December 2009 - Singapore

There are times in life when crap seem to pile up on your shoulders. In November 2009 I was going through such a time. The high point of it was when my father passed away suddenly and unexpected in the end of the month. In the wake of this, despite the mourning and the disturbing feeling, an extremely stressful time began which called for a getaway. That month the first exam related to my graduation was scheduled, along with two exams in my advanced level subjects. I realized that carrying this burden, worries and stress these exams might end up in a single big desaster. So I decided to drop out of everything for a few days.
Singapore was actually one of the very first destinations that came to my mind as meanwhile I had two very good friends there of who I knew that they would cheer me up. Despite that, Singapore offered so many possible experiences just waiting to be made that they would simply override everything that was currently resting on my soul. Last but not least a little sunshine and T-Shirt weather would make my mood improve as November with it's rapidly shortening days, thick layers of grey clouds, darkness and tristesse is actually the most depressing of the year.
With only about one and a half weeks preparation time, I wrote to my friend Tina and asked her if they had time to meet up with me and if I could maybe even crash at their apartment. That was not a problem at all and with her boyfriend Mikael, she was looking forward to my visit.

Wednesday, December 9, and December 10, 2009

Flight Hamburg - Dubai - Singapore

It was the last week of the transport industry's downtime between the late summer and Christmas seasons. Thus I could get a rather cheap flight with Emirates Airlines. A week later the same flight would have been more than twice as expensive. You could say that I took the last chance I had for my getaway.
I had checked in online and could take it easy at Hamburg airport. According to general advice I dropped my suitcase off three hours prior to departure. Since the flight was barely booked, this happened quite quickly and so I had a lot of time to kill at the airport before the gate opened. Since Hamburg is not a hub and passenger either depart or arrive here, there are barely any facilities for passing time.
I survived it though and when the Boeing 777 climbed into the already setting sun above the clouds at about 3:00pm I finally started getting some distance between me and all the trouble at home.

Fortunately I had decided to spend 100 Euros more to get the direct flight from Dubai to Singapore departing roughly two hours after my midnight arrival from Hamburg. The cheaper option would have been a flight with a stopover in Colombo departing the early morning hours and delaying my arrival in Singapore from 1:00pm to 9:00pm.
And so I did not have that much time to kill in Dubai. I took a walk through the terminal and the stores, got a little guest present for my hosts and spent the rest of the time reading before I could board the plane.
Seven hours of watching movies, computer games and sleep later the plane descended out of the perfectly blue sky towards little islands and turquoise water. The fantastic Far East, the paradisaical tropics, the big world city, the nice people I hadn't seen in too long, all this was close now.

Singapore!

So, there I was. The city of Singapore, subject to many songs, resembling the exotic, the destination of dropouts. In reality it is rather a pulsing metropolis full of life which already welcomes you at the airport.
I left my baggage in the baggage room and headed for the city. This Saturday the ZoukOut festival was taking place, said to be Asia's largest beach party. Tina and Mikael were going and had invited me to join them. Since ticket purchase was not possible online I decided to go to the Zouk Club, the disco which organized the festival, personally to purchase a ticket. Thanks to Google Earth I knew where to go and which route to take.
I took the MRT to Carke Quay - I had bought a Tourist Pass for the system with which I could ride the train without restrictions for three consecutive days. I admit that when I stepped out of the station I had lost orientation a little. Above the old houses on the other side of the street I could see the skyscrapers of the CBD. I knew these were located directly by the Singapore River, and so was the Zouk Club. I headed for the CBD to hit the river bank and follow it upwards until I reached the club. I turned around the corner of the line of old houses and found myself at Boat Quay. Later I realized that if I had turned left after leaving the MRT station, I would have hit the river bank after not even one hundred meters. But it was no catastrophe as I had plenty of time and started walking along the river.
There was one drawback though: the inhuman heat. Unfortunately I was wearing black jeans and a black shirt, on top of which my body was not used to this climate (by the time I left Hamburg, the temperatures had been around zero). The sweat had already started running amok down my skin at the airport so I bought a deodorant before even leaving the terminal building. It didn't help at all, the heat was stronger. And there I walked, in bright sunshine, estimated 90% humidity and brutal heat. But I survived this, too, and soon I was standing in front of the disco. Even though my appearance must have been abhorrent I was served with typical Asian hospitality, bought a ticket and headed back to Boat Quay. The year before when I was roaming the city in search for a McDonald's for several hours this had been the place where I had found what I had been looking for - and for the first time in life been confronted with the new McDonald's breakfast...
But now it wasn't breakfast time and so I found that restaurant by the Quay, bought a pack of Chicken McNuggets, a Coke and a cheeseburger and sat down on the steps leading into the Singapore River. Here in the shadow of the mighty UOB Plaza the temperature was bearable and the buildings drowned out the traffic noise to degrade it to a low background humming. The setting sun made the tall buildings by the river glow in a golden light, a pigeon was carefully walking up towards me. This was the moment I had come here for. As if someone had smashed the crust that had suffocated my heart with a hammer to make it burst, suddenly all the heartache, sadness, stress and sorrow were blown away. I took a deep breath, for the first time in weeks, and took a large sip of Coke. For a while I just sat there and let my senses experience the situation to the fullest. For a moment, time and space had lost all importance and I was living only for the here and now.

Just then my cellphone started vibrating. Tina had texted me asking if I had time to meet up with them now. The two had finished their shift at work and invited me for dinner at Bugis. What a question - of course I had time and finished my fastfood anyway. I packed up, wished the pigeon a nice day and headed for the Bugis MRT station where I caught sight of Mikael's blonde head overlooking all the short Asians in the station at once.
After our hellos we walked to the library and soon after looking for a nice restaurant to have dinner. I don't know if what we found can be called a restaurant. The food type is called steamboat, and the customer is cooking it. In the middle of the table is a cooking plate with a divided pot containing two soup bases: a spicy and a mild one. The buffet has all types of fresh ingredients, from parts of crabs to vegetables. The customer then just picks whatever they like and cook them in the soup. We cooked, ate and had a nice conversation. Later I headed back to the airport to retrieve my suitcase and was awaited by my friends at the MRT station.
We walked the short distance to their apartment where, after a short house tour, I could finally take a relieving shower and go to bed.

Friday, December 11, 2009

City tour

I woke surprisingly early and relaxed the next morning. Assuming my hosts had already gone to work I set up my laptop to look around the internet for inspiration for what to do today. That was when by accident I stumpled upon the website of the Tourism Academy @ Sentosa, the initial trigger for my plans of studying in Singapore. That is how big things start sometimes, very small and unexpected.

Suddenly Mikael stood behind me. The two were heading for work, "late as usual" as Tina explained. And so they were merely rushing through. We agreed on meeting in the city that night. Soon after they left I headed for the city as well.

I took the MRT to Little India and walked around the vivid and colorful district a little before continuing my journey to Boat Quay. Like the previous day, I walked by the river bank until I suddenly found myself in front of a Hooters restaurant. I hadn't known that there was one in Singapore and since it was lunchtime anyway I went in to have some of their legendary wings.
Full and happy I continued my journey by taking the MRT to Orchard Road which was said to be beautifully decorated. It was, but the picture of the green tropical street, people in T-Shirts and shorts combined with plastic snowmen and reindeers were a strangely grotesque, surreal picture. If there had been snow it would indeed have been a beautiful Christmas street.

Later that afternoon

I went back to the apartment. For now I had enough of walking around and sightseeing and decided to seek some quietness and peace to relax my mind and muscles. Mikael's and Tina's apartment complex had a huge pool that looked just too inviting. I found a chair by the pool and read a little before I went swimming for a few rounds in the warm water, watching the white clouds pass by over me. Once again in this big city I found the peace that my rural hometown was missing.

But then curiosity and the adventurer in me were stronger. I took the MRT to the Esplanade, walked to the Merlion, the Singapore Flyer, surprising how many kilometers one can walk in a city in one day. Tina texted me and we agreed to meet at Clarke Quay MRT station. I waited but something was holding her back so she didn't arrive in a while. Eventually, we found each other and I was introduced to her friend Maila. We went to a restaurant nearby to eat Fish'n'Chips. Mikael joined us here.

Nightlife

After dinner we sat down in a nice street Cafe to drink a few beers. I was told that we were meeting up with a few more friends of Tina in a disco. The two girls went ahead while Mikael and I drank another beer and talked a little more. As everything in Singapore this disco was easy to reach by foot. I was introduced to more people I instantly got along with very well. I liked the disco as well, as it was the complete contrary to our local small-town disco. Not dirty, with good music played, somehow modern. Fun on a whole different level than back in Rendsburg.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

Guided city tour

This time I had two locals with me and I got to know many interesting things about Orchard Road, specifically when where and how many new malls had been opened. We took a look at two new ones right on Orchard Road and enjoyed the view from the roof of one occupying a whole high-rise building.
Almost directly next to Orchard Road lies Fort Canning Park, the area of an old English fort, now a spot of green in the city with interesting rainforest vegetation. On the other side of the hill we descended right into the streets of Clarke Quay - why had I even bought an MRT pass?
Now was Mikael's big time: He bought parts for his new computer which we assembled back at home while Tina was keeping an appointment. Travelling haflway around the globe to assemle a computer - yes, and I don't regret a thing as this too is a part of the priceless experience of being a welcome guest in a foreign city.

ZoukOut

That night some friends, colleagues and neighbors of my hosts arrived. I didn't hear a fitting translation but where I come from this would have been called "Vorglühen". I may be translated with "warm-up" and it had all the elements I was familiar with. Alcohol, music, games and a nice get-together.
Later we headed out for Sentosa Island where the festival was taking place. The MRT turned out to be closed and so we took two cabs to get there.

ZoukOut was different to all the festivals I was used to. Bringing my backpack and wearing real shoes turned out to be mistakes. Instead of a meadow we were standing on fine sand and of course the music was different. People who know more about this will contradict but for me it fell into the category of techno. Officially it was a "Dance Music Festival" and I think I heard that the music was called House. Well, it is not that important. Regardless of what the music was called it was huge fun spending the night partying with my new friends and Vodka-Redbull, literally all night. Suddenly the sun was rising (in the tropics this happens really fast) and when the music was turned off it was 6:30am. Tired and worn out a few thousand people then made their way back to dry land where we also said goodbye to our group and went to eat something in the mall near Mikael's and Tina's apartment building before we went to sleep until the afternoon.

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Relaxed day

Of course, when we woke up we weren't fully repowered yet. Especially our feet hurt and so we decided not to attempt any big things. We met the neighbors Brad and Cate I knew from the previous night. We reserved the bowling alley in the apartment complex for later, and the three of us took a walk around the adjacent Little India.

After bowling with Brad and Cate we went back to Orchard Road to have dinner. I was not allowed to pay, as it was my last night Mikael insisted on inviting me.
My flight left past one but I had to drop off my suitcase until 11:50pm. When we got back to the apartment and I was set to leave it was already 11, too late to take the MRT to the airport and so Tina helped me catching a cab in the street. As it always is with cabs, it took way too long for us to find an available one. We exchanged goodbyes way too hastily and even though I was on the way now I was still nervous about arriving in time for check-in. Luckily the driver dropped me off exactly five minutes before the counters closed.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Flight Singapore - Dubai - Hamburg

The rest of my trip was not very exciting. On the plane I managed to find some sleep, during my layover in the middle of the night I ate a not very healthy Burger King breakfast and slept even more on the flight to Hamburg as there wer so few people I had all three seats all for myself.

Back home I was thrown right back into life. I didn't even have time to change my shorts into long pants, neither pull over a sweater (meanwhile it had snowed), because I had to drive to the bank with my sister. The next day I had to write a six-hour exam. But after all the short trip to fantasy city had helped a lot. Henceforth I approached all things more calm, nothing could put me under stress anymore and I was able to pick up life again. On top of all I had found a now favourite leisure activity: working towards my studies in Singapore.