Singapore, Part the Fourth

"Go on... take the phenomenon"
Sunday morning wasn't as early as we hoped. The original plan was to get up, do the typical tourist canal ride, and then make our way to china town -- but alas we ended up staying at the Ministry of Sound until closing the night before, around 4am-ish :S. The night was pretty fun, though it had an interesting end. When the club closed, they turned on the lights, and blocked the doors. The result was a pretty hefty buildup of drunk kids squished really close together, confused. I never did find out what it was all about - but I must say that the most interesting point was when the girl squished in front of me got into an altercation with the fellow in front of her. I'm not sure what it was about, but the guy ended up getting really worked up and yelling. It was all in Malay, so i just stood there watching, perplexed. He didn't make a move to hurt anyone or anything, he just stood there yelling in Malay with the most furious face I've seen. The only thing I could think of was the expression on Amrish Puri's face in Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom, as he chants "Kali Ma!" and rips out hearts. In any case, I think his shouting is what got them to finally open up the doors, and let out the flood of people.


So, that having been said, I didn't actually end up getting to bed until around 5am - so Sunday morning was a little bit more subdued. We grabbed some breakfast from yet another western-style place around the corner, and I ate something that would change my life forever. Well... at least the next meal I would eat at Old Town White Coffee. I got some Kaya Toast and coffee, and was delightfully surprised at the tastiness of Kaya, South-East Asian coconut jam.
After this, we took the canal tour, but it started raining soon thereafter. Nevertheless, it was a delightful tour, and the optimistic, taped commentary made me laugh. I think the highlight was when he talked about the statue on the side of the river of boys jumping into the water. After explaining the meaning of it, he chuckles and says "I bet you wish you could just go ahead and join them!" My second favorite line was when the tape introduced Chicken Satay and said "Go on... give it a try" with a huge implied smile.


After the boat ride ended, it started to rain in earnest -- and Jose and I were confined to Clarke Quay for the rest of our journey. We wandered into Royal salangor and were given a free impromtu history of Pewter, complete with two people demonstrating the process. I didn't buy anything, but assured the lady that I would pick one up back in KL. After that, we hoped into a cab, got back to the hotel and found ourselves locked out of our room because check out was at 12. Luckily, I was wearing a saucy v-neck and was able to persuade the maid to let us in to collect out bags. After that, we "booked it" to the train station, and after a little customs action, got onto the train, first class style.
The train ride was easy -- the best part was when we stopped in Johor because of flooding. I'm pretty sure that means that universe is on my side, because I was able to take some really cool photos. I wandered to the area in between cars to find an old Indian man smoking a cigarette and looking out at the scene. He saw my large camera around my neck and moved aside, so I could "take the phenomenon." These are some of the better pictures from that day:

Singapore, Part Deux

So, to resume the Singapore narrative from whence I last left off...
Jose and I found are way to the Gallery Hotel by around 9am on friday. The place looked quite nice from the outside, but alas our room wasn't ready, so it was a little while before we really saw the inside. But, we were able to store our bags inside while we wandered around in search of some breakfast (remember, I had had only a big mac meal in the past 12 hours). We found a western style place around the corner serving standard breakfast, so I munched on some fancy french toast. We wandered down to Clarke Quay, drawn by the amorphous canopy above it. Honestly, what I noticed most in the walk around was the extent of amorphous colourful plastic shapes around town. There was no end to yellow, green and red blobby plastic shapes! Clarke Quay proved to be very interesting: a covered district with giant fans systems that resemble magnified versions of the statue that Malcolm McDowell uses in Clockwork Orange to kill the cat lady.

I must say, the area is very well planned -- It consists of a number of restaurants and shops by day, and becomes a very lively (though expensive) club district by night. There's even an area dedicated to queuing up for taxis. Anyways, after sauntering around here, we returned to the room, and I had a much needed shower. Scarffing down a Big Mac meal for dinner and then getting only a few hours sleep in ones clothes leads to an unmistakeable feeling of general dirtiness.
After lounging a bit, we headed downstairs, and booked spots on the Singapore Zoo night safari tour. The original plan wasn't to do it tour group styles, but it turned out to be much cheaper that way. The pickup time was set for 5:45, so we had enough time to wander down to Orchid Street, eat, and just be overall really sweaty. I saw some funny signs, and some huge houses with guards.
The zoo was awes - the only downside was that transportation and lining up took up a big chunk of time. Included in the tour was an animal show. This was pretty sweet and I could identify with the captivated little kids. Oddly enough, I enjoyed the otters that recycled cans and bottles the best.
After the show, we headed over to the tram tours through the zoo -- this turned out to be a wise decision, as it started raining decently hard just after we boarded the tram. To sum up the next 45 minutes, I would say that the zoo is totally open concept, and at one point two elephants stuck their trunks in the faces of many.
Later that night, I fell asleep next to my computer, which was loading Clerk's the animated series.