in one taxi, and the other three in another, so they
had four people (counting the driver) and we had only three. (Luck
of Leeper?)
When we got to the hotel we found out why they had free rooms.
They were remodeling and there was hammering and drilling all day.
Still, we don't spend much time in the rooms during the day, so we
decided to take it anyway. (They also tried to show us better, and
more expensive, rooms than the price they had quoted on the phone.
That didn't work either.)
The first thing I did (after taking out the wet laundry I had
packed so that it could dry) was to call the airline to reconfirm
our flight home. I was a bit worried, as it was only 48 hours
before the flight rather than 72, but there was no problem and I was
able to reconfirm all five tickets.
After we settled in and freshened up, we went out and looked
for lunch. We ended up eating at a food court nearby, then changed
money at a bank. After we had changed money and paid off the people
whom we owed money, and threw in some money for the common fund,
Mark and I had to change money again! This wouldn't have been so
bad but there was only one clerk because it was lunch time and she
was not exactly greased lightning. Steve tried using the ATM but
once again it wouldn't give him money (he kept expecting them to eat
his card as well). At this point we realized we had a lot of extra
travelers cheques and suggested we just lend him the money. (It
worked out well--what we lent him was exactly equal to our share of
the limos to and from Kennedy Airport which he had charged.)
We walked toward Orchard Road, the main shopping street in
Singapore. The first thing of interest we passed was a synagogue,
the first one we had seen on this trip. It was exceedingly
unpretentious--were it not for the Star of David on it, it would
look like all the other buildings on the street. Part way toward
Orchard Road it started to rain, hard of course, and we took shelter
under a movie theater awning. After about a half hour the rain
started to die down and we proceeded from awning to awning to
Orchard Road and Plaza Singapura.
Plaza Singapura is a big shopping mall. It turns out that much
of Orchard Road is occupied by shopping malls, which I would think
would make browsing a bit more difficult. After all, once you go
into one mall and walk all over it, you're less likely to go into
the next one, and the next one, and so on. We wandered around this
mall a while. I looked for a Brian Aldiss collection (FOREIGN
BODIES) that had been published in Singapore a few years ago, but
had no success. Then the five of us went into Swensen's for ice
cream. Barbara had enormous problems ordering hers; here they don't
seem to allow people to choose what flavors of ice cream are in
their sundaes.
Then we took the MTR (Metro) to Chinatown, where Mark, Steve,
and I walked around for a while. Everywhere we walked were rules
posted: no pitching tents, no littering, no dogs, etc. Chinatown
used to have a lot of street markets, but that must have offended
the Singaporean quest for rules and order, and they have been
replaced by shopping centers. Unfortunately, the shopping centers
seem to emphasize T-shirts and souvenirs, and only secondarily the
sorts of products one expects to find in a real street market.
There were no live snakes or frogs here, that's for sure.
We went to another Sri Mariammam Temple. This one was open and
we got to go inside. The ceiling here was covered with brightly
painted scenes, much like the Buddhist monastery in the New
Territories. There was a bulletin board describing a recent
festival which included fire-walking. Two other tourists were
reading it, so I asked them if they knew how it was done. They
didn't, so I explained. It's like an oven: you can put your hands
in a 350 8o 9 oven and not burn them. Why? Because air is a poor
conductor of heat. The fire-walking works the same way. The coals
are very porous and when you walk across them you are basically
walking on a very thin layer of hot air. The coals need to be
carefully prepared to eliminate any foreign objects which might be
good heat conductors, and to form a nice, even bed. (Much of this
information comes from Martin Gardner's latest book on hoaxes and
Leo Frankowski's RADIANT WARRIOR.)
Outside the temple were various fortune tellers, including one
who advertised 'computerized palm readings.' Given that the output
of computers is only as good as their input data, I don't think I'd
put great faith in this.
While we were walking around, Steve bought some items to make a
Halloween costume. He has a Halloween party to go to the day we get
back, so he's going directly from our place (where his car is).
This seems to me like pushing it, but it turns out his cats are
being watched by the person who's giving the party, so it's a way to
pick them up as well.
We ended up at Elizabeth Walk, a promenade along the water that
has a view of the Merlion, the statue that represents Singapore.
(Well, it's better than the Mannekin Pis!) And who should we meet
there but Binayak and Barbara? We talked about having dinner
together and made tentative plans to meet at the hotel at 8 PM.
However, Steve wasn't feeling well so we decided to stop and
get something on the way back to the hotel so he could make an early
night of it. We ate at the Dragon Court Restaurant in Raffles
Place: braised black mushrooms with vegetables, pan-fried steak, and
seafood in chili sauce. It was good, and a nice change: the
restaurant had real tablecloths and dishes, and waitresses who kept
refilling your teacups and water glasses (yes, water glasses!) as
they got even a little empty. We had decided we wanted to eat in a
real restaurant for our last night (well, almost) and were happy
with our choice.
After dinner we took the MTR back to the hotel. While we were
waiting we tried doing the math puzzles on the walls to keep the
passengers occupied while they were waiting for trains. One set
consisted of sequences of numbers: they gave you five numbers in a
sequence and you were supposed to supply the next. The only three
that I can remember were:
1, 2, 3, 5, 8
5, 7, 10, 15, 24
37, 41, 43, 47, 51
(Answers are at the end of the travelogue.) This was pointed out by
Mark as an example of why the Singaporeans may well end up ahead of
us. You don't see this sort of thing in New York subways--you see
lottery ads.
October 26, 1990: We packed and then went to the coffee shop
in the Strand Hotel next door for breakfast. After breakfast, Mark,
Steve, and I walked up to Little India. This had been less
renovated than Chinatown and so there were still lots of small shops
and no shopping malls. It also smelled more interesting than
Chinatown, with spice shops competing with restaurants to perfume
the air. We passed yet another temple--as with the wats and, for
that matter, with churches, all the ones in a given area start to
look alike after a while. We walked to the Gandhi Memorial, but it
was closed. It looked more like a study center than anything else-
-I can't envision Gandhi wanting anything elaborate.
From here were walked over to Arab Street which, as the name
implies, is the center of the Arab section. (Singapore resembles
New York in its proliferation of ethnic neighborhoods.) Near Arab
Street was the Sultan Mosque. Though the main section was closed to
non-Muslims, there was a balcony that was open which gave us a
better view of the front pulpit and the qibla. We also spent some
time trying to figure out the prayer schedule. There were six times
listed: Subuh (0528), Syuruk (0646), Zohor (1250), Asar (1608),
Maghrib (1851), and Isyak (2002). Since I thought there were only
five prayers per day, I was somewhat confused. While we were
standing there, an attendant came over and asked us if we knew
anything about Islam. We said we did and asked about the six times.
He said (if I understood him correctly) that the first time marked
the start of a period when one wasn't supposed to pray. If this is
so, it's almost as if it came from the old folk belief that the
period before dawn was the most dangerous as regards demons and so
perhaps prayers during this time could be twisted by them.
We started back toward the hotel but then it started to rain.
We took refuge under an awning. A woman came over and started
talking to us. She was in Singapore as part of some traveling she
was doing as part of a religious group she belonged to, though she
also insisted that when you saw the Light, you realized all places
were inside you. (Well, it saves on air fare.) She talked to us
quite a while about the Light and what it meant, though I can't say
she was trying very hard to convert us or sign us up for anything.
It did give us a way to pass the time while it was raining. (Every
time it lightning flashed, she would hold her hands together in
prayer and say, 'Thank you, God.')
It got later and later and eventually we decided we had to get
a taxi back to the hotel, so we said goodbye to the woman and moved
up the street to an area where we could see the oncoming cars
better. Just as we had given up hope that an empty taxi would come
along and were looking up the phone number for the taxis, a taxi
*did* come along and we flagged it down and returned to the
Bencoolen, where we packed and checked out.
After checking our bags, we went to the Noodle Garden
Restaurant for lunch. Mark had braised duck and sea cucumber in
clay pot and I had abalone & noodles (abalone is very expensive in
the United States and no more than other seafood here, so I figured
I might as well enjoy it while I could).
After lunch we took a double-decker bus to Sentosa, a sort of
amusement park area of Singapore. We were worried that we wouldn't
be able to figure out where to get off the bus, but since the bus
terminus is right across from the cable-car station to Sentosa, this
wasn't a problem. This is a real cable-car that hangs from a wire
above water, not just a car pulled by a cable.
Sentosa is just like American amusement parks: everything costs
extra. It cost money to ride the cable car, more money as admission
to Sentosa, and more money still for most of the attractions on
Sentosa (which is an island). The nature walk was free, and we took
that--after spending a lot of time in cities it was nice to get out
among some trees. Mark pointed out the nature walk area looked a
lot like the jungle you see in the movie KING KONG, but we never did
see any giant apes.
Steve wanted to see the butterfly garden, and was willing to
pay the admission charge, but when on top of that they had a camera
surcharge for bringing a camera it, he got irritated and decided to
pass the whole thing up. (The surcharge does seem a bit ridiculous,
given how much you have to spend just to get in, what with the
transportation, the Sentosa admission , *and* the basic Butterfly
Garden admission. |
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| Copyright © - "Evelyn C. Leeper" |
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