The Zoo

Singapore knows how to do up it's tourist sites. For my week-end birthday adventures, I went to the zoo on Saturday and golfing ( where else?) on Sunday. Getting into and out of the zoo was a breeze in terms of flow of traffic, taxi stands and entrance booths. The walkways, river rafting and trams were clearly marked and it was amazing how they could carve this zoo out of the jungle. When you walked down the butterfly path or the "Australian outback" you just assumed you were there and were not connected to other areas of the zoo or for that matter,that you in a zoo altogether.

When I consider the zoo, bird park, night safari, China town, little India, river walks, from the tourist point of view, Singapore is a great little adventure. Things are easy to get to, you can imagine you are in the jungle one day and on 5th Avenue the next as you venture down

Orchard Boulevard, covered with Christmas lights and sleigh bells ringing coming from the stores.

I had quite a nice week-end. We had a staff party Friday night which was great. Christmas presents, lots of good western food like turkey and cranberry sauce and of course, lots to drink. It is amazing how much people can actually drink! In consideration of me...they had a case of ginger beer ( which was delicious). I wonder if we have such a thing in Canada?

Saturday the zoo and Sunday golf. As David remarked, do I ever get out of my golf shirt, shorts and sandals? The weather here, along the equator is supposedly hot ( 32 degrees) with lots of rain. I just went out for supper and actually felt cold. God knows what I am going to feel like a week from today when I am back in Toronto. Hopefully I will see you all soon.

Last night I kept trying to book my tickets home through the Internet and spent three hours getting knocked off, finding new sites, getting bounced again and so on. Surprisingly, every time I went back to some

old sites prices the itineraries changed, as people bought their ticket I supposes. Quite an interesting phenomenon. I ended up paying about $500 less then I was willing to pay the first go round. I guess there are some advantages of getting bumped off...the first time because I did not know my postal code, the second time because it would not accept my Singapore phone number and the third time, just because. I ended up talking with someone in Manila and doing it over the phone. That almost didn't work for the same reasons.

See you soon.

Singapore Museum and Mt. Faber

It seems to rain every afternoon so I decided to visit a museum to at least keep dry for one of the two week-end days. The Singapore museum is actually amazingly good. I was impressed. You buy one ticket which gets you into all of the galleries. This month, or few months, they had a Pompeii exhibit which is as close I guess as I will ever get to Pompeii. You remember Josh we almost got there a few years ago but never made it. Remember the porter in Naples?

Anyway the display was fabulous with good explanations, a 3D video where we had to wear the special glasses and mosaics, statues, jewelry and all kinds of artifacts. The Romans were amazingly developed for their period in history.

However, what impressed me even more was the Singapore history museum. You were given an audio player ( which, of course, I could not figure out) and walked through two floors of numbers exhibitions taking us through the colonial period to the past war era. It was really good and I especially loved the world war two section. Obviously Singapore fell like a deck of cards.

Today I went to Mount Faber which overlooks the bay and Indonesia, not too far away. There are many "loops" where you can wind your way down and I saw some really interesting traditional Singapore houses ( or the old colonial sort), forests and gardens and of course great bathrooms. There was also an elevated path rising over the forest floor, only in Singapore you say!

By the way, on another note I went to the infamous bar area last night off of Orchard road where the expats go to drink after work. The music was so loud I never made it inside any of the bars...the music was virtually an assault on my ears!

Now I have a week to figure out what to do next week-end.

Birds of a feather

Had some interesting stories this week, highlighted by the female teacher being locked in the toilet and screaming for help. We had to take the door off, no mean feat. That was closely followed by a two students fighting. When I asked one student what they would like to say to the other, the first boy obviously said: " Please accept my apology." The second boy said: " I hope you die" When I asked him to think about it and try again he said: " I hope you die a slow agonizing death!"

Man, I have to get out more. Today I went to Jurong Bird Park which frankly was terrific. I have been looking forward to it for a long time but only got around to it today. It seems when they do something in Singapore they do it well. They advertise that they have the largest man made waterfall in the world...( in a bird park) which they say fast!!! I was really captivated by the colour, range and sounds that all of the birds made. I could have done without the shows, mind you, but the birds themselves were fantastic. As much as possible they were out in the open and flying or walking around. I especially enjoyed it because I got in for half price ( old age). I guess there has to be some advantages to getting old.

To-night I am going to a colleague's birthday party but will not be staying late, I hope, because tomorrow we have a run for hope leaving the school at 6 am. Aren't we lucky. It is the old Terry Fox run but it is called Run for Hope over here.

Last week I went to Sentosa Island to see the Barclay open and followed some golfers around, presumably no-ones because there was only one old Sikh guy following them around. I said to him I really feel better after watching them putt. What do you mean, he said. I said, did you see the guy wearing red, he missed a 5 foot putt...I could have done better or at least missed equally well. He told me he was the best golfer in India and was HIS SON!!! Woops again.

I have got to go and buy running shoes. 10 k run before the sun comes up.

Choices

There is a great Italian restaurant I go to across the street from my apartment that serves delicious food. My regular waitress, it turns out, dreams of becoming a teacher and does have her Master of Education from a Philippines university. Singapore, like everywhere else in the world, covets the limited professional spaces there are and limits the influx of immigrant professionals. Over the course of a few meals, I told the waitress I was in education and I could help get her a job. Where, she said. I told her I could get her a job with my old company in either Myanmar or Vietnam or perhaps even get her a job in a private school in Singapore. I went on to give her a number of other alternatives such as getting a teaching degree in Singapore since they are paying students to get a teaching degree, just like Ontario in the old days. Anyway, as I said, I gave her lots of options.

To-night, went I went for supper she was looking downright glum if not angry. I asked her what was wrong and she replied; “ you gave me too many choices?” What, I said. How could you have too many choices in life? She then explained that she was a Philippina, was lucky to have a job in Singapore and didn’t want to have to make any more decisions. Given the menu of choices I presented her with upset her equilibrium.

Daniel and Josh…you were so lucky to be born in a first world country where you constantly had a myriad of choices, from which school you wanted to attend to what kind of job you wanted. You also know, even now, if you tire of what you are doing there are literally lots of choices for different jobs. How lucky is that? Imagine being limited by only two choices in life? How would that change you as a person?

By the way, after dinner I went for an ice cream and waffle which was $5.50. I gave the teller $10.50 and told her to make the waffle and I would be back in ten minutes. As usual, I forgot to get the change and walked out the door for my walk. The teller rushed after me ( even though she knew I was coming back) and gave me my five dollars change! Only in Singapore.

Mahout for a day!

Having been there and done that, when I travel I really have to consider doing things other than the usual elephant show or posing with a long necked native. Maybe this time I went a little overboard, who knows. I signed up for a one day elephant trekking mahout training experience. What that means is I got picked up from the hotel, taken about an hour out of Chaing Mai and put in an elephant camp with a real mahout. The first thing he told me was to get up on the elephant and sit on its head. I am rather used to climbing a tall tower and gently lowering myself onto an elephant from about 10 feet high into a nice chair! Get up on the head? How do I do that pray tell?

You give the command in Thai to lift one

leg, which you stand on, then grab the top of the ear and a fatty part of the body and lift yourself up. Once there, you slide forward, take the poker stick and start giving commands and kicking in the appropriate spot that is, on the left side to go right and the right side to go left and then moving your body backwards to get the elephant to go backwards and so on. Somehow I survived that ordeal ( turning and standing in one spot) and was quite willing to walk down to the river beside the elephant to give him his bath. Unfortunately, the real mahout would not hear of it and he insisted on walking beside the elephant when I sat on the head and did my thing. It was a scary 10-15 minutes as I made my way down the path and engineered the elephant into the water where I proceeded to bath him before I took a raft down the river, or am I getting ahead of myself.

After the elephant ride, I took a bamboo raft down some river or other to a lunch spot, where I took a Thai cooking class…sure, this is now the area of fantasy. I did not take the Thai cooking class.

I had a long

week-end because Singapore celebrates every ethnic/religious day going and this was Depavali so Wednesday night I searched for a plane ticket out of Singapore and came up with Chiang Mai believe it or not. Having never been here before , I did the usual search thingy, found a hotel within the old city of Chaing Mai within the original walls and looked for an adventure. My area had a lot of travel guys suggesting this tour or other but I told them I wanted something different so they organized it all by telephone and I had a personal tour. The price was unbelievable, but this is Thailand remember. I did the Mahout training thing, a river rafting experience, lunch and then a visit to a local village for about $50 ( in a private car and tour leader who happened to be a mahout!)

To-day back to Singapore and school. We just finished a great Deepavali assembly Bollywood style and now have to prepare for the Moslem Haj production in about 2 weeks with November 11^th thrown in for good luck. Should be a busy two weeks before my next vacation.

The Bicycle

The other day I was coming home from school and saw a guy put his bike against the wall and go into a store. As I continued to walk home I was processing what I just saw and I knew something was not quite right but could not put my finger on it. By the time I got upstairs I had it. He did not lock his bike!

Daniel asked me how Singapore was different or what is Singapore, can’t quite remember how he worded the question. He said he could not quite get a handle on it. As we went out every night to the downtown core ( Orchard Street) to the river, Clark Quay and Boat Quay, as well as the Esplanade and Little India we kept talking about this question..When I think about it, the bicycle incident is Singapore. Whenever I ask Singaporeans and visitors how they can put up with the right wing approach to life, i.e. the lack of freedoms, one newspaper with no dissident view tolerated, citizens waiting for the light to change for fear of getting a ticket, they say they willing give up certain freedoms in return for safety. No matter where you

go, they constantly tell me, you can walk in the middle of the night alone without fear of attack and everything seems to work from the traffic lights, to the roadways to the water taps. Singapore is also a very materialistic city, like Hong Kong, where the size of your handbag or the cut of your suit is valued above all, it seems.

In thinking about Daniel’s question some more though, I am not sure it is a fair question. What is Toronto? Is it Yonge Street

and Yorkville or the various multicultural areas such as Greektown or Little Italy or is it the composite of all things Toronto. You are essentially left with a “feeling” of Toronto which

I am sure would encompass multiculturalism and diversity above all, I would think.

Maybe it is the bicycle incident that says all there is to say about Singapore in a nutshell. As usual, even though I have been here I guess two months now, Daniel showed me around. All of the subways seem to end up in malls which I find impossible to navigate. Miraculously Daniel knew exactly where and when to turn, as well as find the stores he was looking for and the exits! Luckily, some things never change.

The Differences between Singapore and Thailand

I am presently sitting in the airport with a bunch of Singaporeans waiting to leave Thailand after their Bangkok sojourn. Listening to them talk makes my teeth grate. I hate the way they sound. They absolutely butcher English. For example, every night the janitor that cleans my office asks me if I want him to “off” the lights. “Isn’t it,” when said by a teacher at the end of a sentence,means do you understand no matter what tense the teacher happens to be talking? The Thais butcher English but at least they do not purport to speak English, whereas the Singaporeans pride themselves on their ability to speak English. Yuk!

Other than their terrible grammar, actually some of the words they use are quite interesting. For example, they use the word spectacles instead of glasses. I presume it is because they were a British colony and although the British have left many years ago, they are still using what used to be British English, like some Italians in Toronto speaking a dialect thatwas used in the 1950’s in Italy that is not used anywhere else in the world today.

How could a comparison be made about Singapore and Bangkok without mentioning food? In Singapore, I suppose, there are loads of fantastic expensive restaurants as well as what they call hawker stands where you can buy cheap food. Having said that, there is absolutely no comparison between street food in Bangkok and street food in Singapore. I forgot how delicious Bangkok food is. I love the” Som Tum” which you can get anywhere and is made for you as the woman grounds the papaya and adds the peanuts, chilies and sauce. I also love the fruit you can buy at any street corner or the guy who comes around on his bicycle with his cooking equipment and makes you a fantast banana pancake or mango and sticky rice. The food in Singapore pales in comparison. When I got back to Canada after living in Thailand for two years I know my good cholesterol was up and my bad cholesterol was down and I was generally in good shape. This is, I am sure, because of the food. I don’t think I will be so lucky when I get checked out in Toronto this su

As I watch passengers walk down the steps to the waiting area there is no doubt who is who. The Singaporeans are the drab ones. The Thais take so much care in how they dress and present themselves. It is hard not to stare. Taking the subway in Bangkok is like attending a fashion show in some upscale dress store on fifth avenue in New York. Getting on the subway or bus in Thailand is like attending a fashion show.

Needless to say, I am sure I will notice more differences when I get back to Singapore. I will have no fear of breaking my ankle in some hole in the sidewalk or in fact falling off the sidewalk as I did in Pattaya today because the pavement is so uneven. Thank God I do not drink! Thailand cities also have dirty garbage bags everywhere, rats running around the street, water run-off everywhere, which is a polite way of saying human waste and traffic that you could not believe unless you experienced it.

Singapore on the other hand will be perfect. I will be out of the airport in literally five minutes as I will just scan my finger print and walk through. I will wait in a polite line for a cab in designated spots, will not haveto negotiate with the driver who will put on his meter immediately and drive me where I want to go. There is a one pricing policy and I will pay the same as the Singaporean taking the next cab. I will be

whisked home on a virtually empty highway, the cost will be about $25 and there will be nothing but politeness. In Bangkok, the same distance would cost be $5, I would have to try to speak a little Thai with the driver to get him to leave me alone and give me the right price and then we would have a great conversation about Thaskin, the Reds versus the yellows and so on. They will apologize for trying to rip me off and there will be a lot of smiling after that.

Bangkok is filthy, the infrastructure is almost unworkable, the traffic is in constant snarl mode and it is difficult to breath. Singapore is clean ( immaculate actually), everything works and traffic flows. Ask me where I would rather be?

I know my good friend Michael used to read these blog entries religiously every Sunday night and have a comment in my inbox Monday morning. He may have been my only reader and I will certainly miss him. If there is anyone else reading this, drop me a line sometime and say hello.

Domestics in Singapore

I am doing more and more thinking about this. I went to the night safari last night ( Saturday) and the Botanic Gardens today ( Sunday) and you cannot help but notice the number of domestics who are living and working in Singapore. I am not exactly sure I would call it living though. Let me give you the scenario that I got from various domestics when they shared their picnics with me ( a little too spicy, but good nevertheless). They typically work 15 days in a row, can never go out after work because there is no "after" work and they get about two days off a month. On these days they rush to the Lucky Plaza or Botanic Gardens if they are Indonesian or Filipinos and Golden Mile Plaza if they are Thai. Here they have their picnics, right on the road or in the Botanic Gardens, talk, play cards, interact with their friends and then hurry back to their houses for 7 or 8 pm..their curfew.

They earn $350 dollars a month plus room and board and certain benefits but generally they pay their agency for the privilege of the agency finding them a job. Of the $350 they generally send most of it to their parents, children and so on. They are making such tremendous sacrifices that I find it almost difficult to believe. Like Jamaican domestic workers in Canada, they left their families behind and do what they have to do to make a living.

When they try to get a job or two on Sunday cleaning houses,if they get caught they get fined by the government or even thrown out of the country. Their most cherished possession is the type of pass they can get from the government to get to stay in this paradise.

Another thing that continues to baffle me is the difference between Malaysia, 45 minutes to the north or Indonesia 45 minutes to the east that are literally in poverty. You can see Singapore from their shores but although moments away they are literally light years from the wealth you find here, in terms of government practices, infrastructure and educational benefits. What is the key to Singapore's success? Strong leadership, good education, immigrant workers small geographic area...who knows, it is a tough one. One that I am going to do a lot of thinking about over the course of this year. Of course, if you speak to a Singaporean, they will tell you it is because of their own hard work, but surely it is not that easy. I am quite confident they work just as hard in the neighbouring countries.

By the way, I went to the Night Safari on Saturday and because they are celebrating Halloween all month, it was a disaster for me. Ghouls and Goblins jumping out of trees to scare you but I did not have to spend $40 for that. Daniel, if you are here on a week-end we will give this a pass.

The Botanic Gardens were more my style where I could leisurely speak with people, take time to smell the flowers and walk in peace without fearing someone jumping out at me in some crazy costume.

By the way, when I left the subway I went left instead of right and discovered a great swimming pool. It will cost me 60 cents a time but I cannot wait to go. Instead of taking about 10 strokes to reach the end of my pool in the condo, I can actually swim in an Olympic size pool..hurray!

Singapore from the River

After finally learning the MRT and buses I decided to try to take a river cruise on the Singapore River to see another view of the "same old, same old" and I am glad I did.Now I have an idea of what Singapore looks like from the "other side". Singapore Inc. is certainly alive and well as you can see in the pictures of the business district which rivals any city I would think. Actually, it reminds me a lot of Toronto. Where it is different is some of the spectacular buildings like the Esplanade and the Marina Sands hotel which I keep showing you in pictures which is quite distinct really ( especially the casino with it's $25 minimum!)

I guess what is really distinct about Singapore is the melange of people. One thing I found quite interesting today was an Indian shopkeeper in Chinatown of all places. I can't remember whether I told you before, but in the public housing, there is a quota on every floor of Indians, Eurasians, Chinese and Tamils. It makes for an interesting social experiment I would think. Most people in Singapore live in these public housing flats but today they buy them so it is not like what we think of public housing in North America. In fact, the market is super hot to buy the 99 year leases and the government is trying to cool the market.

In every flat, which might house thousands of people, there is veritable marketplace on the ground level. Today, for example, I had my choice of about three barbers to take a haircut, 5 or 6 clinics, bikeshops, every kind of good and service. I settled on a barbershop in the flats across the street. You are never far from food in Asia as there are dozens if not hundreds of little restaurants in these ground floors.

After getting out of the boat at the Esplanade, quite a different story than the ground floor of the public housing units, I had a brownie for $10 and saw quite an interesting children's performance. I then finished off the day in Chinatown which is still kind of fun, even though the mid-Autumn festival and the lights are no longer burning. It is still a hub of excitement. In the next couple of weeks I am looking forward to the Hindu festival of Deepavali which should be fun.

Every week-end I keep meaning to visit the bird sanctuary. Maybe next week-end???

A week-end in Singapore

Let me tell you two stories which I think are quite telling about life in Singapore. Saturday, I played golf with a French guy who runs Channel in Asia and an Indian business person that travels 200 days of the year. We played at the public course in Marina Bay which is where the big race is to-night. They both thought the course was fantastic, but it was so Singaporean I could not believe it.

First of all, I think it was something like $250 to play a public course. I think that there was a mistake or my partners payed for me because I only paid $90. You had to take a cart and at the bottom of the screen it told you how many minutes you were behind and since we started a few minutes late we never seemed to catch up. They also had paid advertising on the screen so you never felt you were on a golf course in the middle of nowhere. In fact, you knew you were not in the middle of nowhere because from the first tee you could see the whole course it was that small. Land is valuable in Singapore and time is money, both characteristics in full disclosure on this course.

There were marshals everywhere. Whenever you got too near a green or bunker, the screen told you to back off and a marshal was not far behind. I really felt like I was in the middle of the F1 race. First of all, you could hear the engines roaring literally roaring around the course just beyond and secondly there was construction everywhere. You were never out of eye-site of either a construction zone, cars, or buildings. The exact opposite of the ocean course I use to play in Costa Rica where every hole was surrounded by ocean.

And...it rains intermittently in Singapore almost every day (and this is the the dry season!) so we had our rain for about three holes which made it miserable, in my opinion. The Singaporeans simply put on their raincoats, pulled out their umbrellas and carried on.

To-day, Sunday, I went down to Orchard Road and stumbled into Lucky Plaza. It looked like a typical Bangkok mall except for one thing. There were more Philipinas than in Manila. The Philipina domestic workers have Sunday off and they all congregate in this mall to send money home, buy air tickets home and eat typical Philipino fare. There had to be ten of thousands of Philliipinos on six floors. I could not believe the line-ups around the hallway to send money home. I am just reading Ayaan Hirsi's latest book and she makes the point that immigrants who constantly send money home consign themselves to a life of poverty and the cycle continues for generations. She suggests they save and change their lives being in Holland, United States or Singapore.

I keep wanting to get to the Bird Park and other 'tourist' places, but people places are just so much more interesting.

The Attributes of city-state life

In Costa Rica, when the week-end arrived I had virtually three choices...beach, beach, or beach. This week-end, my first real week-end in Singapore, I had so many choices I hardly left the house because I would have had to make a decision about where to go!

On Saturday, I headed for the Jurong Bird Farm but the stop before got off at a place called the Chinese Garden. What the heck...I am going to be here all year, may as well see everything. This week is the mid-Autumn Moon Festival so the gardens were really dressed up and later that evening thousands of party-goers were going to descend to see fireworks and play games. At school, some of the teachers and I are dancing for parents and kids, on Tuesday I believe. There are eight of us and we have a choreographed dance. Unfortunately, we have to do some dance steps and at the same time twirl a red sash we are wearing around our waist in four different directions. What I have found is that I can do the dance steps or twirl the sash, but not both at the same time. I think I will go for the sash!

To-day our kids were in a soap box derby at Marina Bay so I went to watch. Marina Sands Hotel just happened to be across the street and wouldn't you know it, a casino right next store. Singaporeans have to spend $100 to get into the casino, before they bet a cent. There are 4 floors of tremendous games and according to a pit boss, every table and machine is always busy. I can't believe it. The minimum bet is mostly $50. They won't be taking my money any time soon, when I can bet in Costa Rica for $2 minimum. Mind you, it would take me $2000 to get there!

What is great about city life is there are an endless variety of things to do and on the way home went to a drumming concert in the cutest little amphitheatre just outside a subway stop. They were absolutely great. If I was not so exhausted, I could also go out to-night and find loads to do. Maybe I will just go and eat supper. My apartment is across the road from the equivalent of Yorkville, with the exception of the hawker stand I usually eat at. It is the only thing in Singapore that is cheap, relatively speaking. I can eat dinner for $5 Singapore dollars.

Have a good week and again, happy New Year. In Singapore with all the ethnicity's and religions, someone is always celebrating something.

Sir, you will need a passport for that!

Sir, you will need a passport for that!

Some of my favourite stories so far. The first day I went into a 7/11 and asked if they had any gum. With a mixture of shock and disgust, the woman told me I had to go to a special store and show my passport. I have not found that special store yet, and come to think of it, I have no idea where my passport is!

I just got back from the bank where I set up an account. It was a three hour ideal with signatures, paperwork and forms galore. To get into the Internet to do your banking you have to use four levels. Your name and password and telephone number and a special code which changes by the moment. I have a gadget that I must keep and press for a number when I want to get into my account. However, that is not the story. I was waiting for the woman to meet with me to do the paperwork and old Chinese guy with one tooth and a great smile sat down beside me. As we were talking he said; “ Enjoy your youth while you have it!” Nothing like an experience like that to make me feel younger.

Last week-end I went to Little India and was quite impressed with the sounds and smells, which I imagine might actually be like India. What surprised me the most were the” authentic” Thai massage places. Authentic in the sense that you get a traditional Thai massage for $40 that would cost you $10 in Thailand but given by trained Thai masseuses. Like my first Thai massage many years ago, my masseuse could not believe how inflexible I was and kept calling through the curtain to the other massage lady telling her about me and laughing her head off. My body parts simply refused to be coerced to go in the directions she was pushing and pulling them. I could not move my neck all week and my legs were stiff for about three days.
I did buy a phone and the first night dutifully charged it, all night. Actually, the light from the telephone kept flashing all night and kept me up. When I got to school, I asked a colleague how it worked because I could not turn it on. He fiddled with it for about five minutes and he could not get it to work either. I did not feel so stupid until he took the back off and saw why it was not working…no battery. I had no idea I even had to put in a battery!

The first night I was in the new apartment , it is two bedroom with two en suites if anyone wants to visit,I took a bath, which was fairly uneventful. When I got out of the bathtub I was shocked that the floor of the bathroom was covered in water up to my ankles. I called a guy to fix it and found out the problem. There is one drain, for the toilet, sink, bath and so on and it could not drain fast enough when I let the water out of the tub. The poor guy had no tools, which I found dubious but he had no trouble fixing it. He simply opened up the drain and spent the next thirty minutes dredging up the gunk that had accumulated over the years and was blocking the free flow of water. His arm was so black he could not even wash it off. Now I can’t wash the gunk out of the sink.

Talking about black…I was fingerprinted. No, not before they put me in jail. To get an apartment, or work for that matter, you have to get an employment pass. I was shocked when I was told to put my thumb on this machine. I do have a good looking thumb, mind you.

Who knows what adventure will happen to me this week-end. Happy New Year to you.