Singapore Touring
| Eeeek. It's been a week since I actually went for that tour, and since I came back, I've been too sian to type anything out. Oh no, the window is behaving weirdly and I shall take that as a hint that this window is going to crash anytime. I'd better open Word and type it there instead. Okay, I’m in Word now. The thing about the tour was that it was better than I had expected. I had expected something terrible, and I suppose that that bolstered by expectations and as a result most things would have seemed to be better than I thought they would be. (Did that make any sense? I don’t think so, but who cares) I bought the $33 thing which had a 2 day pass, and there were 6 possible tours and I outdid myself and emulated the kiasu Singaporean by successfully taking 7. That means that I took one of them twice. On Thursday last week I woke up late, and thereby missed taking the 10am first tour, and ended up with the 10.30 one instead. Just as well, because by doing so I met this Hungarian girl by the name of Angie. Maybe she should not be called ‘girl’ because she said that she was 30, but I swear that she looked like she was in her (early) twenties. Good genes. Damn. And I should say, good genes in more ways than one. Besides the age thing, there was the looks thing. She has blond hair, and bluish-green eyes. She is by all means pretty. As for a photo of her… it’s with her. In her camera. She said she’s send it to me (I gave her my email) but she can only do so after she gets home. Which will be about Christmas or New Year, so I’ll just have to wait. I have some photos she wants too, so I guess that’s a bargaining factor. She’s here for a property show at the Singapore Expo with her husband, who is still in Bangkok. I think the show is like touring the world or something. Yeah, and normally she lives in Kent, England, and that is like super cool already. And she mentioned that she goes to Paris very often, as it is ‘very nearby’. Lucky! I also want. And not to mention I’m also particularly jealous of a junior named Ada who is already in Switzerland and will be there for 1 week followed by a trip to Paris. Just the 2 places I’m dying to revisit. I took the Heritage Tour (that’s what they called it) first. And I expected it to be a la an NE tour in primary school. Which was pretty accurate, but I must admit that I did learn something. You know in primary school for SS when you lean about all the different races and religions, you concentrate on the Chinese, the Indians, and the Malays, with a bit of Eurasians? They never ever mention anyone else, they just call them ‘minority races’. And so I have always wondered where they stayed, since Raffles’ Town Plan didn’t exactly take them into consideration. So during that tour I found out where the former Jewish quarters was, and it was particularly surprising to me, as I actually pass that place everyday on the way to school, but I have never noticed it before. The tour guide, Gareth, pointed out the Star of David emblazoned at the top, and I was amused. With 4 years of passing that junction and those buildings, I had never once looked up and saw anything. The rest of the tour was quite expected, the usual stuff. The only other thing which shocked me was Istana Kampong Glam’s transformation. Me, being ancient by now, first saw the Istana at Kampong Glam when I was in either P3 or P4. And at that time, it was falling down, old, lousy, and I wondered who in the right sense of mind would stay there. But when I passed it, it had changed completely, they had obviously repaired it and repainted it, and it actually looked livable. But it looked fake too. It just didn’t look the way it used to, the aura, the atmosphere, was gone, and it had become ‘just another building’ in the landscape. There was no longer a contrast. I wonder if this change, in the name of progress, was really progress at all, or a step backward. What’s lost can’t be easily replaced and recreated, and they successfully managed to rid the place of what was important. Whether they realise what they did or not, I do not know, but I do know that I feel the place was better previously. The next tour I took was the city tour, and I got off lots of times. The first time was for the Singapore River Boat Cruise. I got off at Liang Court, and waited for the boat. I got on, discovered that the Singapore River was pretty bad and just not a sight, it would probably be more accurately described as a longkang than a river. Because that is what it looks like, albeit it was a rather large drain. The river boat cruise was totally un-spectacular. It was just a boat cruising, no, actually, floating, down a river or rather large drain. And there were these commentaries playing, recorded, of course, with an European-accented guy telling about the places, and putting them in a better light than they were, obviously, an obvious example being the Esplanade. None of its shortcomings, naturally, after all, it was supposed to be a great arts centre, and emulate the Sydney Opera House, (which I think is sadly not the case). And the amount of money spent was ‘for a good cause’. But how much good it actually did I don’t know. Because this is my point of view: If I am interested in the arts (and in my case, I actually am), I would have bugged my parents years and years ago to bring me to performances at the Indoor Stadium, Kallang Theatre, etc. Which I did. The arts scene was there, just not as noticed by the government who was more interested in nation building. Which was probably a good thing too. Maybe it was less eventful, but vibrant, it definitely was. Right now, it looks manufactured and, again, fake. It’s forced, it’s no longer natural. But of course there are the good bits too, because with the government taking note now and all, there is more money, and once you have money, you can have practically anything. This sad invention has become one of the most important ones, and that’s just too bad. So after the floating down the longkang on this bumboat which reeked of tourism, I boarded the bus with Angie again and carried on the tour, this time getting off at the Botanical Gardens. The place has sure changed a lot since the last time I was there, which was probably sometime in P3 or 4 while I had to do this Young Botanist thing. I have still yet to see the point of such a thing, because the entire objective seems to be getting 20 stars and getting a small metal badge. I don’t see the point, because I’m not dying to get that badge. And Young Botanist, Young Environmentalist, Young Whatever, they just don’t show what real life entails. It is just a task, and it’s sometimes not even related to what the card claims to be. If I was less guai in primary school, I would have simply been a defiant kid who refused to do a lot of stuff because it was just so pointless. But unfortunately, I was very, very guai and good and listened to the teacher. So I did the pointless stuff. To me, most of the stuff I did in primary school was easy and as a result I never actually spent time or effort. I just kind of bo liao-ed my way through PSLE and got to where I am. Back to the Botanical Gardens. There has been a major facelift, and there were water features and all sorts of things which made the garden look super well-maintained. Which it was. Hung around there a while and went to the Orchid Garden for the first time, and just as well because admission was free for students for that day. I wouldn’t have paid. Following that went to Raffles Hotel, and walked inside for the first time in my life. I had expected more, because I’ve heard the musings of many a tourist, who claim that it is fantastic. It was rather, ordinary. And I have to say that the Christmas decorations made the hotel look worse than it already did on the outside. Went back to Suntec, went to the Esplanade, and waited for a while for the night tour. It was supposed to go to Sentosa for the musical fountain show and dinner and then go to places like Chinatown and Orchard Road. At Sentosa, the guide told us to seat a long time before the show. And when we first seated, there were not many people, but within the next few minutes, the entire place really filled up. I didn’t know that Singapore hotels were capable of accommodating that many tourists. It was at least 3 times the size of RGS. And finally at long last, the show started. It started with the fountain, but quickly morphed into a laser show, not a water show. It should have been called the Sentosa Laser Fountain show. That would have been more accurate, as more than half the time was spent on the lasers. The rest of the night was rather uneventful, and I went home and slept soundly. Being a tourist is tiring. The following day I timed my waking up to be rather late as I only wanted to take a few tours. I took 2 and then got bored, so I got off at Orchard MRT (which they kindly called Marriott) and decided to meet Ling at Sengkang instead. That evening I took the other night tour to, guess where? Parkway Parade. Now, that place is somewhere I go practically everyday, and I am already pretty sick of it. So of course I had no problems navigating my way around, and I even bought breakfast and other stuff. Went to Geylang, and after walking around for a while, I decided that it wasn’t exactly the best idea so I went back to the bus and drank Milo with Gareth and the captain. After that, saw the Christmas light-up for the second night in a row, and was officially sick of it. And since then, I’ve been bored as usual, except that I went to the Botanical Gardens again yesterday, which is a clear indicator of the extent of my boredom. You have just read 1824 words. |
This entry was posted
on Thursday, December 01, 2005 at 10:53 am.
You can skip to the end and leave a response.
1:11 am, December 10, 2005renhui, javine here (: tell me the details for the tour package, im interested! haha.. must be amusing being a tourist in your own country XP
» Post a Comment