There's a really crazy-intense public safety video shown on the Singapore MRT about terrorist bomb threats. It begins with graphic footage of the bombings in Madrid, London and Mumbai. Really, the last thing the humble commuter wants to see is pictures of bloodied corpses followed by the message that "we could be next!"
But anyway. Today I circled a stack of things on my map and Death Marched around the river and Chinatown. In short: Raffles statue, Merlion, Chinese temple #1, Chinese temple #2, pretty street #1, Sri Mariamman Temple, pretty streets #2 and #3, hawker centre lunch, bloody-spectacular-yet-not-on-the-map Chinese temple, market streets, boring mall #1 and #2, pretty street #4, and the Asian Civilizations museum. Phew.
I think there's three kind of streets in Singapore: modern and anonymous; colourful yet bland residential; and ethnically-aligned with old colourful shopfronts. I like the last one best.
Sri Mariamman Temple was beautiful, and there was some kind of prayer going on that involved pouring lots of milk on a statue of a god (couldn't tell which one) and some spectacular pipe / tabla music.
Hawker centres still rock.
I like Singapore a lot. On the downside, it has pretty oppressive public conduct laws, and it's still technically illegal to be gay, but on the plus side, it's beautiful, lush, successfully multicultural, exciting, safe, and full of Cool Stuff.
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