Singapore, the city of the lion
When the train I was on from Malaysia entered Singapore, everybody on board had to alight and go through Singapore immigration before getting back on. Aside from a modicum of skepticism that it was my first trip to Singapore, the immigration officer didn't give me any trouble, although she did suggest that I include my middle name on the entry card in future, even if there wasn't enough space allocated for it.
When I disembarked at the station in downtown Singapore, I tried to use the toilet but ran into a wee snag. As usual, they wanted me to pay a minuscule fee for using it. While I don't generally have any objection to these usage fees for public toilets, this time I did not have any local currency and there wasn't an ATM handy. In the end I cajoled the attendant into letting me pay with Malaysian Ringitts. Having dispensed with the immediate necessity, I set about finding the MRT station. It wasn't particularly close and there were absolutely no signs directing people towards it but fortunately virtually all Singaporeans speak English and use the MRT so getting there was not a problem.
Unlike KL, the MRT has a unified payment system that uses a stored value card called ez-Link, so I acquired one and used it to catch a train to Holland Village, where May lives. When I got there I noticed that my phone had service so I tried to cal her but the call wouldn't go through. Fortunately, I had her address and a map of the neighbourhood so I set off on foot to find her place. Getting to the spot on the map turned out to be very easy but, having arrived there, actually locating her address proved to be frustrating. None of the buildings or stores had their street addresses posted outside and nobody around had a clue where her address was! Eventually, I gambled that she was located behind the construction area on the corner, since she'd mentioned that it kept her up at night, and decided to walk on the main road against traffic to circumvent it. That did the trick and I finally found my way to her place.
May took me out to a nearby cafe for French toast and then we caught a bus to check out the crazy malls. How crazy? Well, one of them included a multi-storey rock-climbing wall. As we wandered around the subterranean passages that connected the malls to each other, I noticed that many of the escalators were out of order. That struck me as odd because in other respects the city seemed to function like a well-oiled machine.
After checking out the malls, we drove to the airport to pick Kim up, since she had massive amounts of luggage after her long stay in Thailand. On the way back, May decided to swing by her sailing club to show us where she spends most of her time. Of course, once there, she simply had to go windsurfing so Kim and hung out at the beach and swapped travel stories for a couple of hours. I spotted what looked like a jungle-gym for adults and wanted to play on it when May returned but then I totally forgot about it.
All that sailboarding had worked up quite an appetite in May so she took us to a nearby enclave of hawker stalls for dinner. Bizarrely, the prices of coconuts there was all over the place instead of being in line with each other, as you might have expected. But there was only a single stall selling rice porridge so I had to wait in line for a bowl. Wanting to try something new, I ordered mine with something called century eggs. They were delicious and I could have happily gone on with my life without the knowledge, delightfully volunteered by May, that century eggs are soaked in horse urine.
Armed with that appetizing nugget in my mind, I blithely followed May and Kim back to the car so we could check out the shoreline at night. Walking along the waterfront was a very pleasant experience with all the pretty lights everywhere. We even stumbled upon a free outdoor concert! Eventually we arrived at the famous Merlion statue and took some entertaining photographs with it before May drove us back home.
That night I slept at an Aussie hostel in Little India. It was a pretty happening joint; a little too much so for my needs, actually, and in the morning the place was deserted when I needed to leave. Since I had already paid and didn't have a key to return, I decided to just head out. Unfortunately, they had barricaded up the place and I ended up having to scale a metal fence to escape! To make matters worse, I then proceeded to miss a bus because I was waiting at a taxi stand instead of a bus stop. Who would have guessed the two would be so hard to distinguish...
On the upside, May had been taking her time getting ready too so I wasn't holding anything up and we made it to the zoo at a reasonable time. The zoo was a lot of fun, although I did manage to find one animal in a cage, giving the lie to their claim of being cageless. After a long day at the zoo I hit the sack earlyish because we needed to be up around 3:30 in the morning to catch our flight. May's dad was super nice and drove us to the airport. Speaking of the airport, it blew me away. I think the Singapore airport is far and away the nicest airport I've ever been in. And I've been in many airports! Not only do they have a plethora of free Internet terminals and free wifi, they also have free massaging chairs!
