The Littlest India.
Aug. 29th, 2010 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luckykaaAm now at Changi airport waiting for plane to Melbourne.
Still having problems sleeping. Really tired. Shame to choose this day to be zonked. Still, seemed to be able to enjoy myself. Even though the day was spent killing time. It was raining. Slapped on several coats of sunblock anyway.
Had a look at Little India. Remarkably Indian. While the CBD is clean, efficient, and smart, Little India seems to be crowded and chaotic and a lot more lively. It's an interesting place. This was essentially an exercise in comparative religion since the main sites of interest are the various temples. Sampled the delights of Singapore Indian cuisine and it was very tasty and served on a banana leaf. Maybe slightly hotter than at home although I deliberately chose a dish I was unfamiliar with so maybe it was just a spicy curry.
Having seen all of Little India I expected to see, I strolled down to Chinatown. Got distracted by a fire station museum (just a handful of exhibits on a couple of floors but well worth the $0 entry fee), then more distracted by Fort Canning Park, where I learned a fair bit about history before finally making my way to Chinatown. It's not as interesting as Little India. No plaques and things explaining context and not many interesting buildings. However, I was accosted by a tailor offering to make me a shirt or 3 and a suit. I was actually tempted. £60 for a tailored silk shirt isn't too bad a deal, and he offered to mail it to my home address. Sadly he oversold, trying to convince me to buy 3, and I really wasn't in a state of mind to haggle.
Weather improved drastically. Sunblock continued to block sun. Factor 30 means I'm never going to tan but it's hard for me to tan anyway. As long as I'm not burnt I'm happy being pale as a ghost.
Took MRT (mass rapid transit) to the airport. Cheaper than taxi an d almost as fast. Security seemed remarkably simple to get through.
Other thoughts about Singapore... It is remarkably clean and efficient here. Makes me wonder what Britain would have been like if the British colonised it. I expect London would have been extremely successful as a city state.
Malay girls are extremely pretty. Yes, I'm extremely shallow, and I know it and I like petite girls with dark hair and a caramel complexion.
Sure is hot here.
Wonder if I should have found out more about the place before I got here. Things I wasn't aware of included where it is in relation to other parts of Asia, that they drove on the left, had British style 3 pin sockets, is extremely westernised (I was expecting it to be more like Korea than Japan). Also wasn't certain about the language, but I'm still a little vague. While English is widely spoken, and I knew it was the official language, it doesn't seem to be a native language for most speakers. Either that or "Singlish" just sounds a bit foreign to me. Most overheard conversation was presumably Mandarin or Malay (I really can't tell), but almost all signs are only in English.
Still having problems sleeping. Really tired. Shame to choose this day to be zonked. Still, seemed to be able to enjoy myself. Even though the day was spent killing time. It was raining. Slapped on several coats of sunblock anyway.
Had a look at Little India. Remarkably Indian. While the CBD is clean, efficient, and smart, Little India seems to be crowded and chaotic and a lot more lively. It's an interesting place. This was essentially an exercise in comparative religion since the main sites of interest are the various temples. Sampled the delights of Singapore Indian cuisine and it was very tasty and served on a banana leaf. Maybe slightly hotter than at home although I deliberately chose a dish I was unfamiliar with so maybe it was just a spicy curry.
Having seen all of Little India I expected to see, I strolled down to Chinatown. Got distracted by a fire station museum (just a handful of exhibits on a couple of floors but well worth the $0 entry fee), then more distracted by Fort Canning Park, where I learned a fair bit about history before finally making my way to Chinatown. It's not as interesting as Little India. No plaques and things explaining context and not many interesting buildings. However, I was accosted by a tailor offering to make me a shirt or 3 and a suit. I was actually tempted. £60 for a tailored silk shirt isn't too bad a deal, and he offered to mail it to my home address. Sadly he oversold, trying to convince me to buy 3, and I really wasn't in a state of mind to haggle.
Weather improved drastically. Sunblock continued to block sun. Factor 30 means I'm never going to tan but it's hard for me to tan anyway. As long as I'm not burnt I'm happy being pale as a ghost.
Took MRT (mass rapid transit) to the airport. Cheaper than taxi an d almost as fast. Security seemed remarkably simple to get through.
Other thoughts about Singapore... It is remarkably clean and efficient here. Makes me wonder what Britain would have been like if the British colonised it. I expect London would have been extremely successful as a city state.
Malay girls are extremely pretty. Yes, I'm extremely shallow, and I know it and I like petite girls with dark hair and a caramel complexion.
Sure is hot here.
Wonder if I should have found out more about the place before I got here. Things I wasn't aware of included where it is in relation to other parts of Asia, that they drove on the left, had British style 3 pin sockets, is extremely westernised (I was expecting it to be more like Korea than Japan). Also wasn't certain about the language, but I'm still a little vague. While English is widely spoken, and I knew it was the official language, it doesn't seem to be a native language for most speakers. Either that or "Singlish" just sounds a bit foreign to me. Most overheard conversation was presumably Mandarin or Malay (I really can't tell), but almost all signs are only in English.
