“All I can say is fabulous, fantastic, and incredible and WOW! Thank goodness I didn’t come here first and then go to Shanghai as it would have been very depressing. And hallelujah! There are blue skies here. I spent 7 busy days in a brown Shanghai haze and I just want a shake and some fries (in case you missed it that was my current rendition of Come Monday).”
That is what I wrote home upon my first time arriving in Singapore (2005). I have had the pleasure of visiting Singapore only on three occasions and I was greatly (and personally) disappointed when we closed our office there officially removing it as a stopping point during our two week business travels in Asia.
That first trip I stayed at the conference hotel off Orchard Boulevard. Orchard is a like the 5th Avenue of Singapore with lots of high end shops: Prada, Channel, Louis Vuitton, Salvatore Ferragamo and so on. The similarity ends with the stores because unlike NY, Singapore is a different pace, calm, reserved, friendly. It is without a doubt the safest place I have ever visited. Beyond the high-end shopping there are other options and I spent most of my time in Lucky Plaza, a multiple level shopping center, which had mostly tourist nick knack boutiques, jewelry and electronics. And the Takashimaya department store is fun to check out and is located in a multiple level center called Ngee Ann City. On subsequent trips I have stayed in the Raffles City area which is very nice and has access to all kinds of shopping and restaurants.
As for food, Singapore has many wonderful things to offer considering the mix of Chinese, Indian, and Malaysian influences. One of the first nights there I ended up lighting myself up with a very spicy pepper shrimp dish. I had heard that they use peppers we haven’t even begun to approach so far as spice and heat index. One shrimp took my breath away and it was several minutes of eating rice before my mouth recovered. I think this is when I began to develop my taste for spicy food. Sadly, I never got to actually try one of the best known dishes, chili crabs, and I never partook of street food. And I also neglected to make lots of notes about specific dishes I had but do recall really enjoying the food overall each and every visit there.
Since I was with a conference group that first trip I got to experience a banquet dinner at the Divine Society located in the Parkview Square building. The building’s location is interesting considering the extreme importance of Feng Shui because it is located exactly between the hospital and a building with two X’s on it – both bad omens in Asia. It is a members only place and I don’t know that I have ever seen anything like it before or since. They have a courtyard which is surrounded by statues of famous people from great leaders to famous artists such as Abe Lincoln, Winston Churchill, Mozart, etc. Inside the “lobby” is a three story room that is decadent 1920’s decor with gilded iron-work everywhere, an area for the band overlooking the floor, painted ceiling with antelopes and clouds, and a three story wine bar “cellar” on one end where they had – get this – a tiny little waitress in an angel costume who they would strap in and send up into the air to retrieve the wine bottles because she is the “wine angel”. And the angel costume was more Victoria’s Secret than Walt Disney so all the men were having their photos made with her (poor thing probably doesn’t get exposed to rowdy Texans too often).
I rarely ever turn TV’s on when I travel, even domestically. That first trip to Singapore is one of the two times I have ever watched TV outside the US and I was thrilled to find Malaysian Idol was on. It was really fun to watch even though it was only partly in English and partly in Malay. The show had the same opening with the silver idol and the same music theme and judges similar to the original configuration of American Idol. Most interesting was that the episode I was watching was the group number part of the try outs and not everyone in all the groups all spoke the same language so that made it even more challenging for those contestants.
That first trip I also got to take a day tour to visit parts of China Town so stay tuned for details about that in my next post.
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