Day Five
Today I'm in: Singapore
Yesterday started very early with an 8am flight from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong. Then I switched planes and flew about four hours to Singapore.
As anyone worth their aviation-geek salt knows, Singapore's Changi Airport is routinely ranked one of the best in the world. This is about as good as airports get - for airline fans it's the equivalent of a trip to Mecca. All I can say is... wow. Although my flight arrived at the original Terminal 1 (which is more than 30 years old) it's been so heavily remodeled that it looked new. There are waterfalls, koi ponds, movie theaters, swimming pools, indoor rainforests, every shop and restaurant you can think of, and even a three-hour city bus tour for passengers with long layovers. And out the windows you can watch planes from pretty much every major airline in the world. Amazing. When I leave in a few days, I am planning to show up a few hours early so I can explore more of the complex.
When I'd had my fill of airport I jumped in a cab and made way into the city. I'd heard from multiple people that Singapore is a little bit sterile and soulless, and the ride in from the airport matched that description - a wide, perfectly smooth expressway, landscaped with tropical flowers and palm trees, passing tidy estates of shiny white high-rise apartment buildings set amid parkland.
Singapore hotel prices were higher than I'd expected, so I booked myself into an outlet of the "budget" Hotel 81 chain. I got a little nervous when we pulled up in front of a somewhat run-down Art Deco-style building, but it turned out to be completely renovated and very sleek and modern inside. My room is most definitely "budget" - there's no window and no separate shower stall, so everything in the bathroom gets wet when I bathe - but it's spotless, the sheets are clean, and the staff are helpful.
I left the hotel and spent a few hours walking around, trying to love Singapore and generally failing. It's a very orderly, tidy place, but it just doesn't seem to have the same vibrant street life that I've seen in other large Asian cities. Traffic moves along without incident, there are city workers obsessively sweeping the sidewalks everywhere you look, and the whole city is tied together by the super-efficient MTR rail network, which is (of course) also clean and orderly. I walked to the central business district to admire the statue of the Merlion, the city's unofficial symbol, but in general I was starting to feel like I was in the Asian equivalent of Celebration, Florida.
That all changed when I went to one of the city's "food centres" for dinner. The Singapore city government has moved all of the city's streetside food vendors into these vast, multi-level complexes. It means finding street food isn't quite as easy as it is in Bangkok or Hong Kong, but it also means once you get there, you can easily and quickly get just about any dish you want. Singapore's a very ethnically mixed place (the Chinese are the largest group, but there are very sizeable Malay, Indian, Arab and European populations too) and food seems to be the thing that brings everyone together. Walking through the Golden Mile Food Centre, I passed an Indian family eating Chinese hotpot, a Chinese family eating Malaysian satay skewers, and a group of headscarved Malay women eating biryani and roti prata with their fingers.
My friend Evan had recommended a whole host of dishes, so I started off with wonton noodles topped with spicy pork and chili peppers. It was really tasty, and I followed it up with an ice kachang - a unique Singaporean dessert that looks like a regular snow cone, but it's served atop a bunch of fruit jelly cubes and sweet red beans. Really tasty! I've written down a whole list of other foods that I want to try at some different food centres today. Singapore may be a little bit like living under glass in an architect's model city, but the food alone is worth the trip, and I can't wait to get some more of it.
Today I'm in: Singapore
Yesterday started very early with an 8am flight from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong. Then I switched planes and flew about four hours to Singapore.
As anyone worth their aviation-geek salt knows, Singapore's Changi Airport is routinely ranked one of the best in the world. This is about as good as airports get - for airline fans it's the equivalent of a trip to Mecca. All I can say is... wow. Although my flight arrived at the original Terminal 1 (which is more than 30 years old) it's been so heavily remodeled that it looked new. There are waterfalls, koi ponds, movie theaters, swimming pools, indoor rainforests, every shop and restaurant you can think of, and even a three-hour city bus tour for passengers with long layovers. And out the windows you can watch planes from pretty much every major airline in the world. Amazing. When I leave in a few days, I am planning to show up a few hours early so I can explore more of the complex. When I'd had my fill of airport I jumped in a cab and made way into the city. I'd heard from multiple people that Singapore is a little bit sterile and soulless, and the ride in from the airport matched that description - a wide, perfectly smooth expressway, landscaped with tropical flowers and palm trees, passing tidy estates of shiny white high-rise apartment buildings set amid parkland.
Singapore hotel prices were higher than I'd expected, so I booked myself into an outlet of the "budget" Hotel 81 chain. I got a little nervous when we pulled up in front of a somewhat run-down Art Deco-style building, but it turned out to be completely renovated and very sleek and modern inside. My room is most definitely "budget" - there's no window and no separate shower stall, so everything in the bathroom gets wet when I bathe - but it's spotless, the sheets are clean, and the staff are helpful. 
I left the hotel and spent a few hours walking around, trying to love Singapore and generally failing. It's a very orderly, tidy place, but it just doesn't seem to have the same vibrant street life that I've seen in other large Asian cities. Traffic moves along without incident, there are city workers obsessively sweeping the sidewalks everywhere you look, and the whole city is tied together by the super-efficient MTR rail network, which is (of course) also clean and orderly. I walked to the central business district to admire the statue of the Merlion, the city's unofficial symbol, but in general I was starting to feel like I was in the Asian equivalent of Celebration, Florida. 
That all changed when I went to one of the city's "food centres" for dinner. The Singapore city government has moved all of the city's streetside food vendors into these vast, multi-level complexes. It means finding street food isn't quite as easy as it is in Bangkok or Hong Kong, but it also means once you get there, you can easily and quickly get just about any dish you want. Singapore's a very ethnically mixed place (the Chinese are the largest group, but there are very sizeable Malay, Indian, Arab and European populations too) and food seems to be the thing that brings everyone together. Walking through the Golden Mile Food Centre, I passed an Indian family eating Chinese hotpot, a Chinese family eating Malaysian satay skewers, and a group of headscarved Malay women eating biryani and roti prata with their fingers. 
My friend Evan had recommended a whole host of dishes, so I started off with wonton noodles topped with spicy pork and chili peppers. It was really tasty, and I followed it up with an ice kachang - a unique Singaporean dessert that looks like a regular snow cone, but it's served atop a bunch of fruit jelly cubes and sweet red beans. Really tasty! I've written down a whole list of other foods that I want to try at some different food centres today. Singapore may be a little bit like living under glass in an architect's model city, but the food alone is worth the trip, and I can't wait to get some more of it. 
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