Day 245, Singapore
Superbowl Sunday here is stupid-early Superbowl Monday morning. But since whining and football don’t go together, we sucked in up and walked over to an Australian pub to watch it with a few hundred other committed Americans. The drinking started promptly at 6 am, in a serious way. That’s commitment to tradition, right there.
I settled for the non-typical Superbowl fare of scrambled eggs and Peppermint tea. The place was packed, we barely got seats, and those who came later ended up standing on the sidewalk outside. I didn’t realize forty percent of Singapore’s workforce are internationals. I think it’s a safe assumption to say the bar was packed with corporate types, bankers, finance, IT guys, and other professionals. They all had the day off because of Chinese New Year, and everyone was in a good mood.
After the game, Paul and I walked along the river to the downtown core. There is no garbage anywhere, no graffiti,
nothing out of order.
We got a steamed bun like the ones we had in Japan. There are boats shuffling tourists here and there, many visitors
from China and India.
We also saw a Toast Junction, specializing in toasted bread sandwiches. In cutures that are predominantly rice and
noodles, toast is more of a novelty. I just had to eat there, but came away with a Singapore noodle dish. Some things
never change. During all my years working at the university, my favorite lunch was the Singapore noodles at the
Sunshine Express, next to campus. I was wondering if I would actually find them here, in all their original glory.
Still searching.
Singapore is known as the garden city. An extensive tree planting and anti-litter campaign was introduced 1967 by the Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. He wanted to make the city a more pleasant place to live as well as showing the world that Singapore was well organized and clean, therefore a good destination for tourists and foreign business interests. What you don’t see it litter, there are heavy fines for offenders. What you do see, are trees in the most unexpected places, including cut outs in the middle of modern skyscrapers, tufts of greenery amidst the glass.
Check out the building on the right, half way up.
For Day 1 of Chinese New Year, we thought we’d go up to the roof garden to have our supper as a family. Having supper as a family isn’t unusual this year, not having supper together would be more unusual. But watching the Singapore skyline 24 floors up while eating is spectacularly unusual. Then there was a laser light show coming from the Marina Sands Casino on the waterfront, followed by a fireworks display in another part of the city.
Here are pictures from along the river where we walked.
The way the girls were playing in the pool together reminded me of when they were little. They were making boats out of leaves. Then we sat on the comfy couches and Cali directed the conversation to what superpowers we would like, or what would be our three wishes if we could have anything. My wish was to have a lot more times just like this one.
