Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
The Round the Island tour is pretty interesting, if you are interested in military history, as it covers some of the WW2 stuff. You basically do a circuit of the island, in a roundabout kind of way....
We started off heading toward the Haw Par Villa, and we went via the ports - one or two of the six on the island, all built on reclaimed land and we could see where they are currently reclaiming even more. What they do, is use the earth displaced by digging out for the underground and the foundations for all the immense skyscrapers and use that to help fill in where they are reclaiming.
Haw Par villa was originally built by the older of the two brothers behind Tiger Balm, as a gift for the younger brother and his family. Unfortunately, it was badly bombed by the Japanese in WW2, so after the war it was demolished and he built a kind of theme park to display Chinese history and mythology and to encourage kindness, good deeds and good behaviour to all who visited it. It was open to the public and was I suppose one of the earliest fun parks. Now it's all run down and has been sold to the State for S$1 and is currently being refurbed and looks a little worse for wear. But it's cool and quirky and the 10 Courts of Hell section is definitely worth a visit - it's pretty graphic!
From there we moved to the Kranji War Memorial, dedicated to where the Japanese invaded and all the soldiers, from all around the world, who lost their lives. Found a bunch from the Suffolk regiment, which was my great grandfathers' - those boys were a long way from home. So many died, because the British army had recalled all the older, experienced troops back to the war in Europe, leaving the young and inexperienced troops in Singapore. Most of those who died were between 18 - 21.
Lunch was a Chinese set menu in a converted house by the straits to Jahore, where I discovered that US$ are not particularly welcome - which was a bit concerning!! Luckily they took my US$ for my drink, but I got a lousy exchange rate on it!!
After lunch, we went to the Bright Hill Chinese buddhist temple, which was huge and very brightly coloured. We didn't get in to see the Buddha statue, but did get to be taken around the rest of the temple. From the Temple, we swung around to the east side of the island, past the Jahore battery - a bunch of very big guns, which were pretty useless in WW2 (pointing the wrong way and the ammo so heavy the soldiers couldn't lift it) and onto Changi Chapel and Museum.
This was pretty heart rending, as it documents what happened to Singapore in WW2, when the Japanese invaded and how they were treated after the surrender. It showed what life was like as a POW in Changi and Sime Road Prison. Unfortunately wasn't allowed to take any photos inside, but to be honest, I'm not sure I would have liked to have photographed anything I read there. It was a bad as you think it was - the only good side, it only lasted a couple of years.
More things I learnt about Singapore from our guide - they have huge military budget and an army, navy and airforce. The whole island can be turned into an instant military base in case of war - for example, most roads here are not straight and have plants or trees to divide the lanes, but there are a couple of roads which can be converted into emergency runways - so they are dead straight and the lamposts are designed to be kicked over! The army are sent to whatever current war zone exists, in order to get real battle experience and they frequently have Israeli military over to help with the training.
Many of the parks are earmarked to be converted to farming, should there be a war or a serious falling out with one of their food suppliers. What farming there is is intensive farming or fast farming, which they again learnt from the Israelis. We also saw the huge truck convoys coming over the Straits of Malaysia to deliver food into Singapore and then turning right round and going back again, empty. Surprisingly though, none of the trucks were the huge kind you see in the UK or US - they were all the smaller kind, which I thought was a bit weird.
Got back to the hotel around 5ish and discovered I'd just missed the shuttle bus to Orchard Road - the nearest major shopping centre. However the concierge told me it was a 5 minute walk, so I walked there to try and find somewhere to buy a picture. Unfortunately, Orchard Road is not the kind of place where I would find the kind of picture I was after. If I was looking for a $10,000 picture I was going to be fine. Also, if I fancied any kind of designer label from the LVMH group down to TopShop, I was also in luck. So had a wander around the shops, moving from mall to mall, with probably as many shops underground as overground. Apart from a camera in the Sony shop, I didn't really need anything, and it's all very expensive, so went back to the hotel for dinner.
Planned on going to the Alfresco Cafe, but apparently this is not well served by the staff and the menu was pretty appalling, so ended up in the Hotel bar, where I had a beer and a pizza (I know, hardly very oriental cuisine, but I'd already had one chinese meal that day), at which point I stumbled back to my room and pretty much passed out!!
- comments
Alan Porter Sounds an interesting place. Did you see the harbour?
rowers Yep - briefly, but it's impressive!