A bustling city that looks like a doll house with lots of trees and gardens and everything is orderly and geared to newest technology, including the 5 underground subway lines. No drinking or eating allowed on them ($500 fine) and of course no smoking, everything is spotless. Just now a 70+ year old man was cleaning up the leaves from the sidewalk, wearing shoes at least 2 sizes too big on him, and to think that his job all day consists of walking around sweeping up the leaves and rubbish that is on the sidewalk, and that he has to shuffle his feet the whole time because otherwise his shoes will fall off. The subway was jam packed and so are the roads. Many rich people driving rolls Royce or BMW and a lot of muslims, but everything Is translated into 4 languages: English, Indonesian, Chinese, and hindi. Women are with high heels and mini's (yes, I am not in style with my long flowing white skirt, since all of the long flowings here are only the black dresses the musliim women are wearing.) The little singporean kids have lots of energy and are busy running around the airport and look like miniature adults; either they walk at a very young age, or they are just very tiny when they are 2 years old! It is strange to see the physicality here which is often expressed between couples by hitting one another on the face, shoulder, head, arm….can't imagine a Frenchman doing that to the woman he loves… As I look around I try and wonder if bali could ever be like this…but I don't think so, since it seems like everyone started with the same raw materials but Singapore has definitely headed towards technology and wealth, and bali seems much more rooted in tradition and religion. People here are friendly towards tourists and have offered their help without me even asking (again me wondering how they even know I am a tourist, forgetting that I don't have slanted eyes and a flat face like them!) Recycling is big here, and it is good to see. In the airport they have recycling centers for newspapers, canned drinks and plastic bottles, all designed just like the object itself, just 200 times bigger and with a slot to put the item in. the metro uses plastic cards which are reusable and that you pay $1 for each time, and then get a refund when you put it back in the machine at the end of your trip…brilliant. All the cards are the same, but you have incorporated into their memory the price you have paid and the route you will use. Riding the metro was interesting, seeing how things have been designed with peoples needs in mind, like the triple poled stand so that many people can hold on while the train takes off with a slight jolt, and there is enough hand space and privacy for one and all. The map route lights up so you know where you are, where it is going, and even has a light on the door showing you which door opens on which side, preventing confusion. Rushing to add a few more impressions before the battery goes…(Singapore has a different electric outlet than all the other ones I have used, so couldn't recharge the laptop)…meeting mr. malik (abu yusef) was a challenge in the lobby of the grand hyatt hotel…neither of us knew what the other person looks like, and there were all kinds of people waiting in the lobby, and I kept trying to guess which one looked like a muslim (as compared to Christian Singaporean, hidu Singaporean, and all the foreigners…) he came almost an hour later than planned but I asked someone to use their cell phone just to make sure I wasn't going to end up having to spend another night on the floor of the airport and having to buy a new ticket to bali If so…I was waiting by a woman and daughter and when he finally walked in he waved to the 3 of us and it turns out that he was arranging her Balinese visa too…what a joke, and that she has a 3 bungalow resort on the north west coast of bali…in the end I went with her and her daughter to "little India" here in Singapore, and finally felt "at home": incense, flowers, music, real people, …it is only when I actually am IN real places do I know that this is what I need, and the rest of the time I just feel like I am from another planet, and am like a zombie walking around not understanding why everyone seems so comfortable with modern living, except me. I looked for a typical family restaurant where I could eat an authentic Indian meal, and went by the old rule "eat where the natives are eating" and so after I scanned them out, I went back to the crowded one and laughed to myself as I sat down, recognizing that the only other anglos were the man (from japan) and the American woman that had slept on the floor in the airport near me ….how all 3 of us found this original real restaurant left me amazed again at gods timing….how did we both leave the airport and end up at this restaurant at the same time, out of all of Singapore (and then hours later be standing at exactly the same metro station buying tickets for the same stop which had nothing to do with the airport….?!! The food was great, and I was happy that only after I finished did I start looking around at the décor and realized they had a certificate framed above the man taking the money at the cash register and it had a big "C" on it, when I tried to read the small print it said "Average in hygiene and cleanliness" …god willing it will all stay down and I will arrive in bali healthy after having drunk a litre of water from their faucet while I watched the Indians also drinking it but not putting their lips to the metal cups….(I assume out of hygiene…but when I tried imitating them I realized how much practice I would need to do that simple "pouring" water into my mouth) Off to meet mr. mallik with my visa and back to the airport for my night flight . I think the word "pink" pretty much summarizes Singapore for me….lots of men wearing pink shirts with their suits, or pink shorts, and there are pink houses, and it just seems "pretty and pink" and enough for my short transit stop for me.
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