So, let us do this!
Ok, I lie, I’m sill in Singapore (at the time of writing…now I’m back in Perth) but have grown so bored that I have decided to write up some interesting stuff for my beautiful fans… as well as you guys. This isn’t to say Singapore is boring, no far from it. Cheap Food + Unnatural Cleanliness – Annoying Weather = Pretty Interesting. However I can still easily sum up Singapore in three words “Food and Shops”. Seriously, they not only excel in these two areas but they end up ruthlessly beating any other stall into a smoldering pile of burnt up horse shoes that Little Johnny from Grade Two would have burst into tears upon seeing. HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT JOHNNY!? HEY? NO AMOUNT OF GOLD STARS WILL SAVE YOU NOW!
…I’m sorry, I seem to have lost my train of thought.
…So…food and shops
Most people who know me know that I like my grub but am often crippled from my desire to eat by my lack of job, money, and general Asian reluctance to part with my money (If you don’t know that then shame on you! *tut tut tut*). So to those select few that know me (*grin*), they would know that Singapore is a goldmine for cheap food, thus, in my eyes, BRILLIANT! A whole meal for 4 people for $6? Brilliant. Drinks for $1? Awesome! Shark fin and Turtle soup?....not so brilliant…but still.
Now we arrive to the second part of Singapore, shopping. Now those of you have been shopping with me…what’s that? You haven’t? No surprise there because I hardly go shopping at all! I just don’t find trudging through a multitude of places for a multitude of hours looking at a multitude of items that I am most likely not going to buy with my non existent money fun. Now I’m not saying shopping isn’t fun. Oh wait, I am. See? Right there! Now keep that in mind while I elaborate.
Imagine peak hour on the train. That seem crowded? Well imagine that but it stretches on for around the length of Whitties shops but outside in the heat with numerous ‘people’ urging you to look at their wares with as much subtlety as Godzilla in a demolition derby.
Need I say more?
“Yes” I hear you cry “We wish to hear the end of your increasingly funny anectdote!”
“Well” I say to you while gently stroking my ever growing ego “…fine”
Um…I just don’t like shopping much.
Wow, how anticlimactic.
There was nothing sexual about that last comment but if you do find anticlimaxes sexual than I feel for you. In a nonsexual way! Damn, I’m bad at this. Damn I’m just going to keep my mouth shut.
DAMN.
Anyway, the family also went to Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam where the only difference between urine and tap water is that one is septic and you can’t drink it and the other is excreted through your bladder. Though the worse thing about Vietnam is the traffic, its worse than Malaysia and incredibly more evil than Singapore or Perth.
Imagine a school, roughly 1000 people and they all ride scooters,
Now imagine if the principal drove a car. That is the ratio in Vietnam and around thrice as many people stop at traffic lights (when there are traffic lights) at a given time. On that note the intersections are around 50m by 50m and they usually drive up the sidewalk anyway to turn the corner beeping all the way.
Which lends me to another thing, there is nonstop beeping of horns. When you overtake someone you beep, if you are turning, beep, if you don’t like the noise, beep.
Also crossing the road is a nightmare. There are never ever any breaks in the flow of traffic, so you have to step into the swirling mass of scooters going about 60km/hr each hoping that they don’t hit you while finding your happy place. The end result is that you create a sort of force field where traffic will swerve away from but beeping intensifies 10fold. I lost count of how many times I found my happy place those four days, at least 80. I’m surprised they still let me in (on a brief sidenote I heard 3 ambulances on the first day of arrival, that puts confidence in you).
On the brief times that they had a green man (I counted two) it didn’t last long. You had 10 seconds to clear 50m before the scooter squad charge from the red light regardless if anyone is still crossing or not and all the warning the pedestrians got was the green man flashed, just once then promptly turned red.
However I was a millionaire in Vietnam what with the exchange (one dollar is around 15,000 Vietnam dong) so I guess it makes up for the clutter and noise.
Now while this might seem I am putting Singapore in a negative light I just would like to say that I was there for the star of the Chinese New Year (Year of the Ox!) and those few days I was there for the celebrations turned my view around about Singapore.
Firstly, the food. There was lots of it.
Enough said.
Secondly, there is this tradition were married couples give Red Packets of money to small children. These can range from $2 to $20. Now my family also visited a lot of people that I had long forgotten about but nevertheless remarked on how tall I had grown and they INSISTED that I take their money away from them.
It, was, BRILLIANT!
On the second day of Chinese New Year my family went and visited these randoms. 10 minutes later, around 15 other randoms walked in the door and promptly started handing out Red Packets. We did that three times in three hours and I reckon I amassed around $60 FROM PEOPLE THAT I HAD NEVER MET BEFORE.
IT WAS TOTALLY AWESOME
I think I got $100 total that trip and to all you Asians out there that of course got way more than me:
I’m not really Asian, just Asian looking… so there.
Now I could go onto talk about the McDonalds over there or Singapore tv, but I really can’t be bothered.
So I won’t.
So Goodbye
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