Singa[pore]: Simple Song

MacRitchie Reserve

Tuesday, 21/09:

"All day, I grouchily lament having to battle time and the elements as two oncoming events:

1) A typhoon
2) My three day vacation to Singapore.

I desperately pedal through unrelenting rain to get to the bank to withdraw money to exchange for Hong Kong dollars (gangbi). Then, I endure soggy socks and drenched pants to top-up the pay-as-you-go minutes on my phone 'just in case of emergency in Singapore.'

The whole time, I am trying to forget my fifth grade class that knew less than my third graders. And, the whole time I am trying to forget my fourth grade class that tried my patience nearly to its breaking point. The whole time, I wonder if my efforts are in vain as I am not even sure that I will make it to the Hong Kong airport in time to catch my Tiger Airlines flight that may be cancelled due to weather...And so, the whole time I wonder whether I even want to continue this battle with time and the elements.

I decide 'yes,' though my gut tells me I could have just as easily decided otherwise. I need this independent adventure; I need to feel the replenishing spirit of exploration and discovery.

Mid-Autumn Moon Festival Means Vacation!

I start to feel it as I walk to my bus stop--all the while, receiving stares for my hunchbacked poncho covering a backpack stuffed with a weekend's worth of miscellany. I am walking to catch a bus to get to the border crossing so I can walk across the border to catch a bus to catch a subway to catch a train to the airport, where I can catch a flight to Singapore--where I will catch a bus to catch a subway to my hostel. I realize it will take a small miracle to ensure all goes swimmingly despite the torrential downpour and forecasted typhoon.




Unsure about which of the five buses at the border leads me to the next step on my journey, I gamble and just buy a ticket. As the bus leaves the Mainland-HK border, I ask a man speaking English on his iPhone whether this bus will help me get to the airport on time. He acknowledges that it does; he smiles and shouts back-and-forth with the driver. They laugh--I think at my expense, but I deserve as much for blindly boarding a bus without knowing where it was going or how to say were I was going.

A delay of one hour: I decide to grab a grande at Starbuck's (xingbake), exchange gangbi for Singapore Dollars, and to eat some honey-roasted pork (cha shao).

A delay of two hours: While walking around the HK airport, I pass a movie theater with 3-D screens. I know there's a joke somewhere in the fact that they are screening "Happy Feet" in 4-D, but I cannot quite place it.

A delay of three hours: I board my plane with a German finance student who is in a semester abroad at Singapore University as sponsored by a program from Zurich. She is astonished at how an American ends up teaching English in China, "It'zz zo strrange." I explain, "I actually really enjoy the quirkiness of Chinese society. I find it funny." The pilot interrupts, "Folks...we will be in queue for at least an hour."

Wednesday, 9/22:

Incense for 'ddha

"My eyes sting from the unpleasantry of being open after just three hours of unfulfilling sleep broken-up by a crying baby, a neck crick, mild turbulence, and shifts in cabin pressure. My teeth feel placqued--they feel like my breath stinks. When the crew announce the final dispersal of immigration cards, I relent to the greatest downside of travel: flexible [and often creative to the point of being interprative] sleep. I brush my teeth in the tight airplane lavatory; anyone who has done this can agree that it does not quite create a sense of dental hygiene.

From the moment I step off the metro in my hostel's neighborhood, I realize that I will not be taking a nap before exploring the city. Three hours of shoddy sleep will have to do before the day; there's too much to do. I am reminded of the latter fact by the muezzin calling out from the Muslim Quarter two blocks away, his voice timed with the sunrise.

Incense at SriVeermakaliamman

The guy working the 24-hour front desk of my hostel, The Mitraa, speaks a little English, a little Spanish, and a lot of other words I cannot recognize. I arrive as he lays out breakfast; we drink coffee, and he reveals he knows Hebrew. We speak in Spanbrewglish. From that moment through the end of my trip to Singapore, I am so busy and tired that I have only enough time to jot down basic notes on what I do and where. I cannot put together full thoughts or sentences. The notes come out like this:

-Temples (Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Taoist), cathedrals, mosques amidst colonial-style two-story housing line bricked and cobbled lanes

-Intricate, colorful Hindu pantheon of statues on Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple; saris abound; shirtless, furry observers; incense and bows; 'Don't Enter The Sanctum'; doubting my pictures capture this moment

-Muslim Quarter's scents of sheesh and kabob merge with the smells of corriander and dough of Little Indian bakeries; an impromptu inteview with a 30-person camera-crew who film me while inquiring about my knowledge of pirates--a mosque in the background; Kandahar Street off of Arab Street

-Chinatown jiade (worthless crap bought on the street); fluctuation between zeal for exploration, exhaustion from the day (not even noon yet), and hunger for a tikka and roti lunch; prayer services with bells, drums, and unknown instruments at Taoist and Hindu temples

As I walk around, I start to speculate on why I am so passionate about travelling to so many places. What is the point of walking around this city? To see these temples? Why? To say I have? To learn? To "discover"? To "explore"? To interact? To experience? I puzzle half-heartedly because of exhaustion. I suddenly feel a longing for company while enjoying these temples and meandering streets inundated with pleasant distractions in the form of spice shops, bakeries, cloth stores, and cafes: "I am self-sustaining, but I need my relationships for me to thrive."

Thursday, 9/23:

Hey baby!

"I was so tired last night that I barely stirred when my roommate came back late, turned on the light, and gave me a hostel earthquake as he climbed into the bunk bed over me.

After a pleasant conversation over peppered hard-boiled eggs and Nutella-ed toast, two Indians who are in town for the F-1 race offer their company at the zoo. I prioritize a national park; if I have time, I will meet them at the zoo later.

When I step off the bus at MacRitchie Reserve, monkeys are looting trash cans. Wild monkeys eating human refuse. They make me nervous, and I avoid eye-contact; for that matter, I am never totally at ease while at the reserve. During a six-mile hike around a reservoir, I am on edge by the equatorial rainforest. Insects buzz around my head, mysterious noises fly from the jungle, ants, I almost step on a monitor, spiders the size of my hand, monkeys, wasps, leaves rustling. No one knows where I am.

Eat me! Sort of...

I feel guilt going to the zoo immediately after the reserve; here I am paying to see enclosed animals. Still, the orangutans swinging from limbs ten-feet from me and from ropes twenty feet over my head win me over. I hold a parrot; I pet an elephant. Before I leave, I pay S$10 to stick my feet into a fish tank so that little minnow-like fish can swarm my legs and feet. It is a "Fish Pedicure." It tickles, and the people watching hundreds of fish eat my detritus just make me laugh.

I enjoy the city and its diversity. The people here seem to have a levity in their step; this is a surprise to me having read so much about the legal restrictions imposed upon Singaporeans civil liberties. Laws prohibit so much: No chewing gum (S$500 fine), no spitting (S$800 fine), no eating durians in public (S$800 fine). I wonder about the moratorium on public flatulence and how it correlates with Singaporean's general levity.

I eat a chicken kabob at a Morrocan restaurant on Arab Street, a street that joins the list of the most memorable places I have been. I round out dinner with a hazlenut Magnum bar from 7-11 (oy) and a leisurley stroll to an Egyptian sheesha patio for apple-flavored hookah and lemon tea."

Movies, Music, Books, T.V.: "Quality Control" by Jurassic5, "Sing a Simple Song" by Sly and the Family Stone, "Sussudio" by Phil Collins (This popped-up on my Shuffle the other day, and I couldn't help but laugh to myself--a strange foreigner jamming on a jammed Chinese bus),  The Story of the Stone by Cau Xueqin, Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler, Mad Men (Season 2).