bcm | Singapore

I visited Singapore Dec 20-24, 2001. About a month before, I had been talking to a colleague with a company there about a job possibility, so I scheduled a short visit to check the place out before flying back to San Francisco and Seattle for the holidays. The job fell through, but I decided to make the trip anyway, cos how many times in your life do you get to see Singapore?

I spent most of the first day walking around the old colonial section of downtown. The old buildings that remain are important government locations. A few blocks to the west of this area is Fort Canning Park, a hill where the British had a fort in the 1800s. I wanted to see the Singapore History Museum, but the humidity whipped me and I had to retire back to my hotel room in the early evening for a nap.

Since the next day was Saturday, I was able to meet up with some colleagues from the mod_perl community (Gunther, Stas and Philippe). We had lunch at the food court next to my hotel, saw The Fellowship of the Ring which had just opened, went shopping in a 6-floor computer/electronics mall, and wandered down Orchard Road. I didn't take any photos cos I don't like to photograph people in busy urban settings.

On Sunday I headed outside of the city to the World Trade Centre and Mount Faber Park. Mount Faber is really just a tall hill, but there are some gorgeous panoramic views of the island and some of the Indonesian islands off to the south. Got caught in several 5-minute rain showers, which was handy since I was sweating bullets. Later in the day I checked out Holland Village, where the expats live, and had crab and lobster for dinner at Boat Quay with Gunther.

I only had a half day on Monday, so I took a taxi out to the Singapore Zoo. Highlights included the Komodo dragons and the dozens of types of monkeys. Some of the monkeys were free to roam, so they'd jump down to the lowest levels of the trees and stare right at you, but when you raised your camera to snap one off, they took off into the brush. I eventually ran out of time trying to shoot them and had to race back to the hotel and pack for the flight to SF.

It was a great visit. I'd never been to an Asian country before, and I was unsure how easy it would be to get along by myself. Turned out to be quite easy; Singapore is very Westernized, and just about everybody speaks English fairly well. The local cuisine was wonderful, and cheap too; a plate of chicken rice cost $3 at the food court, as opposed to the $25 meal I ate at a dim sum place full of American tourists. And it was really nice to know some expats who were able to give me a good idea of what life would be like there. Seems like a good base of operations for explorations of southeastern Asia.