 | Its snowing!
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O要 arrival the first thing you encounter is the amount of people populating all public space. its a bustling city with 3 million people o要 a quite small island. its noisy, smelly and believe me, there is even more shops than people!
We went straight to a little hostel called Betel Box, in Joo Chiat Road, which just opened and has some very welcoming and helpful owners, who still seem to think friendliness is part of the hostel/guesthouse business. Sounds good to me :) .
Since we arrived o要 30th of December we saw decorations for Christmas, New Year and the Chinese New Year. It gives quite an interesting mix of Santas and monkeys for the Chinese year of the monkey. | |  | longan on ice - perfect!
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The first thing to do o要 a sunny day in here is shopping. you jump from o要e shopping mall to the next and try to survive through food stalls and hawker markets. Its a lot of new things for our tastebuds. We virtually tried every sort of veggie cuisine to be found: indian, chinese, thai, japanese and even arabian, sort of. Its a beautiful treat for your senses. better than shopping from my point of view (but o要ly my point). If you plan to do some shopping., we found the far east shopping centre off just off orchard road and bugis village most entertaining with its small shops and more interesting unique designs. most of the shopping centres are very boringly typical though. | |  | Napping in Chinatown
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This brings o要e to the sad part of this town. the slow disappearance of asian culture. its more western than we thought. hey, western style capitalism won here for sure. From the burger shops to the ads all around its like a copy of a "western city". But if you try to find some romantic leftovers you can find them melted into the new world. sometimes its fascinating to see all these small shrines and how older chinese still live their way in the city. | |  | Chinese New Year Parade
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The small quarters of the different cultures entertained us for days. the arab street complete with mosque announcements, street cafes with strong coffee and textile shops. the indian quarter with its bustling food culture and the chinese quarter with the first celebrations of the New Year. A parade with the first fire crackers since 40 years just happened and we squeezed into the masses. Thank god, at least a head taller than the other visitors. | |  | Asian Civilizations Museum
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Generally the police state mentality, which is publicised so often, doesnt exist. there is more common sense for order than usual (after chinas spitting and smoking) and some people actually stop at red lights, but its not controlled at all. its a safe feeling and for the stopover tourist a secure shopping space :p For New Years eve we visited the Sentosa Island together with about 15000 others. Its been an interesting experience with fireworks and a little foam party (which didnt work very well). Fascinating was the new picture messaging by the Singaporeans. Every 2nd was sending photos via mobile and not even looking at the fireworks - welcome to the future.
Another interesting ToDo is the night safari at the Singapore Zoo. You can watch the more active nightlife of the animals from pathways. just make sure you dont go o要 a public holiday as we did. the roars and growls of the visitors are louder than the animals. |
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