Singapore (Day 1)

Singapore.  Wow!  What an amazing place.  We arrived on Sunday, March 25, at 8 in the morning.  The weather was overcast with light rain.  Janis and I had signed up for two excursions that day, the first titled "Singapore Odyssey" for six hours and the second titled "Singapore After Dark" for three hours (but, in actuality, four hours).  Before describing these experiences, a few facts about Singapore.

Singapore is a city-state located at the southern-most end of the Malay Peninsula.  It is an archipelago consisting of 63 islands.  Today it occupies a total land mass of 277.6 square miles, a considerable portion of which is derived from reclaimed land.  The population numbers about 5.64 million people, the majority of whom are of Chinese ethnicity, followed by Malay and then Indian.  English is the principal language, spoken to a greater or lesser degree by everyone, but all Singaporians are required to learn at least one other language -- either Malay, Mandarin or Tamil.  The number of citizens who hold MBAs and Ph.Ds is remarkable.  Correspondingly, the median household income in Singapore is high, much higher than that of so many of its neighbors.  In 2017 it was $9,023 a month (currently, $1US equals $1.31 Singapore).

Singapore has a parliamentary system of government headed by a prime minister.  A particular Lee family has dominated the country's politics since its founding as a modern independent state in 1959.  Lee Kuan Yew served as PM from then until 1990 and his son Lee Hsien Loong, the current PM, has been in office since 2004.  Both are essentially revered for their leadership skills and are credited for Singapore's remarkable development.  The current PM is a graduate of Trinity College of Cambridge University and holds an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School.  The PM receives an annual salary exceeding $3M (Singapore).

There is so much to tell about Singapore and its culture.  But because of our schedule and resulting time constraints, I just can't get into a lot of detail.  Suffice it to say that, according to the three local guides we've had during our visit to Singapore, this is an enormously successful secular culture that fully respects all religions and ethnicities.  To be sure, the laws are very strict but, according to our guides, there is essentially no crime here because of those strict laws and the fact that everyone understands the consequences of breaking them:  no guns, no drugs, no theft, no prostitution, no personal violence, etc.  (Yes, the streets are quite clean, although the suggestion that you won't see a cigarette butt on the ground is fantasy; there is some of that and other minor litter around.  But, by and large, the place is quite immaculate, and certainly much cleaner than the nearby countries we've visited up to this point.)  We obviously haven't been here long enough to judge for ourselves.

I'll  add to or supplement some of this narrative as we trace our day here.

First of all, as we boarded our bus and drove to our first stop we couldn't help but observe Singapore's dazzling skyline and, in particular, the now signature piece of that skyline, the Marina Bay Sands Towers, a trio of 57-story hotel towers, and the so-called Sands SkyPark that lies flat atop the rooftops of these hotel towers like an enormous surfboard.  (Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Here are a few other shots showing some of the detail and unique lines of the Marina Bay Sands Towers:

   

This rather new development, as well as the adjacent very upscale shopping center, casino and convention center, is the project of and owned by Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas and Macau fame who, according to our guides, has already fully recouped his capital investment in this enormous project.  (This casino, and the only other one in Singapore, are considered by the government to be for foreign visitors who want to gamble and not for Singaporians.  There has been from the time of its opening, and continues to be, a massive government campaign to discourage Singaporians from as much as entering these casinos.)

There are a myriad of buildings, skyscrapers and otherwise, that are architecturally significant.  Here's a sample:

       
                                           

Our first stop on our first tour, which was about celebrating Singapore's cultural diversity and preserved ethnic neighborhoods, was the Muslim Quarter, the old center of the Malay community.  The centerpiece here is the beautiful Sultan Mosque.

                         
                                  

The character and mood of the entire neighborhood is inviting.  Lots of shops, food stalls, narrow but picturesque streets, original buildings with striking design elements.  In walking around the area we also went down alleyways where we could view street art on the side walls of buildings.  We even encountered an about-to-be bride who allowed us to photograph her.

                                          
                                    

And, surprisingly, there was even this bit of irreverence:

Our next stop was Little India where the scent of spices and jasmine is as intense as the eye-popping displays of silver, brassware, rattan, ostrich feathers, wood carvings and silken saris.  As our guide pointed out, 85 percent of Singaporians live in well-designed and constructed subsidized housing, meaning housing that they are able to purchase at low interest rates and with substantial government subsidies.  The buildings depicted in the third photo below are examples of such housing.

                                    

After spending some time in Little India we were driven to The Stamford Swissotel for a delicious buffet lunch in its Asian Market Cafe featuring a large variety of local foods.  On a wall in the lobby are paintings of three admired figures:  Gandhi, Lee Kuan Yew (1st PM of Singapore) and Mother Teresa.

                                         

                                         
Our next stop was Chinatown.  On the bus ride there we passed Singapore's parliament building.

    

Like the other ethnic neighborhoods we visited, Chinatown features traditional architecture and colorful streets and shops.  We were taken to the Chinatown Heritage Centre which essentially is a museum occupying a converted shophouse.  Among the displays are spaces replicating Chinese cubicle living in the 1950s where as many as a family of eight would live in a single room and where several men without wives and family in Singapore would sleep in stacked positions in a single room.  Note the hole in the floor in one of the photos depicting the extent of bathroom facilities in these buildings at the time.  Believe it or not, this hole shared space with the kitchen which appears in the next photo down.

                                                                                          

At the end of our time in Chinatown our tour group was driven back to the ship at which point Janis and I took naps in preparation for our Singapore After Dark excursion.  We boarded a different bus at 6:30 p.m. and were first driven around a bit and then dropped at a market place for a brief period.  It was then not yet dark completely dark out.

                                          
                                      

After that we went for a cruise on the Singapore River.  This was a real treat with visual stimulation coming from all sides.  I'm just going to post photos that are representative of what we saw, including an incredible laser light show.

                                                                        

We disembarked from the river cruise boat at the site of the Marina Bay Sands Towers and shopping mall.  We walked through the mall to get to the elevator that accessed the SkyPark.  This is one very high end mall.

    

The panoramic view from the SkyPark is pretty amazing, especially at night.  To our pleasant surprise, after we were up there for awhile, just taking it all in, the laser light show repeated itself.  This time, of course, we got to see it from a different perspective.  The fifth photo down in the left column will give you an idea of the shape and sweep of the SkyPark's cantilevered observation deck.

              

We got back to the ship about 10:30 p.m.  Whatever the reason, probably the fact we had napped and/or the stimulation of the evening's events, we weren't tired and didn't turn the lights off until 1 a.m., only to have to get up again this morning at 6:15 to be ready for this morning's scheduled excursion titled "Peranakan Culture."  That will be the subject of my next blog post.