In which I belatedly relate the tale of my trip to Singapore

This post is long overdue, and I know I won’t do it justice here, but it’s time to talk about my trip to Singapore.

Over my birthday weekend last September, I got the chance to go to Singapore. My school generously sent me, along with three other teachers, to Singapore in order to collect about 1000 books donated to us from the National Library of Singapore. We arrived on a Thursday and the book sale was on Friday, and we had the rest of the weekend free after that. We got to explore a good chunk of the city-state, which was remarkably easy to do with the aid of the convenient MRT system. It was my first time in the city, as well as my principal, so we figured we’d pay for the extra couple of days to really make the best of it.

On Thursday, we left Bandung at about 5am, which was quite convenient as we didn’t have to drive the four hours to Jakarta to get a flight. The Bandung airport offers regular flights to Singapore and a few other cities. We arrived only a few hours later in Singapore and proceeded to find our hotel, just off of Market Street and the Intercontinental Hotel, right around the corner from the National Library. We checked in and met with someone from the delivery service who gave us the boxes in which we would later ship our books back to Bandung. Because that was our only obligation for the day, we set out to see some of the sights. We went to the Marina Bay Sands, which is a crazy huge casino/hotel/mall/resort right on the bay, overlooking the ocean and with a great view of the Singapore skyline. It’s really spectacular, just adjacent to an eco park, as well. However, it’s also probably the most expensive place I’ve ever been in my life. There also were more Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada, and other luxury fashion stores than I’ve ever seen in my life.

Perched atop the Marina Bay Sands hotel sits a cantilevered observation deck with an infinity pool and restaurants–at least, that’s what I’m told, because it was $30 just to go to the top, and another $28 just to have go to the restaurant. So we settled for a sky walk heading to the eco park, as the Singapore Flyer (the nation’s answer to the London Eye), and we got some great views of the city for much cheaper. Even to have a cheap dinner overlooking the bay was horribly expensive, so we settled for the mall food court and still got just a bit swindled. Despite that, we found an amazing art gallery and took in some fantastic sights, so all in all it was a great first day.

The next day, Friday, we headed out to the Singapore Expo for the Library sale. The Expo is a gigantic convention center, and one section of it was entirely dedicated to this event. Most libraries have a yearly book sale, and I’m a zealous attender of these events back in the States. This was exactly like one of those, with tables piled high with books of all kinds, and we were authorized to collect up to 1000 books which the library was donating. This is the event that I’ve been preparing for all my life. I’ve been doing this for years, and this was my chance to do it professionally. It was a blast. Between the four of us, we got about 970 books, which we then packed into 7 large boxes for shipment.

After that, the day was ours, and we set out to explore the city a bit more. We turned our attentions to Orchard Street, but not before we had some fantastic, delicious street food. I had Pho (pronounced fuh), which I’ve been dying to try since I came to Asia. I’d eaten and loved it in the States, but I was hoping to have the real thing here. This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t as good as a little old man makes in a shop in West Chester, OH. Oh well, I’ll just have to go to Vietnam for the real thing, I guess.

Orchard Street is much like the mall at Marina Bay, just absolutely packed with high end fashion boutiques and expensive food everywhere. It also miraculously houses the best English bookstore I’ve been to since I came to Indonesia: Kinokuniya. I loved it, but it is wildly overpriced. I’ve been on the lookout for 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami for awhile now, and I was really excited when I found it there. However, it was conservatively priced at $42. For the paperback!  Needless to say, I didn’t let myself get swindled on that one, but I kept browsing their vast collection anyway, because an addict can’t say no.

We then wandered around Orchard Street some more, taking in the sights and sounds of Singapore. We got a gyro, though the tzatziki sauce was nowhere to be found, and then decided to grab a curry in Little India. The curry was rather disappointing, and The Jungle Room (our restaurant) was a gaudy tourist trap. However, Little India was a sight to see, and I’d like to explore its back streets a bit more and find some truly great curry.

The next day was my birthday and we met with our other two teachers near Bras Basah, where I had an amazing cup of coffee and decent eggs, with some dim sum. We then made our way to Chinatown, took a tour, and enjoyed the city before meeting one of our school’s former students for dinner with her family.

On Sunday, we decided to find a church before our noon flight home, and we found a really welcoming home at a church near the Expo, on the way to the airport. The service was exceptional, fully founded on Scripture, with a solid liturgy. They then invited us up for fellowship, with coffee, tea, and excellent curry puffs. I look forward to joining them again someday. I could not ask for a more gracious reception than they gave us.

Overall, I really enjoyed Singapore. It is cleaner and quieter on the whole than much of Indonesia. No piles of trash littering the roadside, nothing bigger than the occasional cigarette butt on the ground. The Singapore that was described to me was much as I found it, but not in such an exaggerated form. I expected pristine streets and sidewalks off of which I could eat food, with cane-wielding police officers overseeing a meek population afraid to chew the occasional stick of gum for fear of the swift arm of the law. None of this was to be found. It was most certainly cleaner than the four Indonesian towns I’ve been to, but it’s right about where any big American city is in terms of cleanliness. It was refreshing to see. Furthermore, it was a nice change to be able to speak English everywhere I went.