Wow, the difference that is Singapore. I've been meaning to write how I see China as a sort of communism-lite, in that what I've always thought of as communism is somewhat missing. Sure, it seems that everyone has a job and the government censors a lot of the media, but it's not that cold communism that we think of with lines for soup or tomatoes. Some of the older Chinese will talk about those days and how they think capitalism is leading to the downfall of their youth. In a way I can understand what they mean, as they don't need to get into that total consumable world that we and the rest of the western world is accustomed to.Ok, back to Singapore, and our first weekend out of China. It's nice in that it's clean and everything is in English, almost non-Asian as odd as that sounds. I'd hazard a guess that it's 40% Westerners, 40% Indian, and 20% Asian, very different from Xiamen where we are in a 5% minority. Don't quote me on those numbers as they are rough guesses based on my personal observations. The whole place is impeccably clean, everyone is conscious of the crossings and every law, very sterile in a too perfect way, think stepford wives.... It's a total 180 of Xiamen, but in Xiamen the people are much friendlier and I'm thinking I'd rather spend time there...
Seriously, they clean their river like it's a swimming pool.
So, last night Indian food, which we never realized we missed as much as we did, and today a nice break at a tapas bar where we enjoyed some nice sangria. We also enjoyed a nice jazz bar last night. Singapore is odd, the whole place is either a western restaurant, hotel, or a mall. A lot of shopping, but everything here is expensive...
And the Hooters, who knew? I had to go in just to see the Asians in the tight tops, all stereotypes be damned. Nice huh, to catch them in a photo shoot... But they did chase after us for this following shot, I actually had to delete a shot to get them to leave us alone. They would have ripped the film from my camera had I had a old type film camera...
3 comments:
Direct quote from Justin:
"Wow, they got a lot of really nice shots!" Post some pictures of the beautiful landscape or historic buildings. See if you get that same reaction...
I do love the look on that woman's face which clearly shows an expression of "how dare you look at me?" What part of scantily clad doesn't she understand - perhaps its part of the Singapore "cleanliness" thing. Anyway, did either of you try the wings??? Tina, you know me... it's all about the food -
As far as the laundry, based on what you've both shared so far about the monetary value, I'd venture a guess that you can send it out for a few dollars. Matress pad = $2,200US - 2 hour massage = $14US. Go figure -
Loving the blog - thanks for sharing... even the "potty" details -
Asia lite...I love it! My husband and I have been backpacking to various countries over the past 6 months. We were just in Singapore and I wrote an article entitled, 'Singapore: Asia Lite' for our website www.nomadbackpackers.com
I couldn't stop laughing when I read your 'China:Communism Lite' phrase. In fact I made some pretty (or ugly) graphic comparisons to China. I think you will appreciate it.
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