Notes from Singapore - Third Visit

Wednesday Night

Gregory takes Jim Clark, Gary Miller (VP of Engineering) Janice (his admin) and myself out for dinner. We go to The Palm Beach. This is a family style restaurant in what looks like a former department store. There is a linoleum tile floor, low ceiling covered in white acoustic tiles, and rows of plain florescent lights. The tables are large and round and the chairs plastic and cheap. As usual, Gregory orders for all of us.

The food is brought in waves as before. The first wave is fried squid balls, then chicken, de-boned and roasted in foil, steaming hot. Then the main course - Sri Lanka crabs. These are monsters, the bodies are at least eight inches across and the claws are as large as a child's hand. The shells are thick and red. Gregory pounds a crab leg with a large nutcracker, trying to get a start. Bits of shell fly through the air. A crack appears and he proceeds to use the nutcracker to fully open the leg and passes it to me. I dig the meat out with my fingers; it is the best crab I have ever had. Another course of smaller, blackened crab is brought. These are really spicy and I settle for just a taste. The next course is a plate of four-inch, long bodied shrimp, at least two dozen, arranged in rows, their little beady eyes staring and their long antenna sticking straight up. They are lying on a bed of scrambled eggs. The final course is noodles, Malay style. That means extra spicy hot and with all kinds of things mixed in. I can see some thin stringy things with little suckers along their length; tentacles, I suppose. I can see a few fish tails and expect there are a few heads as well.

Friday Night

Gary, Jim, and I head down to Chinatown to see what we can of the Moon Festival. We get a late start from the office, around eight. Gary is tour guide; he has been to Singapore countless times. He takes us on a bus to the local MRT (a BART like mass transit system) and shows us how to buy and use the electronic cards. We take the MRT to the Raffles stop, no relation to the Raffles Hotel, the city of Singapore was founded by Mr. Raffles so his name appears everywhere. This is in the heart of the financial district and just a couple of blocks from an ancient open air steel structure that looks like Covent Gardens in London and probably was built to the same design and original purpose, a farmer's market. This one is now an enormous food court. It is nine o'clock by now and the place is packed, mainly with locals.

We have mutton and chicken broiled with sauce on wooden skewers accompanied by chunks of raw onion, washed down by a jug of Tiger Beer, the local brand and served everywhere. For dessert Gary takes us to a shaved ice booth. Just like Baskin Robbins, this offers thirty some flavors of toppings, all not familiar to Jim or me. There is red bean sauce and sea urchin sauce and sea coconut sauce and many others. You get your choice of two and the ladies behind the counter are insistent that two choices are made. I chose ginkgo nuts and lotus soup.

After our meal we set out for China Town, only a couple of blocks away. By now it was ten and the festival was pretty much over. There were a large number of paper lanterns scattered on the ground. We found a street still filled with vendors and people looking for bargains. Children carried lighted paper lanterns on sticks. At least some were paper. Others were plastic and had little electronic gizmos inside that played tunes such as "Oh, My Darlin', Clementine" and "Fur Elise". Gary bought a large wooden dragon for an obscene amount of money. Jim bought a couple of little necklaces for a few dollars. Being the frugal Scot that I am, I spent one dollar on four boxes of matches with scenes of Singapore for Caitlin, my budding pyromaniac.

Saturday Night

I took the bus and MRT down to City Hall station and found St. Andrew's cathedral, right outside the MRT station. From there I walked a dozen blocks or so to Clarke Quay. It was only six in the evening and it was not very busy yet. I walked around then had a small pizza and a drink at an outdoor café and watched people walk by as it grew dark. When I grew tired of that I walked some more, then crossed the bridge and sat on the stone wall (really steps leading down to the river) and sat in darkness looking back at the scene across the river. The river isn't very wide and I could hear the music from the bars and the occasionally a loud voice. The tour junks were doing a good business and kept passing by. There were very few people on my side of the river. There was a couple sitting close to each other a little further along the stone wall. There was a family fishing by throwing small nets into the river and pulling them in. They were catching something but I couldn't see what it was in the dark. The stone wall I sat on was still very warm from the hot afternoon sun.

The junks are painted as traditional junks with faces on the bows and eyes on the sides.

I looked for the moon and found it behind me, just rising. It was large and yellow gold.

After some time sitting alone I walked back across the bridge and re-joined the throngs of locals and tourists. I bought a last round of silk things and bought an iced coffee at an outdoor café, near where I had my pizza. I was facing the square where music is performed in the evenings and not long after I sat down an act began. Three Chinese (or Singapore) girls with long black hair and wearing red halter tops, very skimpy black shorts, and black knee high boots sang pop hits. The first number was a solo by the lead singer, Patsy Cline's "Crazy". What else would one expect to hear wafting through the streets of Singapore's old river district on a Saturday night with a full moon?

I walked the dozen or so blocks back to the MRT station and boarded a very crowded train. All along the route, hand phones rang constantly. In front of me on the wall of the train car was an advertisement. It read "In an ideal world, teens don't get into trouble. But some teens succumb to bad influences. Thankfully, we have 1,800 dedicated Prison Officers to guide those who have been led astray. The Home Team. Here to make it right. Singapore Prison Service - Hotline 1-800-542-0000 http://wwwmha.gov.sg/sps"

While waiting for my bus for the short trip from the MRT to my apartment I saw a large (six inches or more) bat flutter by. (Something my mother used to say, "Flitter, flutter little bat, how I wonder where it's at...")

On returning to my apartment I find there is a small Moon Festival going on around the pool for the residents of the apartment house. I watch for a few minutes from my eighth floor balcony. Fifty or sixty people, at least half children, with lighted paper lanterns and candles are all around the swimming pool. The children are playing a game of musical chairs to a Chinese pop song. Lots of laughing and clapping, everyone enjoying is themselves. Watching from so far above I feel very distant from them.

But from my vantage point I see something they won't ever see. I see the street on the other side of the large wall that protects the apartment complex from the outside world. I see a flatbed truck pull to a stop and a dozen or more Malay laborers in soiled white linen shirts and pants get off and trudge down the hill to their dingy living quarters. The sound of laughing children and parents and music playing accompanies them as they pass by on the other side of the wall.