Singapore

Port #2, Singapore . I’ve been there twice before on a deployment in 1999. I really don’t remember too much of it, mostly due to alcohol and it doesn’t help that it was 10 years ago too.

One of the things it’s known for is how clean it is and all the crazy laws they have. It’s not quite as clean as I remembered but it’s still pretty clean. It’s illegal to spit, chew gum in public, smoke & walk, jay walking (and they actually will fine you). Any kind of vandalizing is an automatic caning, there’s some other things that will get you the cane too, but I’m not sure what they are. This is one of the shirts they sell there, all the fines for the laws on it are true.


The first day I had duty so that was pretty much a wash. It is probably the best day to have duty since we usually lose a little time waiting for them to let everyone off the ship. We actually had a pretty mellow night on the ship too. Not too many drunks coming back hurting themselves or getting in too much trouble. The most we really had to do was make sure everyone from the department made it back before curfew.

Then the next day I got up nice and early to meet some of the others that were already at a hotel they stayed at the night before. Once we all got together we just started walking, I don’t think we knew where we were going yet. We decided we were hungry right in front of a Chinese restaurant. It was far from my favorite place I’ve been to, but it was ok. They had mostly seafood so I didn’t have much of a choice. After that we kept walking until we found China Town. They have 4 areas, or as the tour called it “4 cultures of Singapore ”. China Town , Little India, Arab Street , and the last was minorities. We spent a good amount of time in China Town . Lots of alley shopping and little food carts, great opportunities to bargain shop. They had everything
from pencils to high end electronics.


We also found a pretty cool temple that was right at the beginning of the street where the venders were. They had TONS of Buddha’s on the walls inside, every one of them had something different in their hands. The first day I was the only one with a camera and it was my phone so hopefully the pics are ok. I stole a lot of pics from the people I went out with the other days so they should be better.

All the little Buddha’s.

More inside.



In front of the Temple



That night before we went back to the ship we went to Orchard Blvd. Basically that’s just downtown. Not to much different that any other large downtown I’ve been in before. Huge malls & movie theaters and places to eat and a few hotels in between. We walked around and ate at Hard Rock Café. That was a disappointing & expensive experience. The rest of the night was good though.


The second day I went on one of the tours they sell on the ship before we pull in. It was for the Zoo & Bird Park . It wasn’t too bad but we didn’t get to the zoo until about 1000 and had to be back at the bus to go to the bird park by 1200. Not nearly enough time to see the zoo. We figured out later we should have just stayed at the zoo and taken a cab back to meet the others for a party work was having. More on that later.

We saw some pretty interesting animals at the zoo.

This is a monkey that to me looks like it came right out of a Dr. Seuss book.


One of the others I liked was the baboons

If you look close you can see the one on the end has a VERY little newborn holding on to her.

The rest was pretty much normal. The cool part of the zoo is that none of the animals are caged. They are kept a safe distance by motes or other devices. One part had a Orangutan swinging on a branch right above us. Nothing at all was stopping it from dropping down onto the sidewalk. I wish we didn’t have to rush so much though.

The bird park was pretty cool but nothing really to talk about much there. A bunch of birds flying around and a train you could take to get around.

From there we went to China Town for a couple minutes and found our way to Clark Quey. It was where we were having the party for work and was conveniently only one train stop away from China Town . We got there about an hour early so we walked around a little. There were lots of clubs and chain restaurants in the area. We were going to eat at Brewerkz.

Clark Quey, it reminded me a little of the river walk in San Antonio .



On the other side of the river we found a little place that served only Singapore Slings. We figured we were here so why not try one were it all started. It was great! strawberry, pineapple, gin and a couple other things. It was REAL good though.


Next stop was Brewerkz Micro brewery for dinner with everyone from work.



That was pretty much the end of the night. Took a cab back to the ship and got some sleep.

The last day we just went back to Orchard since I found out there was a build-a-bear and wanted to go make one for Dawson . That was much more of an adventure than it needed to be. The guy that told us about it pointed us in the complete opposite direction so we walked up and down the street a couple times before finally finding it. It was worth the walk though. I’ll be sending Dawson his new bear soon. Then off to Chinatown for some last minute shopping. I had been eyeing a few things for a couple days and couldn’t decide what I wanted to get so we went back and finally found what I wanted to get.

That was it. I’m glad we’re coming back to some of the places I’ve been before. I remember that I had fun when I was here before, but that’s about it. Now it’s more about appreciating where we are and getting to experience it without double vision.