One fine city.

Back in April, after 7 or so months of traveling throughout Asia, I started to notice something:
my edges were getting a little frayed.

I officially hate myself for using a "funny cat" photo.

It seemed the daily wear and tear of the Amazing Asian race has left me in need of a little repair. So in my search for my next work contract, I looked to a city that had always interested me:

Enter Singapore.  

A city of approximately five million people, it's located off the southern tip of the Malay peninsula just north of the equator. Upon arrival, I immediately melted into a Canadian puddle of maple syrup by the mercury melting heat. After more than a year bouncing around SE Asia, I cockily thought that I had acclimatized to the daily punch in the brain box that are the temperatures here.
Apparently not.

I think I broke my everything.

Singapore heat is on a different level. That shit is seriously hot. To put it in perspective; it's about as hot as Charlize Theron......making out with Charlize Theron.

Because why not put this in a post about my time in Singapore?

Being this close to the equator, of course it's going to be Charlize hot, but the heat is red-bulled by the humidity to which my Canadiana ice blood was not accustomed. To kick things up a notch, the apartment I stayed in didn't have AC, so most nights I felt like I was sleeping inside a whale. Just a sweaty mess of gross non-sleeping. Most westerners try to avoid being sweaty and while Asia has taught me to suck it up, I still quietly loathe it. For me, sweat is like a hangover: I will tolerate its existence if it comes after a good time. That's it. I only want to be sweaty when I've earned it. Eating breakfast and sleeping are not acceptable sweat-worthy situations.
Singapore and I argued over this for every day of my time there.

My teeth are sweating.

Aside from the sweaty melting of me, Singa was a relief. It is a tiny little oasis in a desert of nonsensical Asian ways. While sure, they have their share of laws that make no sense and they have a weird fear of gum, but for the most part, they seem to be pretty reason based. They believe in "new age" ideas like not littering and having appropriately placed garbage cans (usually, trying to find a garbage can in the rest of Asia is like a bad game of "how long do I have to hold this?"). Also, the people of Singapore wait patiently without pushing through each other. They smile and are polite to one another. Not only that, nobody spits on you.
Really ground-breaking stuff.












Singapore is a big believer in aesthetics. They make sure absolutely everything looks top-shelf.
So many other countries in Asia couldn't care less about keeping it puurdy, instead looking like they took a page out of ThereIfixedit.com (worth the click). Not in Singapore though, because everything in this place is clean and nice looking. It looks like that first five minutes in a hotel room....before you tornado it with wet towels and boxes of half-eaten pizza.







Who am I kidding? There's never pizza left over.

Waking up in Singapore was kind of like finding myself in that movie "Pleasantville" (except without Tobey Maguire's movie ruining face).
It's just really...... swell.






Sometimes living in Singapore felt as if I was staying at some big resort. It just seemed so...maintained. It was a welcome relief from the daily wtf moments that usually come with Asia. After half a year of playing "what did I just step in?" it was amazing to be able to go outside for a jog.... although a jog in Singa isn't without its surprises...

From breathing the clean air to marvelling at the creative architecture that owns the squeaky clean streets, this is a city like no other. One that is overflowing with massive, Jumanji-like trees and lush vegetation throughout the dense downtown. It's an interesting mix. It's like Minority Report meets Jurassic Park but with more noodles and less Velociraptors:

So coming to Singapore was a relief because being from the beautifulness that is Canada, I tend to wilt  when not around nature for too long a period. Wandering around this stunning city replenished my red lining battery after the marathon of gross that is Shanghai and Bangkok (said in the most loving of ways).
But it wasn't just the landscape that got me. I had also forgotten what it's like to talk with people that actually understand me. Now, by understand I don't mean like me as a person or in the way that Gosling understands your love of scrapbooking, but instead in that very real sense of simply understanding wtf I'm trying to say. The words that are coming out of my mouth. You speaky English and I love you long time for that Mr. Singa.


And by the way, that's not racist.






This is racist.

Moving on.



Another awesome: After seven months of Asian taxi fails, I can't express the joy of just getting in a cab with a driver who speaks English. In a polite manner no less. One who understands things like directions and maps. This cannot be overstated.

For the most part, getting a taxi in Asia usually goes like this:

1. Get in taxi.
2. Get out of taxi days later with no money, twice as far away from your destination and confused about wtf just happened and life in general.

Slight exaggeration...

but only slight.

As happy as I was to hop in a Singa taxi, I rarely did because the country has really solid public transportation. After living in some of the worlds most congested cities, I have now come to love the freedom of not worrying about where to park my car. This is the exact opposite of how I felt before I started travelling. Alarm bells used to go off when someone would tell me they didn't drive because they "prefer to bike."

Can we take your car? Because mine is
kind of non-existent.

But my days of looking down on people who don't drive are long gone. After using the time-saving public transport in Asia, I no longer have a hate on for the whole bus thing. If anything, I think it really sucks that Canadiana doesn't make more of an effort in that dept. Good public transport=better city. Singapore's stellar busses and MRT are always on time, keeping the roads less congested and the air clean. Big win.

So for a city that is so easy to live in, it's no wonder there are so many foreigners. It is a haven for those looking for a western-styled life in SE Asia. 

And this is where I learned something about myself. After two months of living in Singapore, a place I had been very much looking forward to, a place with so many qualities that I appreciated; something felt.........off.
Something was missing for me.
It was like Puff Daddy (or whatever the fuck his name is) without Biggie.

Had Singapore been my first stop on this Asia trip, I'm sure I wouldn't have felt this way.
Life is just so easy in Singa and back when I first started travelling; easy definitely appealed to me.
I was....how shall we say..."skittish?"

Money belts: keeping your money
 and  losing your dignity.

You see, when I first got to Asia, I would usually go with the safe bets; whatever was easiest usually won me out. "Subway's up ahead? Hmmm....that won't make me sick....fuck it, I'm in."

But somewhere along the way, I guess something in me has changed.
I no longer want easy.
And I remember the exact moment I realized this:

A while back I had somebody ask me for my recommendations on a good all-inclusive resort in Thailand. A perfectly reasonable question to ask someone right? Well, I remember being flabbergasted (I'm bringing that word back)  at the idea of such a thing. Why on earth would you want to travel halfway across the globe to one the most beautiful countries in the world and then over pay for a western-styled misrepresentation of it? "Have you been to Thailand?" "Oh yes the chicken fingers and French fries at the resort buffet were delicious!" Using plum sauce instead of ketchup doesn't make it more Asian.

Fail.

It comes down to why you are travelling in the first place. Some people choose to travel to see the world, to learn other cultures and understand another point of view. Others travel to try and take their mind off work for a couple weeks and get a tan. 

I guess the days of worrying about my tan have long since faded. Kind of like my tan.
Maybe it was watching Asians slather on "whitening" cream to look whiter that put that shit in perspective for me.

Wait.... this doesn't make sense

And neither does this....

Singapore is often called the "fine" city and while that is a play on words about the truck load of things you can get fined for, it also hints of an underlying feeling that things are a little TOO perfect. That you're eating at a pretty little, Orwellian styled, resort buffet.
It's all nice to look at..... but it all kind of tastes like chicken. In fact, their most famous dishes is something called "chicken rice" and like you can imagine, it's chicken and rice.

Regardless of this, I did value you Singapore for what are. You were my vacation away from fucked-up shit like this...

Tastes like chicken?

It's just that after two months there I knew that I had to move on to a new challenge. A new Amazing Race. One that's sure to come with another round of WTF moments that will leaving me missing your easy vacation-like ways.
So Singapore, it's been real swell and I hope you don't take my thoughts on your fine city the wrong way. I mean it only in jest. Passive aggressive insults are just how we show love in the west and besides, If you think this is bad, you should see what I wrote about China.





So to you I say thank you. I came to your doors feeling like this:

and left feeling....

You gave me what I needed and showed me what I wanted. Thanks for putting it all in perspective Singapore.
Hope to see ya again soon.

 

A fine city indeed.