007 – Singapore – Interesting Facts

Well, we have survived and thrived in our hot and humid week in Singapore. We didn’t really know all that much about Singapore when we got here so I thought I’d share a few of our discoveries…

The Republic of Singapore is an island country of 710.2 sq km at the Southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 km north of the equator.  

Modern Singapore is 75% Chinese, 14% Indian, 7% Malay, and 4 % Other, despite this they consider Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, some white British dude to be their “revered” founder. There is a Raffles, Monument, Raffles Place, Raffles Subway stop, Raffles Road, Raffles Hospital and Raffles Hotel.

Word is that this is the place where they invented the Singapore Sling.

Well, that’s what Ciel told me, anyway.

 The official language is English, which everyone speaks, we just can’t understand anything anyone is saying.

We’re not sure what the deal is with their architecture. They have one of the strangest conglomerations of buildings.  We suspect there is some kind of bizarro one-upmanship at play among architects.

 Opera Hall/Microphone/Durian Fruit

 Marina Sands Resort/ Floating Cruiseship

 Supreme Court/Flying Saucer

 Art and Science Museum/Lotus

Singaporeans love the Merlion. Half lion, half fish, the symbol of Singapore.

They love babies even more. If they are not snapping photos subtly when you turn your back or blatantly with a telephoto lens 10 cm from your baby’s nose, you might find them scooping your baby up and spiriting her away to show to all of their friends/family/co-workers.

Fortunately for us, they always return Ciel. Usually right after she yaks on their shoes.

There don’t really seem to be any defined towns on the island, presumably because it is so small. Instead the island is divided into districts. The downtown area is in the conveniently named “City” district.

We’ve managed to tour a good portion of the “City” in the last couple days; Chinatown, Little India, Sentosa Island, Clarke Quay, etc.,

Largely due to our adept navigator.

We hit up one of the local hawker (like a food court) centres the other day for lunch. We’re not really sure what we ate, we just followed my friend Miguel’s advice and stood in the longest line and then ordered whatever the person in front of us ordered (Sorry Bud, no pics). We made sure to stay away from the fishhead line though...

Alcohol in Singapore is exorbitantly expensive, kind of like the peelers, but without naked women. We have however indulged in one or two, including a couple samplers at one of the local brew pubs, to help fend off the shakes. 

We indulged in an amazing dinner on Friday at Torontonian Susur Lee’s restaurant “Chinois”. We had the aptly named “Opulence” tasting menu. It was...opulent. 

The restaurant is on this touristy island (Sentosa Island) that is some crazy cross between Centre Island, Las Vegas, Walt Disney World and Cancun. 

We made our way back there today to tour around and somehow managed to wrangle a free spot at this ritzy beach club where the Bearss beauties spent a little time soaking up some rays in the infinity pool and on the chaise lounges.

If you look closely, you will see the people on the right with their three bottles of Grey Goose, the group on the left is into the Veuve Cliquot and we’re enjoying Singapore tap water from our crinkled disposable water bottles that we’ve been carrying around for the last 5 days.

All things considered it’s been a great week. Tomorrow is laundry/ship the car seat day so won’t be quite as exciting. Ciel wants to head back to the hotel pool in the afternoon to work a little more on her flip turns.

 Then catch up on some of her reading.

Next stop is Cebu, Philippines.  See you then.