Slingapore

I am feeling a bit lazy today, so titled my blog Slingapore instead of Singapore Sling to save time. Singapore is a model of efficiency in action...must make the Germans jealous! It is very clean. I felt that if I dropped food on the sidewalk, it would be okay to pick it up and eat it. They have queue lines to enter and exit anywhere and rules for everything...the toilet rules are quite humorous! I must admit, that although seemingly simple, my favorite part of Singapore is the taxis. On top of each, there is an LED sign that reads 'Hired' or 'Taxi' so that you know whether or not it's available and saves you from standing on the side of the street and waving your hands around unnecessarily. Genius!

Shay and I arrived on Wednesday and spent the better part of Wednesday evening trying to find a place to sleep...seems that it would have been a good idea to plan ahead and book a room. We settled in Little India, visited a Hindu Temple (very colorful, lots of cows) and ate with our hands at a fabulous hole in the wall Indian joint. On Thursday, we slung our cameras around our necks and hit the town as tourists. First stop, the Quay area...a nice blend of English Colonial meets modern design (Norman Foster designed the new Supreme Court Building...amazing architecture). After our morning tour around the CBD and river, we headed out to the Singapore Zoo. These crazy people dressed like trees attacked us as we were entering and a nice Singaporean gave us free passes as we were walking up...people in Singapore are very kind and gracious. The zoo is reputedly the best in the world...very clean, large, interactive and a boat load of animals. Noah would have been jealous. I was most intrigued by the proboscis monkey, quite possibly the least attractive creature I've ever seen.

Thursday night, we made our way to Raffles Hotel for an original Singapore Sling. The drink was invented by a bartender a long time ago at the Long Bar, then and now part of the Raffles Hotel. The hotel itself is incredibly beautiful, classic Colonial architecture and today also holds every designer boutique you can think of. Long Bar has old fans, antique furniture...very cool atmosphere. The drink, at $25 Singapore Dollars (roughly $20 USD), was delicious. But, my budget and the fact that I can't drink a lot of terribly sweet drinks limited my intake to only one.

On Friday, Shay and I made our way to Chinatown. We went to the Hawkers Market (basically a covered street food market) and I had the best meal I've had in a while - raw cod fish with vegetables, porridge and dragon fruit juice...all for $5. I said goodbye to Shay, who headed to Bali to meet his girlfriend, and enjoyed the rest of the day wandering around Little India and back down to the Quay. At the Quay, there was a group of students performing percussion music (I think Samba!?) which was fantastic. At the MRT stop, about 20 or more teenagers were practicing break dancing. I really want to learn how to do that! The skyline of Singapore is beautiful at night, except for the three towers with a boat on top (behind me in the picture). In my humble opinion, it might just be the ugliest building in the world. Back in Little India, I capped off my excursion to country #14 on this little trip of mine by eating yet another meal with my hands. I am seriously starting to feel that silverware is highly overrated.