Sunday, January 08, 2006
Hill street is at uh... ah... erm...
I have become the ultimate tourist in my own country. Yesterday, i had to bring around a visitor from New Zealand for a day tour of Singapore. Plan's simple. Just take him out to lunch, walk around the major historic sites and landmarks along the Singapore River for some educational and supposedly informative introduction to our homeland, then to town to soak in the rich, colourful, fast-paced, vibrant and 'happening' vibes of downtown life (read: materialistic, gaudy, overcrowded, noisy and chaotic), before finally ending up in Chinatown for a dose of uh, cultural and festive infusion (wadever)... voila... piece of cake mah...
YEAH RIGHT.
At the end of the 5 hours, i was exhausted, partly drenched, had a small cut on one of my toes, blisters, totally soaked through flip-flops, a sore shoulder, a even more sore throat, and basically a not so pleasant mood.
Lunch was fine - ate at the foodcourt at Raffles City and good thing that he really enjoyed the noodles. Gave him a piece of my keropok as well, but he didn't want to try my Nasi Briyani. Even the walk to the Parliament House, down along Boat Quay was cool. He was really impressed with the multi-cultural concentration of all the restaurants, pubs and shops there. Some good shots were taken and i was actually enjoying it myself. haha. Another good move was when i brought him into the Fullerton Hotel. There happened to be a live trio on the violin, viola and cello... really nice. Anyway, i always liked stepping into the Fullerton. Beautiful place. Our next stop at the Victoria Memorial Hall proved to be a lil' bummer for me... cos i was explaining about Sir Stamford Raffles to him, but realized that the only thing i knew was the "He founded Singapore in 1819". Fulstop. And then i went on saying, "And did you know there are 2 statues of Sir Stamford Raffles? One's black, as you see here at Victoria Memorial Hall, and the other one's white, which is situated at... uh... *scratch head*... ah... *clears throat*... (in a really small voice)... somewhere else. OK MOVING ALONG NOW..."
So we headed to Merlion Park. I wonder why every tourist get so fascinated by a half lion half fish thingamajig that spits. But it was here that i discovered a tourist shop which i never knew existed before. And so the local becomes the tourist again. By now, i was pretty tired, feet aching, brain tired from all the juicing it had to go through to extract all the bits & pieces of distorted Singaporean history that i had to struggle to fit together to present a rather unconvincing commentary.
And because i couldn't really figure out what was the best way to go to Orchard from the Merlion park, we flagged a cab. Not that it was ex anyway. $5 ONLY mah. And he paid. haha. Anyway, gg to town on a Saturday will be the biggest regret in the year 2006 for me. It's @#^@~!%^ crowded. Bad time there. Even he got tired. So embarassing. Some more got stranded cos of the @$#^%@!^ rain. Yeah, that's the part where i got partly drenched. And to make things worse, we got sardined into the tunnel of doom - the one at Wisma Atria leading to Taka. Let's see, the average amount of space between each human being in there was approximately 5cm. -_-'''
Chinatown. Basically, i had to explain why on earth our Chinatown doesn't exactly represent anything very Chinese, and why it looks so darn modern - My feeble response was, "er, sorry but this is Singapore, everything is modern and erm, if you're looking for anything authentic and traditional, you're barking up the wrong tree dude." Ok, something along those lines. So by this time, it was already 6pm and we had walked enough mileage to earn us Shell points for the day. You can be sure i was so happy to finally send him back to Swissotel and wave good-bye. Even though i was invited to dinner in the hotel, i kindly declined, giving a lie that i had to go home for dinner. And then, i was outta there...
I guess at the end of a longggg day, the only thing i wanted was to get food fast, easy and grab something that i could do while lazing at home. Solution: Fast food and a few DVDs. It was a restful and enjoyable night. Yup, i'm easily contented...
As for Hill street, well being the kind of person i am who always attracts the wrong attention, another tourist came up to me and asked me, "X-quese mui, doo yu knoww vhere iz Hill streez?" Poor tourist. What could i do? I am a tourist myself in my own country. So i sadly shake my head and said, "I'm sorry, but i don't know where myself..."
YEAH RIGHT.
At the end of the 5 hours, i was exhausted, partly drenched, had a small cut on one of my toes, blisters, totally soaked through flip-flops, a sore shoulder, a even more sore throat, and basically a not so pleasant mood.
Lunch was fine - ate at the foodcourt at Raffles City and good thing that he really enjoyed the noodles. Gave him a piece of my keropok as well, but he didn't want to try my Nasi Briyani. Even the walk to the Parliament House, down along Boat Quay was cool. He was really impressed with the multi-cultural concentration of all the restaurants, pubs and shops there. Some good shots were taken and i was actually enjoying it myself. haha. Another good move was when i brought him into the Fullerton Hotel. There happened to be a live trio on the violin, viola and cello... really nice. Anyway, i always liked stepping into the Fullerton. Beautiful place. Our next stop at the Victoria Memorial Hall proved to be a lil' bummer for me... cos i was explaining about Sir Stamford Raffles to him, but realized that the only thing i knew was the "He founded Singapore in 1819". Fulstop. And then i went on saying, "And did you know there are 2 statues of Sir Stamford Raffles? One's black, as you see here at Victoria Memorial Hall, and the other one's white, which is situated at... uh... *scratch head*... ah... *clears throat*... (in a really small voice)... somewhere else. OK MOVING ALONG NOW..."
So we headed to Merlion Park. I wonder why every tourist get so fascinated by a half lion half fish thingamajig that spits. But it was here that i discovered a tourist shop which i never knew existed before. And so the local becomes the tourist again. By now, i was pretty tired, feet aching, brain tired from all the juicing it had to go through to extract all the bits & pieces of distorted Singaporean history that i had to struggle to fit together to present a rather unconvincing commentary.
And because i couldn't really figure out what was the best way to go to Orchard from the Merlion park, we flagged a cab. Not that it was ex anyway. $5 ONLY mah. And he paid. haha. Anyway, gg to town on a Saturday will be the biggest regret in the year 2006 for me. It's @#^@~!%^ crowded. Bad time there. Even he got tired. So embarassing. Some more got stranded cos of the @$#^%@!^ rain. Yeah, that's the part where i got partly drenched. And to make things worse, we got sardined into the tunnel of doom - the one at Wisma Atria leading to Taka. Let's see, the average amount of space between each human being in there was approximately 5cm. -_-'''
Chinatown. Basically, i had to explain why on earth our Chinatown doesn't exactly represent anything very Chinese, and why it looks so darn modern - My feeble response was, "er, sorry but this is Singapore, everything is modern and erm, if you're looking for anything authentic and traditional, you're barking up the wrong tree dude." Ok, something along those lines. So by this time, it was already 6pm and we had walked enough mileage to earn us Shell points for the day. You can be sure i was so happy to finally send him back to Swissotel and wave good-bye. Even though i was invited to dinner in the hotel, i kindly declined, giving a lie that i had to go home for dinner. And then, i was outta there...
I guess at the end of a longggg day, the only thing i wanted was to get food fast, easy and grab something that i could do while lazing at home. Solution: Fast food and a few DVDs. It was a restful and enjoyable night. Yup, i'm easily contented...
As for Hill street, well being the kind of person i am who always attracts the wrong attention, another tourist came up to me and asked me, "X-quese mui, doo yu knoww vhere iz Hill streez?" Poor tourist. What could i do? I am a tourist myself in my own country. So i sadly shake my head and said, "I'm sorry, but i don't know where myself..."
// posted by superlambanana @ 4:21 PM 
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If it makes you feel better, me oso dunno where Hill Street is :P and dun even know there are 2 Stamford statues.
I totally hate the weather now, going out for me was like from one splashy, wet, soggy place to another. Never properly dry for a minute. Argh. Best time to just stay at hoooommmeee ZZZ. That's why humans are not aquatic!
*tip: hand dryers are GOOOD!
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I totally hate the weather now, going out for me was like from one splashy, wet, soggy place to another. Never properly dry for a minute. Argh. Best time to just stay at hoooommmeee ZZZ. That's why humans are not aquatic!
*tip: hand dryers are GOOOD!
# posted by 
: 1/10/2006 6:45 AM
: 1/10/2006 6:45 AM Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
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