THIS IS SINGAPORE LA.
For the past 10 or so days I've found myself in Singapore and to be honest I thoroughly enjoyed this time out from surfing. Singapore is an exciting place, mostly in that it is so different from South Africa. For one, the rampant, limitless consumerism is jaw-dropping. There are malls upon malls in this place and the excess of food, clothing, household appliances is mind-boggling. With new malls popping up everywhere, it is almost like Singapore has taken the pop-up store trend to a whole new level. On the other hand, there are still some clues of what Singapore must have once looked like. In between all the buildings there are still patches of sweating, sweltering jungle and once you get deeper into it, you can almost feel how terrifying it must have been to discover this place.
Off the top of my head these are some of the things that you should try to do while you are there:
1. Explore the malls. There is something for everyone and they are one of the bigger attractions in Singapore so you just have to. Start with Orchard Street and 313 on Somerset. Once you feel you're ready to take on something bigger go to Mustafas in Little India. It will blow your mind.
2. Take a ferry to Pulau Ubin, hire a bicycle and spend a day cruising around the island. This island is a part of Singapore, but nothing like it. It's fairly deserted, the vegetation is still pretty raw and is feels like time stands still there.
3. Go for the local food. Don't make the mistake of trying to order western food. Anywhere. Ever. The local food is diverse and excellent and western food is generally done pretty badly. I'm a really big fan of Yong Tao Foo which is a soup with veggies and different seafoods and tofus. It's delicious. You can get any Malaysian, Indian, Thai, Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, Indonesian food and I'm probably missing quite a few.
4. Explore Little India and China town. Also visit Arab street which is apparently quite trendy.
5. Explore the local music scene. There is a lot happening in terms of Singaporean music and a lot of money and effort is poured into promoting it. I met Stefan who founded GigOut which is a super cool free app that tells you what gigs are happening when in Asia. You should download it.
6. Get some locals to teach you Singlish. It's super funny!
7. Go to the Botanical Garden - plant and flower paradise!
Here are some of the photographs I took - forgive some "mistakes" in the images I am still learning to handle my new camera. My next stop is Indonesia and I am very much looking forward to getting into the water!