In transit in Singapore

I don't think I picked a particularly good time for my stopover in Singapore (and my first visit here) en route to Australia and I don't think that I will be rushing back soon. Not that I have anything against Singapore, it's just been very wet and most of it is closed ! My hotel is "off Orchard Road" at the western end. Orchard Road is the epicentre of the shopping centre that is Singapore. For those who haven't been here, Singapore's population is slightly greater than Ireland's (estimated at 4.8m in 2008) and has a land area of almost exactly 1% that of Ireland. As a result, it appears somewhat crowded, to put it mildly. It is strange to be in a place where the majority of residents are ethnic Chinese but the main language is English.

I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and spent a couple of hours catching up on emails and updating my blog before starting my explorations. On Sunday afternoon, I walked along Orchard Road, This long street is lined on both sides with shops, shopping centres (in multi storey buildings), and restaurants. In fact, the principal entertainment in this city state seems to be shopping so if you are not interested in traipsing around shops, then the appeal would appear to be limited.

By a lucky chance, I happened to be passing the main entrance to Istana (the presidential palace) when the monthly changing of the guard was taking place. This involved a very impressive and well rehearsed drill display in smart white uniforms with a lot of stamping of feet.


The formal handover from the old guard to the new guard was followed by a Military Police drill routine which was more like a wellchoreographed dance routine with rifles, all accompanied by a military band playing a medley of Christmas tunes at breakneck speed.

My visit has unfortunately coincided with persistent torrential rain (which has caused landslides and fatalities in neighbouring Malaysia) and a Muslim holiday (Hari Raya Haji). As a result, when I ventured forth into the floods on Monday, a lot of the shops in the smaller (and older and grottier) centres were closed, while the larger more modern malls were absolutely jammed with people on holiday from work and sheltering from the downpour which persisted all day without a break.

One of Singapore's best known culinary attractions is the many hawkers' stalls.
While these originated as small stand alone stalls, they are now found in organised centres. One of the best known of these is the Newton Road Centre, where I waded my way to at lunchtime on Monday. Unfortunately, due to the holiday, about 85% of the stalls were closed so my choices were somewhat limited, but I had a good lunch of a fried minced pork dish (not Irish I hope !) and fried won tons for S$10 (about €6).

I guess no visit to Singapore would be complete without a visit to what is probably one of the most famous hotels in the world so, after my lunch, I navigated the metro system to Raffles. In keeping with the rest of Singapore, this is more of a shopping centre than a hotel.



However,the entrance is impressive.



Off to Brisbane on Tuesday night.....