3.13.2007 Singapore: final post, boat quays.

I suck. One of the photo opportunities in Singapore I was most excited about were the skyscrapers in the Boat Quay. I headed down there my first full day in Singapore for some food and to scope the place out. I expected to go back so I didn't bother taking my tripod. I also didn't bother taking my time when I took my pictures. I pretty much just shot them on automatic and they seemed fine in the viewfinder of my camera. But it's a new camera. And they're not. Well I guess by "vacation picture" standards they're fine if not a bit blurry but I really wanted to get spectacular shots. Lesson learned.


Oh well. I don't know why I didn't go back to the Boat Quay. I should've returned every evening just to bum around even if I didn't feel like eating overpriced food, I could've always ate before I headed there.


The bumboat ride around the quays was fantastic and really relaxing. Definitely worth the price.


I'm sure I'll be back to Singapore at least for a day someday so I can take more time next time.


That is the end of my Singapore posts for my 3 days in Singapore. Up next... my 8 days in Cambodia.

Labels: Singapore

3.08.2007 Singapore: TV in Asia

I have to admit, half ashamed, that a big excitement of my trip was getting to watch tv. I don't have a tv in Taiwan. My roommate is a VJ and we have a projector setup in the living room pointed towards the wall and we watch movies we rent or download that way. Aside from a few tv series we've rented or downloaded I haven't watched TV in a year and a half.


I'm glad but sometimes I do miss the mind-numbing fun.




One night while watching TV in Singapore I was flipping through the channels and I found the Daily Show. Ya! One of my favourites from back home. Then as I was watching I noticed the "CNN" emblem on the upper left hand corner. "What the????". I thought that this was hilarious and ironic and I sat there taking pictures of the tv for five minutes. I was so excited to come back here and blog about the irony. Daily show is shown on a news channel in Asia..... did the daily show even know??? but then I googled it and found out this isn't an Asian oddity. Daily Show actually has a slot on CNN now. I still have a "what the???" reaction and am very amused by the irony but I'm bummed I didn't find something as hilarious as I had thought.




Oh well. I did have an absolute twilight zone moment while watching tv. Commercials were on and I was thinking "It's so strange how much my memory has improved since I've moved to Taiwan, I wonder if it has to do with how much less job stress I have now, but I've always had a bad memory.... it just doesn't make sense!".... then 5 seconds later, no word of a lie, a "Chinese heritage" type commercial came on with video pulling away from chopsticks while a narrator said "Chinese tradition states that using chopsticks improves memory". Did someone implant a chip in my brain? That was bizarre.


The last thing I found hilarious about Singaporean tv, although I didn't manage to grab a picture of it, is that they "censor" smoking on tv shows. But they don't actually censor cigarettes themselves.


If someone is puffing on a cigarette on tv their mouth and the cigarette are blurred out, but as soon as they remove the cigarette from their mouth their mouth unblurs and so does the cigarette. It actually took me awhile to figure out why they were doing this. I couldn't figure out why they were blurring half of someone's face. I thought maybe it was to bleep out swearing but then I noticed those characters weren't talking so it didn't make sense. It wasn't until I saw the magic blur disappear when someone pulled a cigarette away from their mouth and a cigarette magically materialize in their hand that I figured it out. So I guess it's ok to look cool and hold a cigarette, you just can't actually suck on them. Not that I ever smoked but I always thought the "looking cool" part of smoking was actually holding the cigarette. Most of those evil cigarette ads had people holding cigarettes to look cool, they didn't actually have people sucking on them, right?


Bizarre.

Labels: Only in Asia, Singapore

3.07.2007 Singapore: Hindu temples, sexual appeal in Taiwan, and photo etiquette

I've been in love with Hindu art for a long time. There is something so vivid and realistic about the paintings and carvings. They are so much more dimensional and tell a stronger story than the carvings or statues in Buddhist, taoist temples... but I'm sure that's a matter of opinion.




Little India itself wasn't visually that impressive, especially compared to Chinatown, but there definitely was some great shopping and absolutely terrific food. Of course, like I said before, I ate nothing but Indian the whole time I was in Singapore so I can't really be a critic of the rest of Singaporean cuisine.




The vibe in Little India was cool. There were a lot less white faces and tourists bumming around. I haven't really known enough Indian men to know how they interact with the opposite sex but in Little India I felt like Angelina Jolie. I haven't had so much attention since I was in South America. Men stared at me so intensely it was like they were trying to devour me with their eyes. I think I made at least one man walk into the back of a truck accidentally.




Definitely a big switch from Taiwan where I feel asexual. I feel like I could walk around topless and still have the same reactions. Everyone would still just look at me like a monkey in a cage. "Oh cute, look at the foreigner. How strange." I actually remember when I was back home in Canada, after living in Taiwan for awhile, I had a guy checking me out and instead of thinking "ha! he's checking me out" my first reaction was "What's his problem??? What's he staring at?"... then I remembered.... oh right... I'm in Canada.... people find me attractive here. Not that I truly feel I'm unattractive to Taiwanese men, obviously not or I'd be single, but it's a different world here and men just do not give obvious visual or verbal indications to express attraction. One of many reasons I believe there are so few western female/taiwanese male couplings.




Ok back to Little India, so the attention was amusing but at the same time there is such an intensity to the stare that it was a bit intimidating but nearly every waiter I had made sure to tell me I was cute at the end of my meal. Ha. I also had some of the most fantastic conversations I've had in a long time with shopkeepers. It was so great to speak English at a normal level. Teaching kindergarten all day really depletes your vocabulary.




After some roaming I started to find the Hindu temples. I was really excited. I've seen so many churches in my life, and more recently Taoist and Buddhist temples but Hindu temples have been an unexplored realm. I wanted to see the paintings and statues I'd seen in the San Francisco Asian Art museum in their natural realm.




There was definitely a peace and tranquility about the temples and they seemed much more communal than the Taoist or Buddhist temples. Hindus sat together and laughed, and watched the odd tourists floating around with their cameras, snapping pictures and staring at the ceilings.




This is one of those confessions that's going to make a lot of people who don't already know me intimately enough to already know this think I'm a weirdo but I love rats. I had three of them in Canada and after having nearly every pet there is to have I'm convinced that they are the best. I remember years and years ago on one of the very first Amazing Race series they went to India and went to a temple for rats (wikipedia / official temple site) . Zillions of them running around drinking milk laid out by worshipers. I'm dying to get to India to see this place. I have to admit even with my love of rats it'd probably freak me out a little bit but I'd still have a crazy amount of fun watching them scamper around and seeing how the local people move about and worship in a place filled with rats.




In one of the temples in Singapore there were some Chinese tourists harassing one of the religious men making a drum. Their kid was knocking over things and running about wildly and they just looked at her like they thought it was cute, although she was way too old for it to be cute. I felt embarrassed but the religious man seemed very patient and kind. He endured their endless posing near him for pictures and never lost his essence of peace. I really wanted to ask to take his picture, especially one of him by himself working, but it is almost become a phobia for me. I love to take photos of people but I'm so paranoid of invading or violating them in some way. I don't want to leave them with a bad taste in their mouth... towards Canadians, towards photographers, etc. I really felt moved by the environment. It was beautiful to watch everyone, like the religious men who wear their hair in buns on top of their heads and walk around bare chested. They moved with such a quiet grace.




I was worried about feeling cheap by taking their photographs. How do they feel being photographed by people who know so little about their culture, religion or status? To be treated like a novelty. I guess I'm not cut out for National Geographic. My moral conscience, founded or unfounded, would get in the way. Maybe I'm ignorant and I'm being oversensitive but respect means a lot to me, gaining and distributing it.




I'd like to find a balance. I guess if I had the time to spend in a place like that and could feel acceptance or gain some respect then I'd feel less guilty about getting portraits. In the same breath I wish I could have the mindset that I'll never see these people again, so what do I care? But that feels destructive. Any other traveler/photo nuts struggle with this? I'd really like to hear. Maybe it is all a learning process.




I have the photos in my head, the old man making the drum, the young bare chested religious men, the bald man in the long red collared shirt with a long red "skirt" laid down flat on the ground on his stomach with his head on the ground, arms stretched above, and legs straight out in prayer. Hopefully my memory can be as strong as a photo.




It was great to feel moved again. I still adore Taiwan and find so much excitement here but without new adventures to put Taiwan into perspective it can get a bit stale. Day to day routine and all that.


Singapore was good to me, good for me.

Labels: Singapore

3.05.2007 Singapore: Restaurants that amused me

I can't really speak to the depth and variety of Singaporean restaurants because the entire time I was in Singapore I ate nothing but Indian food. It was one of my missions. A lot of people asked me "Why Singapore? Why would you go there?". Well mostly like I mentioned before it was because I was already flying through and I might as well stop and see it, but in truth a big selling point for me was the abundance of Indian food.

Taiwan has Indian food but I've found that it's either mediocre or overpriced. It's not overpriced compared to prices you'd pay back in the western world but I've become cheap when eating in Taiwan. It's possible to eat for next to nothing in Taiwan. I can get a big meal for under 4$ if I eat locally so it seems outrageous to shell out 15 - 20$ just for food.




So excluding one Arabic meal I had I ate nothing but Indian.

Here's a question for you, when to use Arabic vs Arabian? I've always referred to the music, language, and food as "Arabic" but while I was walking along the boat quay where people stand outside trying to lure you into their restaurants I had a man say "Ma'am Arabian food? Would you like to come inside?". It kind of took me aback. Arabian? I ran it by my sister and her belief is that "Arabian" is an outdated term and may be politically incorrect like "Oriental". Does anyone know or have any thoughts?



My biggest surprise when strolling in Singapore was to find a Dairy Queen. DAIRY QUEEN????? I stopped and stared at it for like 10 minutes. I couldn't believe my eyes. I mean we have western food chains in Taiwan... subway, mc donalds, burger king, KFC........ but Dairy Queen?????? Then I noticed what was beside it. An Orange Julius? This one really was the shock. Because I didn't even realize Orange Julius was a chain at all. I thought it was just this little juice store in the back of our old mall that was next to some other stinky store in good ol' Saint John, New Brunswick but I had no idea it was actually a chain, or an international one at that. Wow.

I can't even remember why I didn't go to Dairy Queen. I think I was either overwhelmed or excited at other possibilities, maybe there'd be a Wendy's somewhere! But I didn't find anything as fabulous as this the rest of my trip. :( Why didn't I buy a chocolate dip ice cream? Why???

Labels: Singapore

3.04.2007 Singapore: So clean it squeaks, Royston Tan - Singapore's bad boy director, and Chinatown

I flew into Singapore late at night so I didn't have much of a first impression except of the kindness of my taxi driver who gave me his 3 day itinerary recommendation, including every place I should eat.

As soon as I woke up I had some breakfast and had the chance to speak to a couple of Brits who had just come from Cambodia. They put me at ease about the next leg of my trip. They said they had similar anxieties about Cambodia but that they ended up having an amazing experience. They said everyone there just seems so happy to be alive, and they are. Even though Pol Pot had been overthrown in 79 it wasn't until his death in 98 that people in Cambodia truly began to feel free. Everyone was so worried he would find some way back to power.

It seemed like a good omen to meet these people the first day of my trip and it definitely quelled some of my anxieties.

When I finally got outside and started walking around Singapore it was incredible. Firstly, to hear and read English everywhere again was amazing. To be able to walk into a restaurant and order anything off the menu, to be able to understand conversations going on around me, wow. I was actually timid about speaking to people for the first day just because I was so sure they weren't going to understand me. I knew consciously that they could but on some subconscious level I was biting my tongue a lot or grading my english when I did speak.

The incredible thing about Singapore is how clean it is, and how safe. To the point of being sterile. It is surreal, too organized, like walking into 1984 or something similar. And there are some crazy fines which perpetuate this. Joke shirts in Singapore poked fun at this. "Singapore a fine city: No Smoking Fine $500, No Chewing Gum Fine $500, No Littering Fine $500, No Eating or Drinking Fine $1000, No Spitting Fine $500, No Urinating in Lift Fine $500..." There were a few more but I can't seem to find a great pic online with the rest. But despite Singapore's sterility it doesn't lose it's culture. It breathes culture. Little India, China town, and many white faces scattered through other parts, and then mixes of each culture. A beautiful array of skin tones and facial structures. It was great to be in a multicultural environment again. I haven't seen so many different faces since I was visiting Shell (my sis) in Vancouver. It's hard to tell who resides there and who's passing through because most people stroll along so carefree it seems like anyone could be a tourist.

I'm sure Singapore has an underbelly but I didn't see it or feel it so it must be hidden from public view. There's a fantastic young director in Singapore named Royston Tan who's done a movie called 15 about five outcast Singaporean youths living on the streets and questioning their own existences. The cast was filled with actual Singaporean street kids. Even though the movie brought him international fame it suffered between 24 - 27 cuts by censors in his native Singapore. He lashed back with a short film called "Cut" about a crazed man stalking and harassing a Singaporean censor done as a campy musical short :) Anyway if you're curious check out the trailer for 15. Needless to say I didn't find it in Singapore but I was able to get my hands on his newest feature film 4:30. Review to come. I can't believe I had to go all the way to Singapore to find a Royston Tan film! Has anyone seen his stuff in Taiwan?

Ok, so back to exploring, on my first day I set out to Chinatown since it was pretty close to being within walking distance and I felt like a foot adventure. There were a lot of great sales going on, common before Chinese new year, but I got bored quickly. It was just like being back in Taiwan except for the gorgeous European colonial style buildings. Everything in Singapore just seems so incredibly thought out, so well planned. Which I imagine it was since the whole country is only 699.4 km².

I managed to explore a few Buddhist temples during my time and see Singapore's own lantern display close on the Boat Quay but I hadn't come to Singapore to see Taiwan so I went on to Little India.

Labels: Cambodia, directors, Singapore

Happy (chinese) New Year adventures!

Happy Pig Year everyone!

For those in my western audience who don't know February 18th marked the first day of Chinese New Year. Every Chinese New Year I'm fortunate enough to get two weeks off of work and time to travel. This year I chose Singapore and Cambodia.

My original plan was to do Cambodia and Laos but I waited too long to buy my plane tickets and the prices tripled. I remembered Rafael telling me about discount airlines in Singapore that fly to many Asian countries for remarkable (or pretty much unbelievable) prices. I checked it out and decided since I was flying through I might as well stay in Singapore for a few days. So I dropped Laos off the agenda and decided on 3 days in Singapore and 8 in Cambodia.

I have to say the entire experience was enriching even if incredibly challenging and frightening at moments. This was my first time traveling alone and I had no idea what I was getting myself into as a single female traveler traveling alone in a place like Cambodia. From conversations I've had with people in Taiwan I knew it was not nearly as bad as the negative image it has in North America but I knew I was still in for a potentially rough experience but my imagination and wavering faith in humanity gave me all kinds of doubts and anxieties.

Thankfully I walked away mostly unscratched with some good memories and a better idea of where I'm at in my life and why. A couple of robbery attempts and horrific horrific diarrhea but I'll get to all that in my next posts ;)

I made the mistake of buying a 2GB memory card for my camera before I left and managed to take 960 photos & video clips so still trying to digest it all and try to figure out how and what to present. Expect some steady updates over the next few days.

Labels: Cambodia, Singapore