Night Safari (bwj)

bwj here again

If it was Tuesday, we went to the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoo. Which means that we kind of lazied around Jens's place most of the day [except I did do another 1500m in the pool, which I know is less than a mile but it sort of feels longer because the pool is so long], and then about 3 PM we walked down to catch the MRT at Buona Vista. I think we are---or surely I am---getting better at using urban mass transit. (I should mention that I've occasionally had silly images of Jens riding his bike to work at least partly down the shoulders of narrow two-lane country roads. Ha. There aint none here. I thought I remembered him saying they lived somewhat outside the city; but there is no outside the city to Singapore that I've seen yet. Inside the city are places like the botanical gardens and the zoo, and the map shows nature reserves and some large reservoirs, but these are remnants of what once was either rainforest or perhaps plantations of various kinds--e.g. on Orchard Road there once were orchards.) These areas are owned by the military mostly.

Anyway, looking at a couple maps, I figured out the most likely place to stop on the NS MRT line and take a bus to the zoo, and I was right on: we took the EW Green Line a few stops west, changed to the NS Red Line, got off that a few stops farther north, waited a few minutes for a bus, got on that bus, and, as I guessed we could, and confirmed on the bus route map, landed right at the zoo. I should mention that Singapore transit is orderly and efficient right down to the queues [see pictures of the queue railings in the bus interchange: very smart]. Mass transit here is also very clean: you get fined for eating or drinking in a station or on a train or bus, though you can also ask at any station for accommodation for a small child or a person with a medical condition. I'd describe such laws here as rigorous but also humanly reasonable, especially considering the population density. I read the other day that 309 people had been fined in the past 10 days for eating or drinking on the transit system; but when you consider how many riders there must be every day--surely close to a million if not several million--this is a tiny fraction; people mostly obey these seemingly fussy laws because they make good sense. Plus the fines or penalties are severe and fitting: if you litter, you'll end up on the litter detail, cleaning up the litter on the beaches (I think Julian told us that).

At the zoo, we hung around a while, browsing, having a treat at Ben & Jerry's (yes, they're here too, and all proceeds of that store go toward the zoo's program), admiring some long-horned cattle (we're talking of spreads more than 2m here, formed like curved brackets). Then we queued up for the "Creatures of the Night" show in a small amphitheater. There was a fair amount of waiting in the queues at the zoo, I will say; I was glad I'd brought along my Oxford World's Classics edition of Lord Jim [pocket sized], and I think I read a short chapter or two during some of those waits. Not surprisingly there are constant warnings against camera flashes (and somewhat surprisingly more of them than you'd expect); our camera doesn't do night without flashes very well so there are no pictures. I particularly liked the Asian bearcat who waddled across a heavy rope suspended over our heads; and, at the end, the otters who put recyclable paper cups, soda cans, and plastic bottles into the proper containers. The lesson being: if they can learn that, so can we.

On the Night Safari itself (after more waiting in a queue, though I think I mostly watched the queue and didn't read much more LJ, which I've now read, or re-read for the first time since about 1968, about 40% of), of course the light was pretty subdued, crepuscular, or more properly lunar (some sort of electric lighting that simulated moonlight I think), so it was hard to see as much detail or color of the animals as one might wish. It runs through a series of habitats, from Himalayan foothills to Malayan rainforests to African savannas to South American rainforests. So many kinds of graceful deer or other ungulates, sometimes browsing close to the tram road. Hyenas both spotted and striped; and they're huge. Rhinos. Impressive Indian elephants. I could barely make out the lions. But I did see two huge tigers (not their stripes) pacing among the trees. A tapir is a huge beast too. And capybara are larger than I'd thought. The red dogs I'd never heard of before: they hunt in packs and can take down an animal many times their size. One thing some of us don't learn is not --or how not--to use flashes in the presence of animals at night; the tram ride guide had to interject repeated warnings, getting pretty stern before it finally stopped. Somebody at the back of the tram (3rd car back?) seemed to be using a spotlight, even.

We caught the same bus back (its route just makes a loop at the zoo), and I discovered a limit on my mass-transit savvy: I was expecting we'd go all the way back into the bus interchange, which is right next to the MRT station, but we didn't, we stopped on a street next to the MRT; luckily D saw the MRT and we got off when and where we should. I like the simplicity of the "EZ-link" card you use for the transit system, whether of the MRT or a bus: you just tap its face against a reader as you enter an MRT station or board a bus, and it tells you how much S$ [Singapore dollars or "sings" I think the locals say] you have on it, then tap again when you get off the bus or leave an MRT station, and it tells you again how much you have, subtracting the charge for the distance you've traveled; and the charges seem very modest to me, maybe particularly since the cab fares can add up so fast. We got back to Jens's place c. 10.15 that night, walking from the MRT station, taking a shortcut through the carpark of a housing block to get onto Ghim Moh Road, then another shortcut through the Ghim Moh Gardens market area (a hawker centre), following Ghim Moh through stepwise windings till it becomes Mt Sinai Road, soon coming to Mt Sinai Lane. We nod and smile and wave at the guard in the gatehouse.

I want to mention, too, that not only are transit staff unfailingly courteous, polite, and helpful, but Singaporeans generally seem to be. On Monday night, when we were getting back c 9 pm after our guided outing in Chinatown and other places, and were standing in the Buona Vista MRT station momentarily unsure, a young man passing us said "Escalators that way" and pointed the way to go. A bit later we found ourselves somewhat bewildered after coming out of the station and crossing through some construction and a pedestrian underpass. Gita had walked us down that morning to the station, but my memory of the route was vague at a couple of key points, and it seems always a bit tricky to remember a route in reverse when you've only done it once. Directed by one passerby, we went into a block of highrise housing, and I stopped to ask a young man and woman how to get to Ghim Moh Road; it seemed they didn't speak English, but a middle-aged man was also there, and said to just go through the carpark and we'd be on it and could follow it to Mt Sinai Road; I think he also suggested hailing a cab, but I knew we could walk it. As we came out the other side of the carpark into its entrance onto Ghim Moh, he overtook us and shepherded us across the road. From there, it was easy enough to find our way back. A weary way, I will say; I'm not usually on my feet and or walking so many hours of a day, back ine normal life.

Chinatown

Monday July 27, 2009

Our little red cell phone rang at 10 AM Monday morning. Jens was calling to check how we were doing before going to bed Sunday evening in Chicago. We were already on Mosque Street in Chinatown doing a little exploring. We had arrived on the MRT an hour early to meet Jane Tay and her 18 and 21 year-old sons, Joel and Julian. We would meet them at the Chinatown MRT passenger service boothe at 10:30. We had already walked along Temple Street, New Bridge Street, strolled briefly through the not yet active Chinatown street. The exit from the MRT opens right into Chinatown.

Jens was impressed that Bruce could now text message for cab. Bruce hasn't texted before.

Kaye and Lynn Garner know the Tays because they were in their ward while their 2 sons attended BYU. I contacted them by e-mail for advice about attending church and Jane invited us to spend a day with them exploring Chinatown, various Chinese foods and fruits, and the east end of Singapore.

We met up with the Tays, knowing immediately who they were (and they us) though we had never seen each other before.

Out in Chinatown, we explored shops, stopped to sample something kind of like Chinese jerky, bought a yam cake, sesame ball, barbecue filled dumpling (not wet, but dry and fluffy) and maybe some other stuff. We all shared a sampling of these. Jane wanted us to taste as many examples of Singapore Chinese food as possible. I decided to just explore the shops today and not buy much.

We saw a Buddhist Temple built in the 1800s and a Hindu Temple; you could take pictures of the temples if you bought a "license" for your camera, which we didn't.

Lunch at Lau Pa Sat

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About 11:30, we headed for lunch at Lau Pa Sat which is a hawker food area. It is also quite close to Jens's office. Jane and her boys scurried around gathering various dishes for us to try. They included Fried Kway Teow, Oyster Omelet, Radish (Diakon) Omelet, Carrot Cake, Chicken Rice, Dried Mu Polc with fish balls, fried yam (which we would call taro), Cha Sien Ben and Prawn Dumpling, followed by two different cold desserts. We tried them all. I enjoyed the fish balls the least, Bruce did not like the oyster omelet. We had sugar cane juice to drink.

We took our stuffed selves off to visit the Merlion statue/fountain guarding the Singapore River as it opens into Marina Bay. When Sir Stamford Raffles found his ship blown up here after a storm in 1819 he saw a very strange animal---a lion. The lion with a mermaid's body became the symbol for the British establishment, expanding the British Empire. I don't believe anyone asked permission of the natives of this small fishing village, as usual.

From there, we trekked to the Esplanade (Theatres on the Bay), which tends to look like a hedgehog or a durian---a large, spiky fruit loved by the Chinese which we would try later. We rested inside the cool, cool lobby about 30 minutes. Bruce lay across a square padded bench, but DID NOT SLEEP.

Once our core temperatures were back to normal, we headed off to the bus, passing a memorial to the civilian victims of the Japanese Occupation, 1942-45. During the war, the British guarded the sea heavily but the Japanese came down the peninsula on bicycles and overpowered them. The British surrendered.

That is why, said Julian, Singapore wanted to be independent and have its own military. They had depended on the British, but the British gave them away. Joel is now waiting to begin his 2 years National Service in September. Julian is waiting for a mission call.

Bugis Junction

Our bus ride took us to Bugis Junction, which Julian called "More Chinese than Chinatown." There Jane purchased a number of fruits for us to try: Durian, Mangosteen, Longan and frambutan. The Durian is a large lobed fruit with a very spiky exterior. Inside it is yellow, custard-y in texture and has a very strong, distinctive fragrance. Jane said you cannot take it on the MRT or the buses without putting it in a sealed box or you will be fined. We tasted it. Bruce thought it was awful, I thought it was somewhat OK and interesting, but I didn't want any more. Jane had predicted that. She said some foreigners feel quite ill just smelling it. The mangosteen was my favorite. It has a dark round exterior with 4 white, sweet segments inside, one of which contains a seed. The longan and the frambutan are small, about the size of a large cherry, green or yellow-green and contain a juicy white fruit.

We saw a couple more temples and then boarded a bus for the Malay Village. On the way Joel took pictures of another fruit market where they shop. Guess I didn't take any pictures of the Malay shops, but I did buy some fabric there.

Bedok

Another bus took us to Bedok where we met James for dinner at another hawker area. Dinner included Stingray, Indian rojak, Ee noodles, crispy noodles, mee gorieng, laksa and satay beef,mutton, and chicken. For dessert we had deep-fried bananas. sweet potatoes and jackfruit. James brought from home another kind of fruit that is bristly and red called rambutan.

We were full, completely happy about our day with the Tays and ready to go home, shower, and sleep. Julian took us on the bus to the MRT where he boarded another bus for home and we rode the green line to Buona Vista station and took a short walk back to Glentrees.

Singapore Flyer (bwj)

bwj here. D sez it's my turn to put the words in though i'm not her and it's her blog. well, here [as your friend and mine Huck Finn might say, and did say] is how we put in the time. after breakfast i went to the pool for a swim. i've been a sluggard the past month or more, not doing my usual mile in the RB pool. i asked a guy here at the pool [a highly irregular shaped pool, i must say, and with no lane lines] how long it was, and he sd in an accent that sounded faintly German to me, that it was 50 meters. well, it looks kinda long like that along its long axis [it might have 3 to 5 axes depending how you draw them]. so i got in and swam [if i counted right] 15 long laps which would be 1500 meters. not bad for a old guy, though i dont know how long it took, and i did take short breaks after every five laps. i stepped it off along that long axis after my swim and it took about 68 of my steps, so i guess it must be about 50 m.

then [after a shower and getting ready] about 11am i booked a cab, which is getting easier to do on the phone Jens left us to do that on, and we headed for the guard house to wait a couple minutes for it. cabs here come fast. told the driver Singapore Flyer, and he took us there, and we had a flight [got a tourist discount on the tickets; lucky i had my passport with me]. it's right at the edge of the Marina basin, and from its gondolas or cabins or whatyoucallem you can see halfway to maybe Indonesia on a clear day. which today was not quite. anyhow, spectacular views of the skyline and a chance to get a sense of the lay of the island, the roadstead, etc. the wheel looks much like a gigantic bicycle wheel, lots of spokes [cables that hold it together], and with these cylindrical glass and steel gondolas suspended between the rims. you step onto/into one through its entrance doors as it slowly rotates by, and you're off into the sky, slowly. think of yourself inside, oh, a giant juice can with a hard bench in the middle of a floor, and mostly glass in all directions around you, with of course rails to hold onto. double glass doors in each end [which open only to let you in to go up, and out when you come down. you go around once, for about 30 min, so i guess you're rotating about 12 degrees per minute. i wonder about the physics of the thing. i guess at any moment about the same mass is rotating down as is rotating up, so it doesnt take much impulse to drive it. the impulse comes from several sets of big tractor-looking tires [or tyres as they'd spell it here] driven by i guess electrical motors, which roll against the rims. way out in the roadstead [or whatever you should call it], we did see one vessel at a great distance that looked sort of like a large junk. it's in one of the pictures D took. just before you board, you get an electronic device and a headset that will give you an audio tour, and on board you can unfold a round "compass" map that is keyed to the audio to help you identify what you're seeing. i never did manage to spot the Merlion statue that spouts water out of its mouth into the Marina; but i did see the Greek Theater [didnt know what it was till we were on the ground], did identify the Supreme Court, St Andrew's Cathedral, and some other landmarks. we also saw some sort of parade along the promenade; turned out this was marchers headed to some sort of expo on a floating stage a ways to the north. some of these groups were goose-stepping with some precision; others, esp the ones with flags, seemed pretty raggedy.

back on the ground, we stopped for gelatos at a place that i think called itself Gelatissimo. good stuff. i got passionfruit sorbet and rock melon, and D got pineapple and carameled fig. you need to get something--or somewhere--cool in Singapore as often as you can. or at least i do. i liked the passionfruit sorbet, even the black seeds to crack between your teeth. a flavor we recall from Hawaii. we thought we could walk up into the core of the city on the promenade, but it was closed off due to the event we'd seen part of, so we walked up Raffles Ave instead, passing armored troop transports and tanks and vehicles like that [a lot of boyish boys in fatigues and black berets], passing to the east of the spiky domes of the theatres on the esplanade; down an escalator into a sort of escalator grand central under the streets, where teenagers were hanging out against the pillars and and on the hard tile floor [we should have taken a picture of this], and we found the right escalator up [it was like being in a cavern where you have to choose the right way out, in some adventure story] to get onto Queen Elizabeth Walk and head west along the Singapore River toward the Asian Cultures Museum or a river tour, whichever might strike us first. we'd planned to get here by way of the promenade.

before we got to the Museum, we ran into crowds on the walk, like a lot of Japanese kids on their senior trip, i thought, though i conclude they were mostly just locals, all looking out at boats on the river, yelling, taking pictures. what is going on here? turns out it's the Liverpool Football Club doing a river cruise, here to play the local club in a big match tomorrow night. it's crazy. these boats with a lot of burly and hunky guys in red shirts and all their fans charging back and forth along the promenade yelling and shooting pictures, some with telephoto lenses big as the guns on the tanks. i got so distracted by all this that i didnt even notice we'd passed the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles [you thought that was just a name in Middlemarch, right?], the guy who landed here in 1819 and started setting it all up in the way of the British Empire. we did see him when we got off the river cruise, in his frock coat, with his back to the river.

we decided to take a river cruise. and bought tickets and boarded at a little landing stage opposite the lower end of Boat Quay [lots of colorful shop houses along the south side of the river for a quarter mile or so]. old Chinese or Malay guy with a silvery buzz cut, talking Singlish of which i could only catch a word now & then, drives the boat; a young guy with him handing us aboard as he bumps the bow against the tires hung on the side of the landing. the ticket agent had told me we couldnt go down to the Merlion, but we couldnt even get past one of the bridges because there were Navy patrol boats there to turn us back. we'd seen, from the Flyer, some patrol boats in the Marina, with machine guns mounted on their foredecks; these under the bridge were much smaller, and no visible armaments [at least to me]. well, we went upriver past Clarke Quay, then back downriver, then back upriver to where we started. it would have been fun to have the old boatman do the tour in Singlish, but he played a recording keyed to the various sights of the north and south riverbanks; the music on this thing, i swear, sounded like somebody's brass band variations on Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land."

it's around 3pm by now and we're hot and thirsty and hungry, so we cross a bridge and walk the south bank of the river from the upper end of Boat Quay till we get to the bridge where we can cross to Clarke Quay on the north bank. there's a food festival on, and we're hoping to find something like a hawker stall; but the food fest apparently doesnt start till later in the day, and all along Clarke Quay we are accosted by restaurant waiters and waitresses with menus and offers of food and drink. i've been sweating hard for hours, and my shirt shows it; i'm an obvious mark for a beer, right? we cross again and walk downriver along Boat Quay in front of the shophouses [you can see pictures of these in any travel guide to Singapore]; more of same. then finally D glances up a street that heads south away from the river and sees a 7-11, and we head for that. just before it is an alley down which i see, projecting from the backs of buildings on both sides, a veritable swarm of air conditioners; so i have to get a picture of that. D gets a cold bottle of green jasmine tea [anything that tastes this good cant be evil, i say, and i'll let them use that in ads if they like], and i get a medium-size lime & sour apple Slurpee, which is just what i need though i've never heard of it before. we sip and slurp along down the quay wondering how to find a taxi, stop to take pictures of the whole skyline across the river, then head inland where it looks like taxis might roam. and we get lucky. i'm just asking a driver standing by his parked car where and how, and he points to an approaching cab which i turn to hail. this cabbie signifies he cant take us, but points to another approaching cab, which he and i both hail. it's from the same company, and we pile in and head back to Mount Sinai Lane. the cool air inside Singapore cabs is one of the best features of this city.