Interesting Day

The title is a bit redundant.  But anyway; I have been living in a super cheap hostel (like $10 a night) for the past week, waiting for the people in Shanghai, where I will be doing scientific research this summer, to finally send me the paperwork for my Visa.  The hostel is clean, but a very minimal operation.  They finally did, and I applied on Thursday, I think, and I will be picking it up on Wednesday: the day before my student's pass expires.  Then on Thursday, the 22nd, the day that my student's pass actually expires, I will be flying to Hanoi, for some as-of-yet unplanned adventures.

...

So, I got up at around 11, with no real plan.  After taking a shower and brushing my teeth, I headed down to the little corner cafe (really a food court with 4 or so stalls) for a lunch-breakfast.  For the past week I have been ordering a teh-ping (see a previous blog post for explanation) every day, so this morning they guessed what I wanted.  I also had some sort of Malay fried noodles.  It was a lot of carbs.

When I got back, I acted as money-changer for a nearly broke French guy who was just travelling in Indonesia.  Took his Rupiya's and gave him my SGD so that he could at least afford to get around the city before his flight home (which reportedly was at 5 pm my time).

I then went ahead and visited Geylang Road, really a historical area of the city, with interesting colonial architecture...

The three proceeding images are of buildings that were probably built in the 1920s (I know this because one of them had a date on it).  Take a look at this building built in th 1930's, though:

Can you see the Art-Deco influence?  It is art-deco-British Colonial-Malay fusion.

An aside on Singapore architecture; a lot of the old buildings have a very narrowly-winding spiral staircase in-back, including the hostel that I am staying at.  Here are some example-pictures that I took (first one in an area called Bugis, second in Geylang).

Overall Geylang road had a bunch of interesting shops selling Chinese medicine and things like that, and good-looking Chinese restaurants.

Oh. And Geylang is also the red light district.  Here is a blurry image of a restaurant filled with creepy Chinese men and prostitutes;  

not all of the restaurants were like this

Anyway, having seen that side of town, I thought that I would visit a wetlands reserve, but it was getting late in the day.  I needed to figure out how to get there, but I was out of pre-paid data for google maps, so I decided to take the MRT to city hall and find a 7-11 for a mobile top-up.  The thing is though, that  instead of just asking where the nearest 7-11 is, I started wandering around aimlessly, just hoping to run into one, so I wasted a bit of time in some uber-rich Singaporean underground (as in actual physical location) supermalls.  At one point I saw an open area in an MRT station where people were roller blading and break dancing; 

B y the time I found one (having asked), my cellphone was almost out of power anyway, and I realized that the wetlands reserves would be closing soon anyway, and they were kind of far away. But I just decided to take the MRT in that direction because I knew that there were some other natural attractions in that direction.

But my phone ran out of power, so I wound up at the remote Kranji MRT station, with no plans or ideas what to do.  So, I took the bus, got off, and started walking around. The first thing I noticed was that the demographics were different than in the other parts of the city; it was about 85% south asian men, probably foreign workers.  I went to a hawker center (food court) and got an egg Thosai, a kind of Indian pancake.  I ate it using only my bare right hand, which is good manners in India.  I kept on walking around.  I found several Indian groceries where they were playing Indian music; it felt like India.

 I got a super-sweet almond beverage.  It was good.

At this point I was reminding myself of my travel philosophy; you don't really need a plan, just go where you feel like it, and you will see something interesting.  A corollary to this is "If things can't be good, they can at least be interesting".  I came to this MRT station with no idea what I would find, but I was still having a good time.

At this point it is dark out, and I keep wandering. It is clear that this is a neighborhood where South Asian (i.e. probably Tamil Nadu + Bangladesh, but many other places too) workers live.  There are a lot of industrial warehouses and factories, and I can see that there are people still working, even though it is Sunday night.  

There was definitely a little mini street economy going on, as evidenced by a small barber tent with hair flowing onto the sidewalk.  The area was covered in trash, comared to the rest of Singapore.

I will admit that I felt a little bit out-of place, being the only white Guy.  But I thought of the time that my family went to a restaurant in Arlington called Pupuseria Doña Azucena; the situation was similar, and no one cared.  For the most part they guys just ignored me.  

What I was looking for was a place where all the guys would be hanging out.  I found it; the tables were covered in empty beers and dirty plates, and they were all watching some Bollywood movie. I got a plate of good Indian food, and a Tiger beer.  They commented on how I was eating my food with  my right hand, like an Indian.

Tomorrow, I am getting up a bit earlier, and will be going to the wetland reserve with my friend from France (not the broke guy mentioned above).