Singapore Sling

After a four hour stay in Mauritius, a half-day in Singapore sounds like a lifetime.  This peculiar city-state at the end of the Malaysian Peninsula seems so out of place.  In the middle of the tropical jungle is an unbelievably modern enclave that is a testament to rapid development, extreme industrialization, and intense syncretism.  Sitting on the subway, for example, was an exemplary experience of what I will remember of Singapore: staring at such interesting-looking people with ambiguous ethnicities fiddling with their iPhones with signs all around printed in English, Chinese, Malay, and Tamil warning me not to bring durian on board.

Singapore is interesting, to say the least.  Though most people are of Chinese descent, there are sizable amounts of Indians and Malaysians along with ex-pats from all over Southeast Asia and around the world (Filipinos and the British come into mind first).  This plethora of diversity seems to meld together so well, and the best example of these forces at work is at the hawker centers.  Singapore, notorious for being incredibly clean and having strict punishments for violating their laws, is chock full of these establishments, much like food courts, where lines of vendors sell street-food fare from all over the world for incredibly cheap.  Next to the typical Malay food stalls were Halal stands, or juice bars, or Chinese or Indian or Filipino or American food or, really, anything.  Hayden and I spent hours and hours at places like these, and in the few hours in the country, we ate a total of roughly six times.

We also spent a good amount of time in a mall.  We didn’t even want to be there, but the whole country is kinda just one huge mall, and so it was inevitable that we ended up in one.  Even if you were avoiding them altogether, there was rampant shopping everywhere you went.  It was almost obscene how these malls could exist; it’s in sharp contrast to the States where I feel like the shopping mall is a thing of the past.  In the case of Singapore, the mall was the epitome of modernity and globalization; they had some of the coolest architecture and housed brands from all around the world.  I had a lot of fun window-shopping for some familiar (and some not-so-familiar) brands.  Even their food courts looked like five-star restaurants.

While on the topic of modernity, the city itself seems like one big work in progress.  Each corner you turned, you walked into another construction site.  As you can image, many of these construction sites were malls.  Cranes were almost as abundant in the skyline as completed buildings.  Singaporeans were always on the edge of the latest technology, and there was an atmosphere which contributed to quickness and efficiency.  As trivial as it may sound, even the escalators felt like they were going a mile a minute.

To sum it up simply, My speed-run through Singapore was pretty incredible.  I was amped up on Starbucks, and these were the first ones I’ve encountered throughout my entire trip so far, but I was also weighed down by mounds of food building up in my stomach.  By no means was I able to get into the nitty gritty of Singapore, but I definitely had a pretty nice crash course.  And before you know it, they’re gonna figure out a way to teleport there, so I just might be back sooner rather than later.