denbushi | blog

 

 

I went to Singapore once when I was in the service, staying for only a handful of days, seeing the sights and going clubbing in the evenings. I met a kiwi there by the name of Shane Hale who lived in Thailand most of the year and knew his way around Singapore’s night scene. He took me to a great dance place called Club 369. This was years ago.

Ten or more, I’d say. So this time around I thought of the trip as my first ever, which added to the excitement. It would be a short trip, three days or so, but any opportunity to get out of Tokyo during the perennial Time of Great Sweating is a good one as far as I’m concerned. Fly out Thursday evening, back in Tokyo Monday morning. A long weekend in everyone’s favorite city-state, Singapore. (The locals like to shorten it to “S’pore,” but whenever I see this in print my mind always thinks “spore” and flashes back to my first encounter with the word, conjuring up vivid images of a love-drunk Spock, adorned with flowers and grinning moronically in that episode where he finally gets a taste of emotion after veering too close to some guerrilla geraniums. I’m sure I’m the only one.)

I had business to attend to on Friday, and planned to spend the rest of the weekend playing and exploring the city. This was the plan, anyway.

I got into town at around one in the morning, S’pore time. I take a taxi into town, find my hotel, then strike off in search of something edible. The evening meal on the plane (Spore Airlines) had been damn tasty, but some hours had passed since then. I was hungry and thirsty and in unfamiliar territory, and needed to acquaint myself with some sustenance and the immediate vicinity.

The only problem was that I was completely broke.

I had no money because, like a fool, I thought I would simply exchange some cash on the Spore side. But then I got there and I was tired and shuffling through the airport with all the other weary travelers at one in the morning, and in my dim state forgot to exchange some cash. So I had zip. I mean, I had a bunch of yen, but being in Spore this meant that I had, y’know, zip. So I managed to borrow the last twenty or so Spore dollars my co-worker had on him and took off in search of food.

For a long while I didn’t find any. But I did find a cash machine. And unlike in Japan where ATMs stop working at seven P.M. or so (and earlier of weekends!), this one was humming softly in an open-for-business kind of way and sporting a dazzling array of cash network symbols. Gleefully I whipped out my cash card (it went whishk), manipulated the familiar controls, snatched up the neatly stacked tongue of Spore cash the machine produced, then skipped away from the machine and its trilingual Thank You message in the direction of some distant bright lights my mind assured me were the refracted neon glow of a pulsating Diner sign.

Ten minutes later I stumbled into the only late night Food Court in the neighborhood. It had a large, jewel-bedecked and well-lit Ganesha figure on display in front. I greeted it on the way in. (I’ve always been fond of elephants.) The Food Court was a large, outdoor affair that offered scads of seating in the form of patio furniture (white plastic chairs and tables) with attached parasols. Restaurant stalls lined the right and back walls of the place, offering myriad items described in garish Malay and Chinese text, most of which I couldn’t read. “Okay,” I thought, and started walking down the right-hand side, peering into each booth as I strolled past, hoping the rich pattern-matching features of my human brain would discover something both I and the restaurateurs would classify as Food. At about the third stall a trio of Chinese men rushed over to induce me to try some of their fare, which, upon inspection, looked pretty damn good. Twelve or so large dishes had been set out in front of the place just below some meekly ambient heat lamps, including a variety of vegetable dishes, simmering meat stews, fish, noodles and rice. I began pointing excitedly.

“That, that, and that. Oh, and that, too. And a beer, please. No, the big one.”

They gave me a group thumbs up and went to work. Shortly they brought over the dishes I had ordered, a large Tiger beer (Tiger beer is yummy), and a fork and spoon set the size of gardening tools. I looked at the utensils. I looked at the guy. He was looking at me, and smiling. I smiled back and said, “Qing, gei wo kuaizi” (Can I have some chopsticks?). He smiled more broadly then, and went and grabbed a pair.

The food was good but could have been warmer. But it was nice outside and the air felt good, the beer was tasty and I was feelin’ grand. There was a table of Japanese businessmen next to me, chatting about the cool weather and their impressions of Singapore. I’m not sure why, but I felt glad when they left. Maybe they were stepping on my fresh Foreign Experience there in the food court, who knows. Some Americans wandered in after a while, probably like myself having just gotten into town. They were dressed in the standard uniform of technology geeks everywhere: khaki dockers, polo shirt shirt (tucked in), proud belly and requisite black leather computer bag with matching shoulder strap. One guy ate noodles while the other one read a computer magazine. We ignored each other.

I finished eating, smoked a cigarette, and went back to the hotel. Mine was a small room in a small hotel. At my company we seem to prefer frills-free travel, so it’s usually coach seats and No Star accommodations. Too bad for me. The bed, however, was queen-sized and sported a firm mattress. It was the first time I had slept in a “real bed” in many months. Slumber beckoned, I responded instantly.

Friday morning I a breakfast of beans and fried rice with coffee, then left the hotel in search of our office, located some hundreds of meters distant in the well-known shopping mall/office park known as SunTec. It boasts the world’s largest fountain, but on seeing it I had my doubts. I’m guessing they were working from some volume-of-water benchmark or something when they made that lofty claim. SunTec is a huge five-building commercial complex where the buildings are arranged so they form the vertical fingers of a huge, cupped palm. The fountain sits at the center of this, and is supposed to signify a grand, ongoing influx of wealth. Or so I was told. Three times. They said it was a feng sui thing.

At the base of the complex, for maybe three floors, is a large shopping mall. It looks much like shopping malls everywhere, with electronics boutiques, Gap progeny, and designer outlets for labels like Hugo Boss and Armani. I was forced to navigate this gleaming, frenetic commercial maze for nearly twenty minutes before locating the elevators to the towering office space (the fingers) of SunTec.

So on Friday I worked. It wasn’t really work, of course. It was meetings and notetaking and nodding at the right moments, stuff like that. And when work was finished I took off with some co-workers to explore Singapore.

Singapore is gorgeous, and even more so at night. We headed for the riverfront area in search of food and fun, finding both. The “Singapore River” (catchy, that, but predictable, perhaps, for a city whose small scale offers but one of many such things) runs through the middle of the city, and the surrounding area seems to me to have been developed with livability and tourism firmly in mind. In Tokyo there is a famous river running through the middle of the city as well, called the Sumida River. Compared to the Singapore River, the Sumida has simply been, well, developed. You can take boat tours down the Sumida River, and on both sides for the duration of the trip there is an unbroken stretch of the same bland gray and brown buildings you find everywhere else in Tokyo. I’ve been up and down that river by boat and on foot, and I’ve not once seen a single outdoor cafe or other noteworthy use of public space. Buildings, more buildings, and then more buildings after those. It’s almost depressing in contrast, but Tokyoites apparently find it attractive. But then they also enjoy hollow florescent lighting, and the more the better. I think it says something about either aesthetic sensibilities or space constraints, but I’m not sure which.

The Singapore River, on the other hand, is breathtaking. A bridge crosses the river at some point in the middle of the city. To the left lies the Boat Quay, and to the right the Clarke Quay. The Boat Quay (which sounds remarkably like the Japanese word for erection when spoken by the locals) offers a plenitude of clubs, pubs and bars. Outdoor seating is the order of the day, and parasol-topped tables line the riverfront for a kilometer or better. Music pours out of the clubs as you walk past, a cacophony of techno, jazz and dated American rock and dance tracks.

The Clarke Quay side is mostly restaurants, again providing abundant outdoor seating and a splendid view of the river. Chinese riverboats, low and flat, pass by throughout the evening, red paper lanterns swaying gently and the figures of relaxing passengers visible through narrow openings that run the length of the small craft. The selection of restaurants is impressive, from upscale seafood joints to Italian cafes to Hooters. Music is piped in through speakers mounted in trees or performed live on tiny platforms in front of the main building. As we walk along the river we see a refurbished junk lying off the left, presenting a dozen or so tables done up nicely in white linen and green cloth.

At the end of the Clarke Quay the sidewalk veers back to the right, entering a modest night market and, further within, a food court specializing in Malay, Chinese and Singaporean fare. The Satay and noodle dishes here are a local delicacy, my friends assure me, and we make our way over the center of things. On the left lies a long row of semi-permanent food carts, and hawkers line the path as we proceed further, beckoning us in Malay, Mandarin and Tamil to enjoy whatever they happen to be offering. My friends are after Beijing-style noodles and Satay, so we search for those as we wind our way through the thick evening dinner crowd.

All of the seating is outdoors, and comprised of well-worn, brown oak picnic tables like what you might find in any park in any American city, except slightly dirtier. The crowd is diverse, and I’m surprised by the number of families gathered there, devouring large platters of noodles and rice, curry dishes, and, of course, Satay.

In Tokyo if you order Satay at a “Thai” or Pan-Asian restaurant you’ll usually get two skewers of marinated meat for around five bucks US. In Singapore you ask for Satay for three and you get a platter overflowing with grilled steak and prawns. Thirty or more skewers, if I remember correctly. For ten dollars. And fucking good, too. The noodles arrived via handtruck on a platter the size of Delaware, and were no disappointment either. The food, night air, and chilled Tiger beer made me think I had died and gone to Heaven. It was pure bliss.

After gorging ourselves on beer and noodles and satay we were ready for drinks, so we struck off on foot for a club. En route we happened to pass the main government building, where rehearsals were well underway for the National Day Parade later that week. The NDP is one of the biggest Singaporean events of the year, and include a paid holiday, a spectacular parade, and boundless Go Singapore enthusiasm. The government building was a large stone edifice on the European model for such things, replete with columns and an expanse of stone steps running from one end of the building to the other. A large dias and podium had been erected in the center of these steps, with bleachers installed all the way down both sides. Directly across the street was a vast parade ground/sports stadium (I wasn’t sure which) that had been festooned with ten or so massive video screens and was dominated at the center by a gigantic blue orb. With constellations or something etched into the side that glowed with an eerie, Nationalistic yellow. Maybe it just seemed that way at the time. Music was blaring and video screens were flickering and laser lights were arcing this way and that, alighting on the orb occasionally for a real Close Encounters kind of sensory whallop. It was very exciting, and this was just the rehearsal. I wanted very badly, then, to be there on The Big Day.

We hung out for a while, just watching things happen. You could tell that the real event was going to be pretty spectacular, but on this evening, five days before National Day (catchy, that, too) there were mostly placeholders marking the ground on which immense crowds would soon surge and dance and sing and do their best to embody Singaporean-ness. At some point they (the placeholders, and some other guy near the orb) broke into a song I had heard on the radio earlier that day that reads like this:

There was a time when people said
That Singapore won’t make it
But we did
There was a time when troubles
Seemed too much for us to take
But we did
We built a nation
Strong and free
Reaching out together
For peace and harmony

Chorus :
This is my country
This is my flag
This is my future
This is my life
This is my family
These are my friends
We are Singapore, Singaporeans

Singapore our homeland It’s here that we belong
All of us united
One people marching on
We’ve come so far together
Our common destiny
Singapore forever
A nation strong and free
(Spoken pledge) ・

(Sung)
We the citizens of Singapore
Pledge ourselves as one united people
Regardless of race, language or religion
To build a democratic society
Based on justice and equality
So as to achieve happiness
Prosperity and progress for our nation

We are Singapore
We are Singapore
We will stand together
Hear the lion roar
We are Singapore
We are Singapore
We’re a nation strong
And free forevermore

Chorus

We are Singapore, Singaporean

This was, of course, accompanied by a video track that presented a multi-ethnic sampling of Singaporeans (”What, no Whitey?”) singing along, looking quite starry-eyed and altogether suffused with homespun Singaporean ethnic tolerance and nationalistic fervor. I swear I wanted to renounce my pitiable American citizenship right then and there.

But we were all thirsty, so we decided to go to a club instead.

We arrived some minutes later at The Spot (a fictitious name for the actual place, whose name I’ve since forgotten) and descended a flight of stairs before arriving at the first of two lower levels. The building had been a church or something and was still host to many weddings and special events and whatnot, but now it was mostly home to some popular dance clubs and other drinking establishments. On this level there was a large open-air courtyard with subdued lighting and ample seating. People sat (amid the seating, which was, as I mentioned, ample) and sipped wine and chatted in the cool evening air. It was lovely, and I wanted to stay. But instead we pressed on, down to the next level.

We passed the entrance of one of the more popular dance clubs before entering another, larger outdoor courtyard. The (bad) music from the dance club, as well as that from a number of other ones that bordered the place, could be heard clearly. We scanned the hundred or so tables out there in search of an available spot and finally found one, off to the left and next to an expansive, misting fountain. We ordered drinks (these were less cheap than most other things I had seen in Singapore, by the way) and passed the next few hours talking and trying not to sweat too much in the humid evening air. It was great, and I was reminded more than a few times as I sat there that Tokyo, as huge and diverse as it may be, has nothing whatsoever like it.

This made me reconsider the idea of “livability” for the first time in a long time, and how completely satisfying the right space can be. Everything I had seen that night had been beautiful, from the river to the buildings to the streets and lighting to the almost ludicrously propaganda-ridden NDP preparations. In Tokyo you think it’s a big deal if you can score an outdoor table right next to a busy downtown intersection, and have to work hard to find a place where you can fill your vision with lush greenery or architectural beauty. Beauty for it’s own sake. It made me think, to be sure. About livability. About the benefit and appeal of simple things like space and what you see and where you happen to be. And why the moon looks so much larger near the horizon that overhead. And why they serve red wine chilled in Tokyo. Anyway, it made me think that maybe it’s all a simple matter or perspective.

We made a plan as we sat there to catch a ferry to Indonesia the following morning. Forty-five minutes from Singapore and you arrive in Bintan, a resort area offering wide open beaches and a possibly stable political climate. We firmed up the schedules for the next morning and called it a night.

 

Bintan Bound

 

 

The ferry for Indonesia left at shortly after nine a.m. My companions hadn’t arrived by the time we set sail, so after fretting for a few moments about their either being late or already onboard (I arrived five minutes before the last boarding call) I decided to check in and make for the dock. When I arrived some moments later there were two ferries waiting there, not one, and I chose the one on the left. It was more or less full when I climbed aboard. I scanned the spacious passenger deck in search of my friends, but they were nowhere to be found. I took the last empty seat, right next to an Australian woman and her two well-mannered kids.

The hatch was sealed and the engines came alive, and then we started to move away from the dock. A young girl sitting on the floor next to me had a cell phone, and after a moment’s consideration I asked her if I could borrow it to locate my still-absent friends. “No problem,” she said, handing it over.

I dialed the number of one of the two who should have, at that moment, been seated next to me, and the phone rang twice before she answered.

“Hi. Say, um, where are you?,” I asked.
“In a taxi. We’re going to be a little late.”
“Oh. Well, the boat’s pulling away from the dock. And I’m on it.”
“We’ll only be a few more minutes.”
“Yes, but the boat. The dock. Pulling away. Like, um, now.”
“Pulling away.”
“Yep. From the dock.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“How about this: you guys grab the next ferry, and I’ll meet you at the hotel, okay?”
“Okay. The Bintan Lagoon Resort Hotel, right?”
“Right.”
“Got it. See you there.”
“Cheers,” I said, and broke the connection.

I passed the phone back to the girl with offers to buy her breakfast or something refreshing by way of thanks, but she would have none of it. Singaporeans are nice that way.

As soon as we were underway the two kids next to me morphed into pint-sized banshees, and proceeded to set about wailing and running amok that might earn one the death penalty were we in Malaysia, and which didn’t subside until we were moored at the other side. It realized eventually that the thirty-something man seated one row in front of us was actually their father, and that he had chosen that seat in hopes of escaping the chaotic tumult that ensued. Whenever his wife would call over the seatback to ask for a coloring book or play-toy or handcuffs or whatever he would simply crane his neck around, baring his teeth and scowling at her until she grew silent. The children, seeing this mini-drama unfold, would only grow more berserk, leaping on her Chucky-like, brandishing plastic utensils and baying for attention. For my part, after reminding myself again that children were probably a pleasure I could do without, I whipped out my trusty laptop and headphones and buried myself in Tool MPEGs and Naomi Klein’s excellent No Logo.

Before long the trip was over and we arrived in Bintan. I disembarked, walked down the rickety plank and made my way through customs. I was bound for a resort hotel I had found the previous afternoon on the web, and a bus was there waiting as I walked out of the concourse. I climbed aboard and waited a few minutes, and then we were off.

There was nothing to speak of between the “port” and the hotel, save lush countryside and wooden signage pointing the way down narrow asphalt roads to other resorts. We arrived at the Bintan Lagoon Resort Hotel before too long and I climbed off the bus and surveyed the reception area.

It looked like a resort. Big, grand entrance, palm trees everywhere, lots of hotel staff in beach attire. “This will do nicely,” I thought, and went to get a room.

Getting a room, I thought, would be a simple affair. The web site said there were over four hundred rooms at the Bintan Lagoon Resort, so surely there would be at least one or two rooms available. But the horrible reality, expressed to be in forgiving tones by the friendly desk clerk there that morning, was that there were, in fact, no rooms. No even one. This would be the first hiccup of the weekend. I thought that maybe I had misheard.

“I’m sorry, did you say no rooms?”
“That’s correct, sir. No rooms.”
“But the web site. I looked at the web site. It says four hundred and fifty-two rooms.”
“That’s true. And they’re all full.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. Are you sure you don’t have a reservation?”
“I’m sure.”
“Would you like me to call around and see if I can find a room at another hotel?”
“Oh God please yes,” I stammered.
“Just a moment, then.”

He got on the phone and spoke to someone in rapid Indonesian. I thought it sounded a lot like Tagalog, but what do I know. Not Indonesian, that’s for sure. He paused and cupped the receiver, saying, “I found a room at the Nirwana Gardens. One-hundred fifty-five Singaporean dollars (about what I might pay for dinner at a decent restaurant in Tokyo) for the night. Do you want it?” I nodded frantically. He resumed his conversation with the person at the other end of the line and then hung up. He began to write on a small scrap of paper. “See Mr. Yudi when you arrive. A shuttle that will take you there will be leaving in fifteen minutes. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

I said, “Thankyouthankyouthankyou” or something close to it, bowed (I don’t know why) and strolled over to the bar. I ordered a glass of white wine and carried it out to a table near the entrance where the shuttle would arrive. Then I remembered to call my friends and notify them of the change in plans. And then it was off to Nirwana Gardens.

Nirwana Gardens was a step or two down from the palatial Bintan Lagoon Resort, but I was in no position to complain. Stepping out of the shuttle bus I thought, “This, too, will do nicely.” I checked in, then took a seat on the elevated balcony, taking in the view of the expansive swimming pool that lay below and the cool, green ocean beyond. I re-read Yoshiyuki Junnosuke’s Nedai no Fune while I waited for my friends to arrive.

They arrived presently. We sipped cocktails while enjoying the tropical view from the second-floor balcony. Then we paid another visit to Mr. Yudi and received the keys to our rooms. Within thirty minutes we had dropped off our things, changed into swimwear and were bobbing in the hotel’s lagoon of a swimming pool. (We gave the ocean a toe test first, but the water was pretty damn chilly, and the pool had a bar island in the middle of it that was irresistible. It was an easy choice.) The water felt great, and went perfectly with chilled white wine. We spent most of the afternoon there and then took off to explore the beach.

Later we returned to our rooms and dozed, then wandered back over to the central complex to read and enjoy some coffee. As the sun fell behind the bungalows the sky caught fire in brilliant orange, red, purple and then deep blue. It was stunning. The resort grew even more lovely after the sun had set, with soft lighting in all the right places that added a rich amber hue to the dark wood of the walls and thick beams that stood throughout the semi-covered balcony. We killed time talking and playing ping-pong, looking forward to dinner.

We chose a well-known seafood restaurant some kilometers away for dinner that evening, and the food (mostly seafood dishes with a decidedly Chinese flair) was first-rate. We went through numerous bottles of Wyndham Estate’s Bin 444 Cabernet Sauvignon and never grew tired of it. The restaurant was on stilts over the water, and much of the sea fare on the menu had been hauled up from fishing boats through a opening in the floor near the center of the room. We made friends with our waiter, and he invited us to a beach party later that evening at the Mana Mana Beach Club, a watersports resort not far from our own. We bought another bottle of wine and headed straight over when we left the restaurant sometime around 11 p.m.

Things were well underway by the time we got there. An open bar and dance floor looked out over the ocean, separated by fifty meters or so of cool sand. We found a table and chatted while we waited for Khairudin the waiter and his friends to arrive. After a while they did, and we talked about life in Indonesia and the effects of the recent economic turmoil the country has faced. Finding work was difficult and education hard to afford. Khairudin spoke good English (thanks to classes and arduous self-study) and respectable Mandarin from watching television broadcasts from Singapore. He was 21, seriously motivated, and an engaging conversationalist. We all felt lucky to have met him and his friends.

We danced a bit and drank a bit more, and when the hour grew late we stumbled back to our rooms and slept the deep, exhausted sleep of sated hedonists.

We had to catch a noon ferry back to Singapore, so we were up early and off to breakfast before many of our fellow guests were even awake. The trip back was uneventful. Before long we were pulling into Tanah Merah, and then it was into a taxi and off to Singapore proper to do some shopping. Normally I wouldn’t add shopping to my list of activities while on “vacation,” but as a 188cm tall foreigner in Tokyo I find it extremely hard to find clothes that fit. And plus, Singapore is damn cheap. So I went crazy and shopped for clothes like a man possessed. There was no shortage of XL shirts and 36″ pants (I bought plenty of both), but I never could find shoes to fit my size 11 feet. I’m not complaining.

We went to an excellent Chinese restaurant for dinner that evening, and decided on the lobster because it was (you guessed it) cheap and also very fresh. The Chinese broccoli, mushroom and tofu hot-pot, and everything else were just fantastic. This was also refreshing, because it’s near-impossible to find good Chinese food in Tokyo. Don’t ask me why. Tokyo is full of Chinese people. Many of them preparing Chinese food. It should be good, one would think. But it’s not. And it’s only until you go to Singapore or Vancouver or Hong Kong that you realize it. Realizing it, I ordered more.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 11 p.m. that evening. My friends came to the airport to see me off, and I thanked them for the wonderful time I had there that weekend. Singapore is a wonderful city and I look forward to returning again and again. Hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to do just that.

And thinking back now as I try to come up with up a clever way to end this, all I can say is that I already miss it. Sitting here in my swank Yoyogi pad, I miss it very much.