I have a ton of pictures from Singapore, mostly of food and buildings. Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world, with a per capita GDP of around $70,000. It has the highest concentration of millionaires in the world, with 1 in 6 households being worth at least a million dollars US. A lot of these are expats, many American, who move to Singapore to escape US taxes, as Singapore does not require you to pay taxes on assets outside of Singapore. One notable example of this is Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, who renounced his American citizenship and moved to Singapore to avoid paying an estimated $67 million in taxes on the Facebook IPO last year.
And Singapore felt like there were millionaires everywhere. Prices were extremely high on everything except street food, which was actually very cheap. Singapore pretty much felt like the nicest upscale shopping mall you've ever been to, scaled up to a whole island. Which was a very weird transition coming from the poor countries of the rest of Southeast Asia, where most stores are just run out of the front of the shop owner's home.
The pictures will explain what I'm talking about a little bit more...
First water fountain I've seen in 3 months...
Dim Sum at Tim Ho Wan, a Michelin Star Dim Sum restaurant in the middle of one of Singapore's hundreds of malls. This is their famous BBQ pork bun. So good...
Tim Ho Wan is apparently the world's cheapest Michelin Star.
A Hindu temple in Little India. Singapore is a melting pot of ethnicities and cultures. 74% of Singaporeans are of Chinese descent, 14% Malay, and 10% Indian, with a lot of them being mixed. Also 40% of Singapore residents are foreigners, the highest in the world. This not only leads to many religions being practiced within a small area, but this is also what makes Singapore's food so good, as it is a mix of Chinese, Indian, Malaysian, European, and other Asian cuisine.
Durian heaven...
They're everywhere...
The Singapore flyer, the biggest ferris wheel in the world.
You can sort of see tables set up in this pod. They offer the option of eating a luxury candlelight dinner while going around the ferris wheel.
The incredible skyline from the ferris wheel at the peak.
The roundtrip time for the ferris wheel was about 40 minutes.
More skyline.
My pod.
This is the Marina Bay Sands, one of the most amazing buildings I've ever seen, which was built in 2009. You'll see a lot more of this place.
The original Singapore Sling, made at the Ruffles Hotel, which first made the famous drink in 1915. This drink cost me about 20 dollars. The most expensive drink I had for the 3 months before this was probably a 5 dollar bucket of alcohol...
A laser show coming from the top of the Marina Bay Sands that happened every night.
Yummy coconut pudding off the street.
A bar that was recommended to me by 2 friends who lived in Singapore, called Beer Market, where the prices of each drink fluctuate like the stock market based on how many people have bought which drinks.
Kaya toast, the quintessential Singaporean breakfast. Slices of toast, lathered with kaya coconut jam and butter, served with two lightly boiled eggs with soy sauce, and coffee. This is at Ya Kun Kaya, the most famous Hainanese coffeeshop that serves this.
A Chinese Buddhist temple. There are very different types of Buddhism practiced throughout the world, and Chinese Mahayana Buddhism is very different than Thai/Vietnamese Theravada Buddhism.
Even Buddhist temples take indulgences...
They also have a very graphic series of 16 hells, this one for people who were not dutiful to their parents, who are punished by eye-gouging and bone scraping.
The illusive 13 pack.
Tian Tian, the most famous Hainanese chicken rice stall at a hawker food market. Street food hawkers are very popular in Singapore, and are one great way to get cheap, delicious food.
The street of the dead in Chinatown, where they used to have dying houses, where old or sick people went to die peacefully in the overcrowded city.
The Merlion, the mascot of Singapore.
A great daytime view of the Marina Bay Sands. Just an incredible architectural feat.
Another interesting building, the Artscience museum.
The shopping center in the Marina Bay Sands is so big that there is a river that goes through it with boats...
The casino at the Marina Bay Sands has two entrances, one for foreigners, which is free, and one for Singaporeans, which costs S$100, or about $80, per entry. Despite this seemingly outrageous cost, the casino is still packed with Singaporeans, who greatly outnumber foreigners.
The main casino floor. I played blackjack for a couple hours here, and won about $200, which ended up paying for my 3 days in Singapore.
The base of the Marina Bay Sands.
After winning so much money gambling, I decided to splurge on a classic Singaporean food, the chill crab. It's a crab cooked in chilly sauce, served with small fried dough balls to dip in the sauce. Also I got a homemade barley drink, which is a very popular sweet drink served with Chinese food.
The crab is drowning in all that sauce.
Destroyed. At this point my hands are entirely covered in chili sauce.
A Mosque in the Arab quarter. Within maybe 2 miles, I saw a mosque, a church, a Chinese Buddhist temple, and a Hindu temple.
View from the top of the Marina Bay Sands.
Pretty high...
Skypark observation deck.
Singapore has the 5th largest port in the world.
More skyline.
The huge gardens by the bay, which houses 80% of the world's plant species.
The famous Marina Bay Sands Infinity Pool, which is for hotel guests only...
Which didn't stop me from sneaking in!
It looks like it just drops off into the skyline, just incredible...
Normally to get in the pool you have to be a hotel guest, and the cheapest room in the hotel is around $400 a night. The pool and the area around it was crawling with security, and each room came with a single pool pass. I snuck through two guards, then found myself at the final checkpoint. I watched for a few minutes, planning out my next move. When I saw a big group of hotel guests checking in, and I saw the secondary security guard talking to another guest, facing the other way, I just walked around the line, acted like I was a big shot, and nobody said anything. So pretty much what I'm saying is that I'm a badass.
The gardens.
Indian food from Little India. The food was great, the drink not so much... It was the special, but it turned out to be salty butter milk.
A nice durian wafer ice cream sandwich for a dollar off the street.
After 3 days in Singapore, I took a bus up to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is where my flight home was from a day later. I didn't do much here, as there wasn't much to do, but try as much Malaysian food in a day as I could. This here is Chili Pan Mee, a pork, egg, and noodle dish.
Chicken Siew Bao, a really good little chicken bun for about a dollar.
A bowl of hot soya milk with you tiao, deep fried dough sticks for a nice snack.
KL is a very developed city, similar to Bangkok. There are many skyscrapers, and economically the city, and Malaysia as a whole, are doing very well compared to the rest of SEA. Malaysia was one of the most active and successful of the Asian tigers in the 80s and 90s, and now has a per capita GDP of around $15,000, higher than any of the other countries I visited on this trip (except Singapore). However, most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the ethnically Chinese minority. About one third of the population is Chinese, but controls 70% of the wealth. Many affirmative-action-like programs have been undertaken to try to move some of the wealth into the hands of the bumiputera, which is a term for ethnically Malay or indigenous to Southeast Asia, but the Chinese bamboo network is still dominant.
The flag looks familiar... The 14 stripes are for the 13 states and the federal government. The crescent represents Islam, which is the state's official religion, even though only 60% of the population is Muslim, and the state strongly supports freedom of religion.
An amazing Mutton Briyani at Fierce Curry House.
This is very traditional Malay food. The rice rolled up in newspaper is Nasi Lemak, often called the Malaysian national dish. The stuff in the plate could be anything, I just pointed to 3 random things. Same with the weird pink drink that tasted sort of like bubble gum. All of this was about 3 dollars.
The Petronas towers. These are the tallest twin towers in the world, and for a few years in the 90s they were actually the tallest building in the world.
My flight home went through Manila, Philippines. The flight into Manila landed on its second try, after pulling up about 10 m from the ground the first time around amidst massive rain. The flooding in Manila was so bad that a few people died, and so the airport was a complete mess. It is an awful airport to begin with, but the chaos of the weather just took it to another level. It took me 3 and half hours to get between my 2 gates, which were in separate terminals, because there was only one free airport shuttle, which was actually just a cheap passenger bus where the guys tried to charge all of the passengers, for hundreds of people. When I finally got to the other terminal, I had to pay a 12 dollar terminal fee, shown here, which I have never seen before, especially for such a terrible airport. Then of course the weather delayed my flight for about 3 hours. But eventually I made it back to San Fransisco.
It's a bittersweet feeling coming back, as I am really excited to see friends and for my new job, but am sad to be done traveling, which was such a fun, exciting, and eye-opening experience. I'll write a bit more about my feelings and conclusions in a summary blog in a few days.
Till then,
Goodbye! (happy to be in an English speaking country again)
