Singapore (Day 2)

Our second-day (Monday, March 26) Singapore excursion was entitled "Peranakan Culture."  The name Peranakan means "local born."  The Peranakans are the descendants of Chinese immigrants who married indigenous people from the Malay Archipelago in the 15th century.  Though mainly composed of Peranakans, as defined, the Peranakan community also includes pockets of Indian and Eurasian descendants.  The Peranakan legacy is best seen in the Joo Chiat and Katong area, which occupies a charming corner of eastern Singapore.  There, one will discover, as we did, quirky shophouses, hidden temples and quaint stores featuring Peranakan wares.

We began our tour on a street that features preserved original Peranakan homes.  Note the colors, materials and details.  (Remember, you can enlarge any photo by clicking on it.)

        

As we walked around the neighborhood we passed this Anglican church and examples of other kinds of low- or mid-rise housing.  We also passed private single-family homes, usually with a gate blocking the driveway, that looked so inviting considering that such a thing exists in this city-state that seems to offer typical big-city resources, cultural and otherwise, within reasonable distances.

    

We then came upon and spent some time in this Buddhist temple featuring a laughing buddha.

        

We've all heard about how strict the laws are in Singapore, so much so that, as our guide yesterday suggested to us, as a consequence there simply isn't any crime.  Well, we passed these signs in this especially nice neighborhood that seem to belie that notion.  Where the truth lies is something we can't answer based on such a brief stay here.

  

Likewise with the suggestion that littering simply doesn't exist in Singapore, again because of the severe penalties that attach to it.  As I mentioned yesterday, we know that's a myth because we saw cigarette butts and some other litter on streets we walked during yesterday's excursions.  And on this neighborhood walk we saw these empty beer bottles in someone's yard as well as a sign warning against dumping junk.  That said, as I also mentioned yesterday, the city is incredibly clean, especially when compared with its neighbors in Southeast Asia.

  

We eventually arrived at a building that is a preserved example of an historic shophouse, which is to say a house where the owners resided on the second floor and ran some kind of business on the first floor.  This particular building is a functioning retail business on the first floor, and on most of the second floor a kind of museum with rooms filled with beautiful furnishings typical of the era.  Some of the space on the second floor is used for making some of the clothes that are for sale and as a showroom.  We were treated to a sampling of local food and then given a history of the house.

                    
                                     

I took a few photos of the actual first-floor retail space as well.

                   

After this visit we were driven back to the ship.  We had hoped to take the Viking-provided shuttle back into town after lunch but there wasn't enough time left before the scheduled 3:30 p.m. sailaway so we simply resigned ourselves to the fact that our visit to Singapore was over.  We had dinner last night in one of the specialty restaurant's private dining rooms with 5 other couples.  (Any guest can reserve these rooms and put together a dinner party guest list.  The only difference between this and having people over at home is no food shopping, no cooking, full service.)  Everyone agreed on how appealing Singapore is as a place to live.  This place easily justifies another visit with more time.

Today, after an overnight sail, we were back in Malaysia for a 1-day visit to Kuala Lumpur.  I'll blog on that next.