The time goes by quickly and I’ll try to recall some of my experiences here in Singapore while I can still remember them. But first of all, let’s start from the very beginning…
My flight to Singapore was scheduled for 19th of January at 23:40 but due to some problems the pilot did not care to share with the passengers, we did not take off until 02:40 the next day. Fortunately for me, I had a lovely Australian sitting next to me and we talked to keep each other awake. I managed to watch two movies, take few short naps and walk around a bit. Altogether, the fourteen hours on the plane were not as difficult as I had imagined.
Due to the fact that I had not slept for over 36 hours, I did not fortunately suffer from jet lag and I managed to settle in to the rhythm here very easily. Although I must say that the humidity and the heat were quite surprising during the first days here as I had just left a country covered in snow behind me. The temperature here is daily around 28-32 degrees and the humidity has been around 70-90%. The difference between the weather in Finland at the moment and the weather here in Singapore is indeed huge but one gets used to the sunlight quite easily. I can’t say I miss the darkness very much at the moment.
The hot weather has certainly its pros and cons; it’s lovely to go about in sandals and in the t-shirt all the time but the air conditioning in all the places can really give you a sore throat.
So what have I done here?
During the two weeks I have been here, I have seen quite a bit. I have been to Little India which is the Indian part of the city and the difference is visible. There you have a great deal of ethnic restaurants, little odd shops, some temples and surprise, lot of Indians! And of course there is the Mustafa shopping centre that is an experience on its own. The whole place is might be only 15,000sqm, which is less than one third of the Stockmann in Helsinki, but it must have at least three times the amount of stuff! The aisles are rather narrow and the shelves are just stocked with stuff, stuff, stuff!!! They have used up every centimeter in the store and therefore you have shoes piled on top of each other like loafs of bread and floors full of things so that you can hardly move around with your tiny trolley. Then there is the amazing logic of arranging different department of products. You have a whole aisle of rice cookers and there are shoes on almost every level, you can find frozen products next to cereal and next to that is water from where you move to fresh fish section which is next to fresh vegetables. You have odd household stuff and in the middle of that is a meter saved for, of course, wrapping paper! Trying to find something certain there requires a map but it’s going to be a great place for just wondering around. Altogether, I haven’t seen very much of Little India yet but maybe I’ll explore more during the upcoming weeks.
As we have just celebrated Chinese New Year for two weeks, I have also been to the China town several times. There was a huge market where they sold decorations, mandarins and all sorts of tourist stuff. And of course they sell a lot of odd foods or at least odd for me as I haven’t been brave enough to try any of them. For example the family here was given a pack of dried fish skins as a present and that is not something I signed up for ;)On the other hand, I have tried several new fruits; raw sugar cane (raaka sokeriruoko), guava (very nice), dragon fruit and one another fruit that looks like a potato, is sort of hairy and is very sweet.
In China town I also visited a beautiful temple. It was an amazing experience for a person who is used to colourless Lutheran churches. Bright red, gold and other bright colours were so shiny together that it was almost painful for my eyes. But oh so wonderful. China town is another place I would love to visit more thoroughly.
Besides those two parts of Singapore I have also been in the Arab part of town called Arab Street. There I had lunch in a Swedish café (odd, I know!) and coffee in a very funky café by the mosque. We some amazingly beautiful perfume shops but altogether I didn’t get to see much of that part of town as we didn’t have much time and the hot sunny weather at noon just does not invite you to wonder on the streets. It screams for an air-con!
Then there is the Sentosa Island where I have been twice now. During the last weekend we took the cable car there and that was a great experience. And of course there’s lot of things to see and do on the island. I shall write more about that place later.
There are few more things to mention before I’m off to bed. Singapore is a wonderful place for shopping! The whole city is full of shopping malls and by far I have managed to visit about seven of them. One of the websites (http://www.shopping.sg/shopaglore/list-of-shopping-malls-in-singapore/) lists over 140 shopping malls so in that sense I have not seen much. Yet. Of course some of the shopping centers are not that big but in most cases they are huge, full of shops and so many PEOPLE. Let’s compare for instance: Stockmann in Helsinki has 50,000sqm (540,000sq ft) of total retail area while the biggest shopping center in Singapore, VivoCity, has 96,600 sqm (1,04 million sq ft). And while VivoCity is the biggest, there are so many other huge shopping centres that it can give you a headache when you try to find something particular. For example it took me an hour to find the post office in the ION Orchad shopping centre. And this also the designer shop paradise. When you walk on the Orchad Road there are huge signs of all the fashion designer brands you can image. Massive Cucci, Prada, Tiffany’s, Rolex etc shops everywhere. You name it, they have it.
I shall continue another day with more news about the life here. Maybe we’ll talk about the weather ;)
Sweet dreams!
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