From Little India, I went on to Chinatown.

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At first, having a Chinatown in Singapore struck me as a bit odd, given how much of the city is Chinese. Isn’t it like having a Little New Jersey in New York City?

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But of course, Singapore is actually some distance from China: Hong Kong is about 1600 miles, or about 3 hours as the 747 flies, considerably farther than, say, Seattle is from the Mexican border.

Technorati Tags: Chinatown, Singapore, travel

Since I was there pretty early, most things weren’t open yet, so it was relatively quiet and hawker-free. (Walking along Orchard Street a couple nights earlier, I was accosted repeatedly by people in tailors’ shops and electronics stores.)

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I kept checking my watch to make sure I could make it back to the hotel in time to get another shower (an essential thing right before a really long flight) and check out of my room, but balanced against this desire not to miss my plane home was the sense that there could be something really cool just around the corner, or on the next block. (One of the things that I love about walking around London is that it almost always rewards such diligence.) And eventually, I happened upon a huge temple.

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Though really, every block turned out to be interesting.

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Across the street from the templte was a market (I think the government runs these), where there were lots of people cued up at the rice porridge shop- a sure sign that it was breakfast.

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I had a chicken curry puff, then headed back to the subway, to return to the hotel.

No matter where I go, I need my in-room supplies: the secret futurists’ diet.

Diet Coke and McVities’ Digestives, Singapore version, via flickr

Diet Coke and McVities’ Digestives, London version, October 2005

Technorati Tags: food, Singapore, travel

On my last morning in Singapore, I took the MRT up to Little India.

I didn’t go very far, just through an open-air market and restaurant area called Tekka Centre, then a few blocks around the train station.

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It was your basic riot of fresh produce. One of the mysteries of Singapore is that food seems to be pretty inexpensive, especially for a country with such a small agricultural sector (though what agriculture is left is, not surprisingly, very intensive).

Most of it is imported from Malaysia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, and Australia; and while I can imagine Malaysian agriculture isn’t very expensive, I wonder if there are government subsidies.

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From what I can figure out, many food vendors vendors used to be located on the street, but have largely been relocated to spaces like this.

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After Tekka Centre, I walked around a few streets, and eventually wound back to the MRT stop.

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Then I caught the subway to Chinatown.

Technorati Tags: food, Singapore, travel

My camera has had trouble talking to my iPhoto on this trip, so at the airport I bought an SD card reader. There was one with a 2GB card, so I now have a lot more memory than I know what to do with. And I’m taking pictures as fast as I can! (In fact, I was going to burn a DVD of my Singapore pictures- all 3.8 GB of them- before I got on the plane, but it looks like I’ve got too little free memory left to do that. So I’ve got to transfer some of them BACK to one of the new cards, to free up enough memory to burn the others. What a pain.)

When I buy the kids digital cameras, they’re going to have to use SD cards.

[To the tune of Oleta Adams, “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me,” from the album “Two Rooms - Celebrating The Songs Of Elton John & Bernie Taupin”.]

Technorati Tags: Singapore, travel, camera

After checking in and getting my seat- I’ve got an aisle seat this time- I walked around the terminal for a while, then headed through security and customs. My habit is to take off all metal and electronics, and put them in my bag before I go through the metal detectors; but this time they didn’t do that. The guard looked at my boarding pass and passport, and the customs people stamped something, but that was it.

From customs, you go to the World’s Biggest Mall and Duty Free Shop. They cleverly hide the food and drinks in back, in a long arcade that has a view of the planes. Still, despite the view, one can get thirsty looking for it. But still no additional security.

Turns out the serious security check is at the gate: that’s where they have the X-ray machines, laptop inspection, etc.. Interesting how different places do things differently. In Frankfurt, I had to remove everything: wallet, Chap-Stik, Moleskine pocket-sized notebook (well, those are French). Here, it’s almost like they want to give as many opportunities to spend all your money first, then search you.

[To the tune of B.B. King, “The Thrill Is Gone,” from the album “Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues: B.B. King”.]

Technorati Tags: airport, travel, Singapore, Changi

Getting from downtown to Changi Airport via MRT turns out to be extremely easy, and amazingly cheap. It was $1.50 from City Hall, and took less than 40 minutes from station to station. You have to change at one point, but that just means walking from one side of the platform to the other.

The taxis are pretty cheap- my ride from the airport to my hotel was less than $15, if memory serves- but the subway is definitely better. Even easier than taking the Underground to London, or the El out to O’Hare, to say nothing of the Caltrain-BART two-step to SFO, or the Metro-Washington Flyer combo to Dulles.

Why every major airport isn’t directly accessible by whatever the dominant form of public transportation serves the nearby city- why this isn’t an IATA mandate or such- is beyond me.

More generally, I love the MRT, the Singaporean subway. It’s relatively cheap, very fast, air-conditioned, and the stations are really nice. Plus just about every square inch is chrome or a flat-panel monitor, so it’s great for those of us who have short attention spans. I bought a lot of one-way tickets, but next time I’m here I’ll have to figure out the passes.

[To the tune of Gladys Knight & The Pips, “Midnight Train to Georgia,” from the album “’70s AM Radio Classics”.]

Technorati Tags: airport, Changi, Singapore, travel

I walked around Little India and Chinatown this morning, then stopped for a quick lunch at Jason’s Market Place again. Now it’s a quick shower, and checking out of my room.

Since it’s 11:30 and my flight doesn’t leave until 5, I think I’m going to try the subway to the airport. The concierge says it’ll take about an hour, which should be just fine.

More from Hong Kong, possibly, or more likely, California!

My dinner last night: sushi from Jason’s Market Place, in Citylink Mall.

But not just any sushi. Individually-wrapped pieces of sushi.

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Environmentally unfriendly, I know, but very interesting nonetheless. And very, very good.

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One of the pleasures of this trip is that my dad comes to Singapore several times a year, and before I left, he suggested a bunch of places I should go- including the sushi counter at Jason’s. It’s been interesting following in his footsteps.

And the sushi was better (and much cheaper!) than the sushi I had in Paddington Station, even if it wasn’t served up in little UFOs. I may have lunch there.

[To the tune of Marvin Gaye, “I Heard It Through The Grapevine,” from the album “The Very Best Of 60’s Gold, vol. 3”.]

Technorati Tags: food, Singapore, sushi, travel