Culture, Cable Cars...and Crime

It's a rainy Sunday, May 18, a good day to hole up and write. Recent weather pattern has been rainy mornings with overcast or clearing skies as the day progresses. Today, however, is stormy. There just went a big clap of thunder. We've been out and about exploring and playing tourist in the afternoons, the past two days in particular, and we had already decided to make this a lazy do-nothing day. We'll enjoy the playground or pool later as weather permits.

River walk at Clarke Quay.

We've really mastered the MRT, traveling farther and making transfers to other lines besides the North-South line. It is such an incredibly cheap way to get around town. On Thursday, we rode the MRT to the next stop south, Orchard, a word synonymous with shopping around here. Under one roof at the MRT exit there are nine levels of shops and restaurants that are part of Ion with many more retail centers next to this one. We have now familiarized ourselves with the four basement levels at Ion and discovered a couple of bargain places and a gourmet grocery. We still have five above ground levels to explore.

American themed watering hole along the quay
boasts the best wings.

On Friday, we went to Clarke Quay to experience more of the riverwalk. An incredibly muggy hot day, we crossed the river and ambled through the pedestrian mall, which was practically devoid of humans. This is clearly an afterhours locale for couples looking for food, drink and music. We took a taxi up the hill to the National Museum of Singapore. Again, we probably paid extra for what we think was a more circuitous route than was necessary. We did complain and the driver gave us a dollar off, so I guess that's how the game is played here.

A cafe at the interface of the historic and new structures of the National Museum.

The museum is a historic and stately neo-Palladian structure recently refurbished and with a modern glass addition to expand gallery, educational and dining space. The permanent collections include a warren of rooms describing Singapore's history. There are personal audio guides where you key in the number stamped on the floor or next to a display for details.

A rickshaw from Singapore's past.

Frankly, we got a little confused by the layout, which offered too many choices; but we enjoyed it and learned more about this amazing city state. Two other galleries we visited were about the local fashion industry, past and present, and a retrospective on Singapore's film industry, featuring clips in Malaysian, Mandarin, and Hindu languages catering to those ethnicities common to this region. The Museum will open an interactive kids' program later this month and there's a good chance we'll return for Sofie's benefit.

Hapny and Sofie admiring a fashion display.

On Saturday, we rode the MRT to the Harborfront and took a cable car high over the water to Sentosa Island, Singapore's equivalent of Six Flags.

A limited view of the massive harbor.

This was our first look at the industrial shipping docks and cruise line port. It is by far the largest port I've ever seen, which speaks to the strategic importance of the tip of the Malay peninsula. It was so strategic the Japanese saw fit to occupy Singapore during WWII. Our visit to Sentosa was more of a reconnaisance venture for a future return. Hapny and I agree this is tailor made for a father-daughter experience. There's a wave pool, waterslides, gocarts, a butterfly house, and much more than we encountered.

The Sentosa Merlion overlooks the harbor.

A prominent feature of the island is a scaled up replica of the Merlion, big enough for people to pay money to go inside and to the top of it. We were fine with snapping photos of it from outside. We finally encountered tourist souvenir shops we'd been looking for since our arrival in Singapore. Now I have my very own Merlion teeshirt at long last.

It's a riff on the three monkeys "see no evil, hear no evil..." etc., featuring merlion images making light of Singapore's strict laws, which carry hefty fines (like the $500 for chewing gum infraction that I inadvertently committed on day one here). Since then, I am careful to chew gum in the privacy of my room. Surely, that's allowed.... Speaking of law breakers, our resident rock star took a page from Justin Beiber's book a few days ago.

The guilty one.

I say rock star because anything Sofie sees that remotely resembles a microphone is immediately employed as such as many times a day as we can stand. I don't know if you were able to view on a previous blogpost the onomatopoeia song she recorded, but they're all her original material and unique to say the least, not to mention loud. Anyway, Sofie appropriated a piece of candy from a bin in a Seven Eleven store at our MRT stop; which is to say, she stole it. To her credit, she admitted the crime on the way home after consuming the contraband. She was firmly chastised and the following day we returned to the scene of the crime where she and her mother admitted the theft to the store manager, much to Sofie's chagrin.

Shameful apology at the scene of the crime.

It was somewhat disappointing that he graciously waved it off, so there was no lesson there to be learned. I won't mention the part where her sweet mother bought additional pieces of candy for us all, including the thief. Oops...I guess I just did! My apologies to Hapny. She's a soft touch.