Singapore: the one you envied in high school
Tuesday, April 24th, 2007Fanatically clean, ultra modern and easy to navigate; Singapore is what many cities aspire to be. Strong economy, low crime and an extremely polite and highly educated population, Singapore is the valedictorian and the homecoming queen (who doesn’t chew gum). She’s even friends with all the cliques (religious groups) and manages to get The Stoners and The Preps to hang out in peace.
Everyone we met in Singapore spoke perfect english. There’s frankly nothing better than being able to ask any average Joe where the nearest McDonalds is in my native tongue. (I’m kidding. We don’t go to places like that, ahem) But traveling in a city who speaks your language allows a much greater dialogue to transpire, which greatly contributed to our four day stay.
Aside from a few museums and a movie at the Singapore Film Festival, the majority of our time was spent roaming the streets in pursuit of a shared hobby: eating. If your idea of culinary adventure is dipping your nuggets in BBQ mixed with sweet & sour, you may not be a candidate for this city. Singapore eats, and eats and eats. These people eat so much that I was suspicious of a national habit of bulimia.
Asian cities are known for their street food stalls, but Mr. Clean Singapore moved his inside a few years back. Now dotted around the city are complexes of 2-3 story strip-mall style food stalls with seating filling the aisles. Basically stand alone mall food courts. We ate every single meal at these stalls, partly because they’re fun and partly to keep us away from the incredible posh expensivo restaurants that kept whispering sweet nothings in our ears and taunting our stomachs.
We dove in headfirst, [read on]
brooke.pearson8