Singapore Sling

(random notes from my first trip to Singapore)

Last Sunday I went to Singapore for meetings.  In my eagerness, I accidentally arrived on a holiday -- Eid-al-Adha or Bakrid.  Bakrid is a Muslin holiday and it literally means, the “Festival of Sacrifice.” It is the remembrance of Abraham’s intention to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience to God.  As you might remember, God intervenes to provide Abraham with a sheep to sacrifice instead.  Ergo lots of sheep and goats are sacrificed for this holiday and as I understand it, you do community service as well.  (I’m assuming feasting is involved at some point.)  

I think of half of Singapore was in my hotel – the Marina Bay Sands -- for the holiday.  It is this Vegas style hotel that has over 2,600 rooms in three towers and is topped off with a boat shaped park that spans all three towers.  The infinity pool on the 55^th floor is incredible and I have to say the club room is one of the best spread of food and high end drinks I’ve ever seen in a club room.  (I got upgraded cause I’m a brat.  I also got a snow globe cause they were slow with my bags.  A wonderful thing about Singaporeans is they want you to be happy.)

 

Singapore is a really interesting place.  My favorite bit about Singapore is that when you go through immigration there is no plexiglass between you and very cheerful agents.  Instead they give you candy.  One Hong Kong resident told me that this is a very old tradition. Today the lovely Changi Airport has its own brand of candy.  All this being said, it is Singapore, so next to the candy bowl is a wrapper bowl.  (No littering in Singapore please!!!)  It is sort of ironic that the abbreviation for Singapore in airlines lingo is SIN. Singapore is the size of about 8 Manhattans put together – but remember this is a country not a city.  (Small country jokes were created for Singapore -- like our country is so small we had it recarpeted last year.) Like Manhattan, Singapore is an island.  Being an island with thousands of non-residents coming and going every DAY, Singapore is a bit on the strict side.  On the back of the immigration landing card it says something to the effect of “if you bring drugs into Singapore we will shoot you.”  Americans probably remember the ex-pat kid who got caned.  I vaguely remember the story was he was caught chewing gum but actually he did admit to vandalizing cars and he may have been responsible for a rash of tire slashings.  (I asked about gum use and one cab driver (Cabbies are called Uncle) told me you could have some for “personal use” only.)  If Michael Bloomberg could be King of something, he would want to be King of Singapore.  

The country has been making the island bigger and they take great care to make park land.  Outside of my hotel they were building this huge carefully planned bit of “nature.”  With all construction in Asia the construction schedule was insanely fast. 

One of the coolest things about Singapore is the food.  You can get every kind of food in the world because everyone in the world lives here.  I actually never knew there were that many different kinds of Malaysian styles of cooking.  

Can’t wait to go back to Singapore.