In Hong Kong, Chinese New Year's is the biggest holiday and we get 3 days off as public holiday. That's nothing though, compared to mainland China where most people get 2 full weeks off and the trains are famously packed. I took advantage of the days off and flew to Singapore, where they also celebrate CNY and get 2 days free. I had been to Singapore apparently when I was 12, but remember nothing about the trip other than being terrified of getting caught for chewing gum and getting caned. My second cousin Parissa lives there now and we always have an awesome time when we hang out, and so I went. It seriously may have been one of the best short trips of my life, rivaling the German-Prague-Krakow trek.
Things didn't start off smoothly. I booked Jetstar Asia, one of the cheapest airlines out here. The ticket price was already hiked for Chinese New Year, but I booked super early flights to get decent deals. Jetstar is one of those sneaky airlines though who charge for everything, including your seat, and any checked luggage. In addition, all carry-on was limited to 10kg, COMBINED, which I was unaware of. The charge was about $15 USD, PER KILOGRAM overweight. My options were restricted to paying $1000 HKD for the weight charge, or $350 HKD to check my luggage. Not happy. I also didn't do my research and didn't learn what the Singapore exchange rate was before I got there. Unwilling to use the money changers or atms at the airport, I needed to find a cab that would take credit card, and the first one didn't. A second guy then came up to me speaking with a very mild Singlish accent and offered his luxury cab. He told me it'd be a bit more expensive, and offered 45 as an estimate, and not knowing what that meant, I took it. Turns out the exchange rate is $1 USD = $1.27 SGD. Whoops, I was expecting much higher.
No worries though, this is a vacation right. The driver turned out to have an incredible life story, having spent most of his life as a high-end cook. He was Singaporean Chinese, as are most people, and spoke just about every Chinese dialect I could think of. It turns out the Chinese community in Singapore is extremely unique. Large communities of Teochew, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka and Hainanese make up most of the city. Back when my driver was growing up, kids would bounce around from group to group and pick up most of the dialects. My driver was Hakka but picked up all of them, and then spent time working in Shanghai. An interesting note is that now Singaporean Chinese all learn Mandarin (originally a Northern dialect) and write in Simplified, even though all those groups are Southern dialects and Simplified Chinese is purely an invention of the PRC. Singapore has consciously decided to try to align itself with China and has thus tried to limit the dialects and promote Mandarin/Simplified. Anyway my chef driver speaks 6 freaking dialects and though I obviously couldn't test them all, his Cantonese was better than mine. He had also lived and worked in England, Canada and Australia, cooking Indonesian food but quite 7 years ago because it was high stress. He said holidays were the worst because you never get them off and instead usually have to work more. Anyway, that's not the point of this blog post, but it was a memorable cab ride and how often do you remember cab rides?
Parissa lives in a nice ground floor level condo about a 5 minute ride from city center. Uncharacteristically, I did unjustifiably little research before this trip (I would not recommend anyone travel to a country without knowing the exchange rate) and on the taxi ride to her place I passed by a giant ship resting on top of 3 building blocks, and I almost gasped audibly. What is that? It's the Marina Bay Sands, my kind multi-Chingual driver told me. It's a super swanky hotel built within the last two years, worth checking out the view from the top. And so I would. If you don't know what this building is, Google Image search it now. I have too many other awesome photos I want to share. I'll wait.
Parissa took me to a mall nearby to get money, and I was immediately stunned. What was it? Oh, I could walk along in the mall and stretch my arms out. After coming from the intensely dense Hong Kong, it felt refreshing to be in a city with elbow room. It soon became apparent to me how little I knew about Singapore, despite having read a dozen wikipedia articles on it. I knew about the 4 official languages, English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and that it is the only modern state to become sovereign against its own wishes, and had friends from Singapore and heard the Singlish accent. I figured that as an Asian city state, it would have a ton in common with Hong Kong, its fellow Asian Tiger. While it may share some important similarities, coming from Hong Kong I noticed far more differences.
When you come from mainland China onto Hong Kong island, your world is immediately westernized. I had kinda assumed that Hong Kong was the most western city in Asia, which is after all, the Far East and not very western at all. Compared to Singapore though, Hong Kong may as well be Zhejiang. Singapore was still definitely an Asian city, but from the sidewalks to the building lobbies to the brands, Western influence had left a strong unapologetic impact on the feel of the city. Even if people weren't speaking English and the signs were in Thai, my western-raised being would still have sensed familiarity in the surroundings. That mall surprised me. In that warm climate, sections seemed straight out of California, while other times I noticed distinctively Asian stores and Chinese dried goodies. As I saw more of the city, I realized how insane the quality of life was. The downtown area was as nice as any urban area I'd ever seen, almost overflowing with money in the form of architecture, but the rest of the city that I saw was just as nice and clean, if more modest. Growing up in the US, we are raised to believe that we are blessed with the best environment the world has to offer. After all, people left Europe, Asia, and all other parts of the world to come create our country. Living in Beijing, I experienced by contrast what quality of life really means and the difference it can make. But I had always assumed that American cities rated highest in "quality of life." Now I realize how incredibly wrong I was. The quality of life I saw in Singapore is higher than any American city, and a 2011 Mercer survey agrees with me. American cities are almost all plagued by relatively high worldwide levels of crime and at least some bad neighborhoods. They're also not known for efficient transportation or being particularly clean. Singapore ranks 25 on the list (#1 in Asia), and has low crime, super clean streets, a decent subway and little overcrowding.
Everyone in Hong Kong had in fact told me similar facts, either immediately before or after stating that it was such a boring place. The Lion City's less official nicknames include "The World's Only Shopping Mall with a Seat on the UN" and "Disneyland with the Death Penalty." But I didn't see it that way at all. After the excursion through the shopping mall, Parissa took me to a restaurant right by her place that sells Prata (delicious bread of Indian origin) for a few bucks. It'd be the first of amazing meals that I'd eat there. From there, we journeyed crosstown and met up with many of her who were at a Chinese restaurant celebrating the Chinese New Year. Singaporean (and Malaysian) Chinese have this bizarre tradition of ringing in the new year called Lo Hei or Yusheng, which is definitely not common in other parts of the Sinosphere. They gather a bunch of noodles, carrots, spices, other random Chinese food ingredients and overlay it with smoked salmon and tons of sauces. Then the fun begins and participants dig their chopsticks into the bunch and throw it up as high as they can to mix them, and create a giant mess. Every ingredient is supposed to have some great meaning (generally a Chinese pun) but to me it was just silly fun.
We dropped by afterward to a bar in a neat part of town called Emerald Hill, where the bar scene was pretty standardly fun from what I've experienced, except that drinks were outrageously priced. The cheapest beers were $15 SGD, due to an absurdly high sin tax. The Singaporean government is one that believes it can regulate morality, from its alcohol tax, to its $100 gambling fee for all Singaporean citizens at local casinos (foreigners can lose money for free), and caning the bare butts of severe lawbreakers. It probably works well for some people, and not so well for others. We weren't at Emerald Hill for too long though because Parissa's boyfriend Mike somehow managed to get us into Ku De Ta, one of the top clubs in all of Singapore, located at the top of Marina Bay Sands. The way this opportunity rolled around was convoluted, and I had absolutely no idea how it all worked at the time. Both Parissa and Mike are very active in the Bowdoin community in Asia, and a fellow alum was attending the Booth School of Business in Singapore. This alum and his classmates were all high rolling MBA students who liked to live the lifestyle of investment bankers, and thus rolled into Ku De Ta and ordered bottles - a few weeks ago. They couldn't finish all of them, and the club allowed them to keep them there for a month. Well somehow this gang wasn't in Singapore for the rest of the month, except for this one weekend. So they needed to finish all the bottles for good this Friday night, and called Mike and other alum for help. Mike enlisted me and Parissa as well and somehow we strut into Ku De Ta without paying the $38 (!) cover charge (the cover suggests that a bottle of Goose could have been four digits, so ordering the 12 or so bottles that they did is absurd beyond belief). But even more absurd was that this guy apparently hung out with his buddies for an hour, decided this place was lame, grabbed one bottle of goose and bounced, his MBA friends in stroll. I don't think I ever even met him. 3 other Bowdoin guys were left and I kept thinking one of them had to be the kind benefactor, so I kept over-graciously thanking them. Turns out we were all freeriding and had 4 or 5 bottles of Grey Goose and Macallan's to finish. Somehow we did, but it was challenging towards the end. Mike decided he really wanted to get me a girl, and before I could object he rolled up to a pair of dancing girls and introduced me. Soon I was semi-willingly embroiled in the game while Parissa looked on, half-amused and half-amazed that this was how men operated in clubs. We closed out the place at 4am, and I remember having my first real conversation with the girls and then bidding them farewell. Heading back to the Bowdoin guys, one guy named Big Will came at me and said, "Cal, go back there and just grab that girl and say, 'Let's go.' " "Let's go?" "Let's go. It's a game-changer." Parissa laughed her head off and asked me, "Do you need my place tonight?" Mike looked me and nodded vigorously. The absurdity of the situation really overwhelmed me. I did not make that move but I learned a lot that night.
Parissa and I woke up around noon, struggling mightily. Were the liquor not so fine the previous night, it would have a more difficult struggle. We ventured to a mall by her office for lunch where I tried "Laksa," another Malaysian Chinese invention that is part coconut milk, part wonton soup, part curry broth. It was delicious but definitely not the right food for me after a 4am night of clubbing. Afterward we strolled through the downtown area, called Orchard, which I found to be as upscale a downtown as I'd ever seen in the world. The buildings were sleek and awesome, the walk was very comfortable despite the heat, and we came across an old-fashioned Singaporean "ice cream sandwich" which literally was a rectangular ice cream bar wrapped in a slice of bread.
From there we took the MRT towards Marina Bay to see the Singapore's famous Stone Lion. I didn't know much about Singapore but I remembered the lion and how its supposed to be the mythical animal of the city. Apparently people take a picture where it looks like they're drinking from the lion. I did one of those and also took a quick shower. This part of town seemed to be an older part, with the cool-looking suspension Cavenagh Bridge (built in 1867 and has a sign preventing cattle and horses from crossing) and colonial-style houses along the river. For the most part, colonial architecture is rare in Singapore, as well as in Hong Kong.
From the Lion we walked all the way around the bay and back to the Marina Bay Sands and I checked out the gigantic mall underneath. I realized that the complex was actually a casino property, developed by the same people who own the Venetian in Las Vegas and Macau. The underground mall also features a canal system, an ice skating rink, museum exhibits, the casino, and piles of pure gold coins that you can jump into and swim in like you're Scrooge McDuck. Ok one of those I made up. But it was seriously one of the most lavish and over-the-top developments I've ever seen, and as it turns out my company had a hand in its award-winning design. But anyway we paid to go to the observation deck at the top of the hotel, where I got to see a lot more of the city in daylight. It was drizzling a bit and all the other tourists stood under a roofed area away from the edge, but Parissa and I didn't care at all and walked around to our freedom. The city skyline was decently impressing - certainly no Hong Kong but I found it interesting how the city was both so well-developed and growing. Those two adjectives had previously to me seemed mutually exclusive. The skyline also includes the Helix Bridge, a pedestrian bridge crossing a part of the bay with a twisting spiral facade shaped like DNA. I have a random semi-intense interest in cool bridges, but sadly I didn't get a chance to walk across this fine molecular structure.
That night ended up being a lengthy one. Parissa and I had Malaysian dinner ordered by her delightful and bubbly Malay best friend Aisyah, along with international friends Shaad, Cian and Brendan. Malay food has long been one of my favorite cuisines, despite the fact that it was limited to occasional trips to the chain restaurant Penang in east coast cities. Their food has a ton of influence from Indian and Chinese cuisines. Our dinner included delicious chicken in a curry sauce, samosas, and these amazing potato wedges.
From there Parissa and I ventured to a house party at a swanky apartment overlooking the Marina Bay, where fireworks would be launched for Chinese New Year that night. The party was one of the classiest I'd ever been too, thrown and attended primarily by older more successful people, and even included more Lo Hei. One 30 year old banker was stunned to discover our true ages a few hours in, and kept repeating, "you're 23?!?!" Like many ex-pat parties in Asia, I met a lot of very cool international people and had a fantastic time, topped by a spectacular view of the fireworks. Mike and I were also very conscious of the Patriots game (AFC championship against the Ravens) which would be starting at 4:30am Singapore time. He had started his day with a destructive champagne breakfast and bowed out at midnight, promising to wake up in a few hours and meet up for the game. Aisyah, Parissa and I left the party at around 2am, where I mentioned how fun the night was and that I was ready to powernap. They were like ok we'll drop you off at home and then go clubbing. I closed my eyes, drifted off for a second, then opened them wide and exclaimed, "no you're not. I'm going clubbing with you." And so we went to Clarke Quay, a normally hopping ex-pat clubbing area, where I determined to pull an epic all nighter. The place was almost all dead though because of the holiday, except for one club that was charging a $25 cover. We skipped along and went to another club, which said they were closing. The bouncer there told Parissa however that he could stamp us and that we could get into the previous club free. Parissa and Aisyah were skeptical and worried incessantly that we were being punked, but I went ahead without shame. The other club's bouncer was dealing with a girl pleading him to let her in, and I walked right up and showed him the stamp. The bouncer said to the girl, "Now why don't you have a stamp like me?" and opened the ropes for me. I turned back to the two girls and winked. However, they ran into a load of trouble when they tried to pull my move, as the bouncer quizzed them on where they got that stamp. Turns out he was likely just giving them a hard time to amuse himself, and they eventually got in.
At 4 o'clock we bounced and headed to a bar, where Parissa's friend Chase knew the bartender. He had convinced the man to open up the place at that ungodly hour and put the game on. Only 3 of us were there to watch, not including Mike who did not budge through his alarm or several phone calls. The game was the first Pats game I'd watched live in Asia, and it was terrific to get that familiar routine back in my life, albeit at an unfamiliar time slot. When Billy Cundiff missed that easy field goal to put the Patriots in the Super Bowl and to cause me to shriek in surprise, it was close to 7:30am. It was a pretty fantastic way to start the new year.
I think that Monday consisted of a great Western brunch and then dinner in Little India at a fantastic Northern Indian restaurant. After downing a few pounds of lamb chicken and naan bread, Mike asked me if it was the best Indian meal I'd ever had. I easily put it in my top five, although some of the meals I had in Real India were pretty amazing too. We walked around that area for a while, where I bought a coconut and drank its milk, and felt a very different urban vibe from the Western/Chinese parts of Singapore. Little India isn't too far a walk from Arab street, another cross-national avenue of hooka smoke, Arabic signs and coffee shops that don't sell pork or alcohol. After 2 straight absurdly long nights, this was a chill break. Parissa and her friends planned to go to Johor Bahru, the Malaysian city right across the border from Singapore, the next day for a day of cultural exploration and bumper cars.
The next morning, my last full day, however we discovered that just about everything in JB was closed and decided not to go. Cian (who had already arrived at our scheduled meeting spot), Shaad, Aisyah, Parissa and I restructured our plans and ventured via ferry to a nearby island. The island proved to be a nice walk, had surprisingly lovely beaches (considering how much shipping goes into Singapore), and a coconut that proved to be a very good substitute for a football. We trekked through the jungle (it felt oddly like Jurassic Park) and came across a large ultraquick lizard and argued about whether it was a Komodo Dragon (it wasn't). The afternoon included lunch at Newton Centre, presumably named after the city where I grew up, where I had some awesome Hokkien prawn.
That night we met up with Annabel, a former Georgetown acquaintance whom I became friends with recently when she was working in Hong Kong, and whom I thought would get along really with Parissa. I think I was correct. I also thought that there might be a chance that Gabe Albert would come by. Gabe is the older and bolder brother of my senior year roommate Jordan and when I posted my arrival to Singapore on Facebook, asked me how long I'd be there. Though he was based in New York, he and two other friends whom I had previously met were taking an epic tour through Southeast Asia. We figured out he'd be getting in late on Tuesday, the night before I was leaving, and I left him a message with where we were going and hoped for the best. Turns out they got in at around 10 on a bus from Kuala Lumpur, came straight to the place we were, walked around for 15 minutes looking for me, thought they found me, called my name like 10 times and were about to give up when I heard and turned around. That night, though by far the briefest of all my nights in Singapore, drinking wine with Parissa, Annabel, Gabe, Marisol and Bobby was both incredibly random and incredible special and a small microcosm of why my life on this continent is so great.
Ultimately I had an amazing four day trip to Singapore. I left with a very positive impression of the city as a tourist, though I'm not ready to make a fully informed opinion of the country as a whole. It certainly looks like a pristine problem-free nation from the surface, with racial diversity rivaling that of any global city and exceeding that of any other nation. However it's not a place of great civil liberties and has firmly engrained racial prejudices. It's education system seems top-notch and it's economy blossoming, but the city and its citizens seem to have little to offer of the arts and sports. Perhaps, it is possible that the life in Singapore is too nice.
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| View from the top of Marina Bay Sands |
Parissa took me to a mall nearby to get money, and I was immediately stunned. What was it? Oh, I could walk along in the mall and stretch my arms out. After coming from the intensely dense Hong Kong, it felt refreshing to be in a city with elbow room. It soon became apparent to me how little I knew about Singapore, despite having read a dozen wikipedia articles on it. I knew about the 4 official languages, English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil, and that it is the only modern state to become sovereign against its own wishes, and had friends from Singapore and heard the Singlish accent. I figured that as an Asian city state, it would have a ton in common with Hong Kong, its fellow Asian Tiger. While it may share some important similarities, coming from Hong Kong I noticed far more differences.
When you come from mainland China onto Hong Kong island, your world is immediately westernized. I had kinda assumed that Hong Kong was the most western city in Asia, which is after all, the Far East and not very western at all. Compared to Singapore though, Hong Kong may as well be Zhejiang. Singapore was still definitely an Asian city, but from the sidewalks to the building lobbies to the brands, Western influence had left a strong unapologetic impact on the feel of the city. Even if people weren't speaking English and the signs were in Thai, my western-raised being would still have sensed familiarity in the surroundings. That mall surprised me. In that warm climate, sections seemed straight out of California, while other times I noticed distinctively Asian stores and Chinese dried goodies. As I saw more of the city, I realized how insane the quality of life was. The downtown area was as nice as any urban area I'd ever seen, almost overflowing with money in the form of architecture, but the rest of the city that I saw was just as nice and clean, if more modest. Growing up in the US, we are raised to believe that we are blessed with the best environment the world has to offer. After all, people left Europe, Asia, and all other parts of the world to come create our country. Living in Beijing, I experienced by contrast what quality of life really means and the difference it can make. But I had always assumed that American cities rated highest in "quality of life." Now I realize how incredibly wrong I was. The quality of life I saw in Singapore is higher than any American city, and a 2011 Mercer survey agrees with me. American cities are almost all plagued by relatively high worldwide levels of crime and at least some bad neighborhoods. They're also not known for efficient transportation or being particularly clean. Singapore ranks 25 on the list (#1 in Asia), and has low crime, super clean streets, a decent subway and little overcrowding.Everyone in Hong Kong had in fact told me similar facts, either immediately before or after stating that it was such a boring place. The Lion City's less official nicknames include "The World's Only Shopping Mall with a Seat on the UN" and "Disneyland with the Death Penalty." But I didn't see it that way at all. After the excursion through the shopping mall, Parissa took me to a restaurant right by her place that sells Prata (delicious bread of Indian origin) for a few bucks. It'd be the first of amazing meals that I'd eat there. From there, we journeyed crosstown and met up with many of her who were at a Chinese restaurant celebrating the Chinese New Year. Singaporean (and Malaysian) Chinese have this bizarre tradition of ringing in the new year called Lo Hei or Yusheng, which is definitely not common in other parts of the Sinosphere. They gather a bunch of noodles, carrots, spices, other random Chinese food ingredients and overlay it with smoked salmon and tons of sauces. Then the fun begins and participants dig their chopsticks into the bunch and throw it up as high as they can to mix them, and create a giant mess. Every ingredient is supposed to have some great meaning (generally a Chinese pun) but to me it was just silly fun.
We dropped by afterward to a bar in a neat part of town called Emerald Hill, where the bar scene was pretty standardly fun from what I've experienced, except that drinks were outrageously priced. The cheapest beers were $15 SGD, due to an absurdly high sin tax. The Singaporean government is one that believes it can regulate morality, from its alcohol tax, to its $100 gambling fee for all Singaporean citizens at local casinos (foreigners can lose money for free), and caning the bare butts of severe lawbreakers. It probably works well for some people, and not so well for others. We weren't at Emerald Hill for too long though because Parissa's boyfriend Mike somehow managed to get us into Ku De Ta, one of the top clubs in all of Singapore, located at the top of Marina Bay Sands. The way this opportunity rolled around was convoluted, and I had absolutely no idea how it all worked at the time. Both Parissa and Mike are very active in the Bowdoin community in Asia, and a fellow alum was attending the Booth School of Business in Singapore. This alum and his classmates were all high rolling MBA students who liked to live the lifestyle of investment bankers, and thus rolled into Ku De Ta and ordered bottles - a few weeks ago. They couldn't finish all of them, and the club allowed them to keep them there for a month. Well somehow this gang wasn't in Singapore for the rest of the month, except for this one weekend. So they needed to finish all the bottles for good this Friday night, and called Mike and other alum for help. Mike enlisted me and Parissa as well and somehow we strut into Ku De Ta without paying the $38 (!) cover charge (the cover suggests that a bottle of Goose could have been four digits, so ordering the 12 or so bottles that they did is absurd beyond belief). But even more absurd was that this guy apparently hung out with his buddies for an hour, decided this place was lame, grabbed one bottle of goose and bounced, his MBA friends in stroll. I don't think I ever even met him. 3 other Bowdoin guys were left and I kept thinking one of them had to be the kind benefactor, so I kept over-graciously thanking them. Turns out we were all freeriding and had 4 or 5 bottles of Grey Goose and Macallan's to finish. Somehow we did, but it was challenging towards the end. Mike decided he really wanted to get me a girl, and before I could object he rolled up to a pair of dancing girls and introduced me. Soon I was semi-willingly embroiled in the game while Parissa looked on, half-amused and half-amazed that this was how men operated in clubs. We closed out the place at 4am, and I remember having my first real conversation with the girls and then bidding them farewell. Heading back to the Bowdoin guys, one guy named Big Will came at me and said, "Cal, go back there and just grab that girl and say, 'Let's go.' " "Let's go?" "Let's go. It's a game-changer." Parissa laughed her head off and asked me, "Do you need my place tonight?" Mike looked me and nodded vigorously. The absurdity of the situation really overwhelmed me. I did not make that move but I learned a lot that night.
Parissa and I woke up around noon, struggling mightily. Were the liquor not so fine the previous night, it would have a more difficult struggle. We ventured to a mall by her office for lunch where I tried "Laksa," another Malaysian Chinese invention that is part coconut milk, part wonton soup, part curry broth. It was delicious but definitely not the right food for me after a 4am night of clubbing. Afterward we strolled through the downtown area, called Orchard, which I found to be as upscale a downtown as I'd ever seen in the world. The buildings were sleek and awesome, the walk was very comfortable despite the heat, and we came across an old-fashioned Singaporean "ice cream sandwich" which literally was a rectangular ice cream bar wrapped in a slice of bread.
From the Lion we walked all the way around the bay and back to the Marina Bay Sands and I checked out the gigantic mall underneath. I realized that the complex was actually a casino property, developed by the same people who own the Venetian in Las Vegas and Macau. The underground mall also features a canal system, an ice skating rink, museum exhibits, the casino, and piles of pure gold coins that you can jump into and swim in like you're Scrooge McDuck. Ok one of those I made up. But it was seriously one of the most lavish and over-the-top developments I've ever seen, and as it turns out my company had a hand in its award-winning design. But anyway we paid to go to the observation deck at the top of the hotel, where I got to see a lot more of the city in daylight. It was drizzling a bit and all the other tourists stood under a roofed area away from the edge, but Parissa and I didn't care at all and walked around to our freedom. The city skyline was decently impressing - certainly no Hong Kong but I found it interesting how the city was both so well-developed and growing. Those two adjectives had previously to me seemed mutually exclusive. The skyline also includes the Helix Bridge, a pedestrian bridge crossing a part of the bay with a twisting spiral facade shaped like DNA. I have a random semi-intense interest in cool bridges, but sadly I didn't get a chance to walk across this fine molecular structure.
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| Malay food quickly being destroyed |
From there Parissa and I ventured to a house party at a swanky apartment overlooking the Marina Bay, where fireworks would be launched for Chinese New Year that night. The party was one of the classiest I'd ever been too, thrown and attended primarily by older more successful people, and even included more Lo Hei. One 30 year old banker was stunned to discover our true ages a few hours in, and kept repeating, "you're 23?!?!" Like many ex-pat parties in Asia, I met a lot of very cool international people and had a fantastic time, topped by a spectacular view of the fireworks. Mike and I were also very conscious of the Patriots game (AFC championship against the Ravens) which would be starting at 4:30am Singapore time. He had started his day with a destructive champagne breakfast and bowed out at midnight, promising to wake up in a few hours and meet up for the game. Aisyah, Parissa and I left the party at around 2am, where I mentioned how fun the night was and that I was ready to powernap. They were like ok we'll drop you off at home and then go clubbing. I closed my eyes, drifted off for a second, then opened them wide and exclaimed, "no you're not. I'm going clubbing with you." And so we went to Clarke Quay, a normally hopping ex-pat clubbing area, where I determined to pull an epic all nighter. The place was almost all dead though because of the holiday, except for one club that was charging a $25 cover. We skipped along and went to another club, which said they were closing. The bouncer there told Parissa however that he could stamp us and that we could get into the previous club free. Parissa and Aisyah were skeptical and worried incessantly that we were being punked, but I went ahead without shame. The other club's bouncer was dealing with a girl pleading him to let her in, and I walked right up and showed him the stamp. The bouncer said to the girl, "Now why don't you have a stamp like me?" and opened the ropes for me. I turned back to the two girls and winked. However, they ran into a load of trouble when they tried to pull my move, as the bouncer quizzed them on where they got that stamp. Turns out he was likely just giving them a hard time to amuse himself, and they eventually got in.
At 4 o'clock we bounced and headed to a bar, where Parissa's friend Chase knew the bartender. He had convinced the man to open up the place at that ungodly hour and put the game on. Only 3 of us were there to watch, not including Mike who did not budge through his alarm or several phone calls. The game was the first Pats game I'd watched live in Asia, and it was terrific to get that familiar routine back in my life, albeit at an unfamiliar time slot. When Billy Cundiff missed that easy field goal to put the Patriots in the Super Bowl and to cause me to shriek in surprise, it was close to 7:30am. It was a pretty fantastic way to start the new year.
I think that Monday consisted of a great Western brunch and then dinner in Little India at a fantastic Northern Indian restaurant. After downing a few pounds of lamb chicken and naan bread, Mike asked me if it was the best Indian meal I'd ever had. I easily put it in my top five, although some of the meals I had in Real India were pretty amazing too. We walked around that area for a while, where I bought a coconut and drank its milk, and felt a very different urban vibe from the Western/Chinese parts of Singapore. Little India isn't too far a walk from Arab street, another cross-national avenue of hooka smoke, Arabic signs and coffee shops that don't sell pork or alcohol. After 2 straight absurdly long nights, this was a chill break. Parissa and her friends planned to go to Johor Bahru, the Malaysian city right across the border from Singapore, the next day for a day of cultural exploration and bumper cars.
The next morning, my last full day, however we discovered that just about everything in JB was closed and decided not to go. Cian (who had already arrived at our scheduled meeting spot), Shaad, Aisyah, Parissa and I restructured our plans and ventured via ferry to a nearby island. The island proved to be a nice walk, had surprisingly lovely beaches (considering how much shipping goes into Singapore), and a coconut that proved to be a very good substitute for a football. We trekked through the jungle (it felt oddly like Jurassic Park) and came across a large ultraquick lizard and argued about whether it was a Komodo Dragon (it wasn't). The afternoon included lunch at Newton Centre, presumably named after the city where I grew up, where I had some awesome Hokkien prawn.
That night we met up with Annabel, a former Georgetown acquaintance whom I became friends with recently when she was working in Hong Kong, and whom I thought would get along really with Parissa. I think I was correct. I also thought that there might be a chance that Gabe Albert would come by. Gabe is the older and bolder brother of my senior year roommate Jordan and when I posted my arrival to Singapore on Facebook, asked me how long I'd be there. Though he was based in New York, he and two other friends whom I had previously met were taking an epic tour through Southeast Asia. We figured out he'd be getting in late on Tuesday, the night before I was leaving, and I left him a message with where we were going and hoped for the best. Turns out they got in at around 10 on a bus from Kuala Lumpur, came straight to the place we were, walked around for 15 minutes looking for me, thought they found me, called my name like 10 times and were about to give up when I heard and turned around. That night, though by far the briefest of all my nights in Singapore, drinking wine with Parissa, Annabel, Gabe, Marisol and Bobby was both incredibly random and incredible special and a small microcosm of why my life on this continent is so great.
Ultimately I had an amazing four day trip to Singapore. I left with a very positive impression of the city as a tourist, though I'm not ready to make a fully informed opinion of the country as a whole. It certainly looks like a pristine problem-free nation from the surface, with racial diversity rivaling that of any global city and exceeding that of any other nation. However it's not a place of great civil liberties and has firmly engrained racial prejudices. It's education system seems top-notch and it's economy blossoming, but the city and its citizens seem to have little to offer of the arts and sports. Perhaps, it is possible that the life in Singapore is too nice.
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