singapore

I had the good fortune to spend a week in Singapore for the holidays, so I apologize for neglecting my lady here. Going into the trip I knew that Singapore would mean a number of things:

1. Less rice – as you already know Indonesians eat it three meals a day.
2. Hot water – missing since I left the states.
3. No early morning muezzin wake-up calls.
4. People who speak English – much less true than I expected.
5. Pork!
6. Alcohol!
7. Yet another take on the electrical outlet.
8. Higher prices.
9. More Asian.
10. No durians!
11. Taller buildings.
12. Closed-circuit camera monitoring – its everywhere.

Singapore, somewhat predictably, is a bizarre place. Both small and affluent, the benevolent fathers of Singapore have decided to give their people malls and plenty of them. With high standards of living and not much space, the places to spend that money seem limited. Instead of buying cars, second homes and with their purchasing power further bolstered by subsidized health care (and government nudged healthy behavior) and subsidized housing the citizens of Singapore seem to almost despair of ways to spend their money. The result is miles and miles of malls where you can buy luxuries of all kinds (watches, purses, perfumes, etc), mountains of impractical looking shoes, and plastic cell phone charms for any occasion. When going anywhere on foot you do not walk on the sidewalk, you take the mall; at times it feels like living in some sort of giant commercial hamster aquarium, except everyone has edgy cropped hair and wears t-shirts with messages in sassy if not imperfect English.