We’ve been keeping up with fall foliage and haunted jaunts these last few weeks at Gadling, plus a whole lot more. Perhaps you’ve noticed that we’ve let Mike step away from his Sky Mall Monday desk to take on Outback Australia. This funny guy has a serious side too.
Then there’s Annie who has an eye for fashion. Turns out, she also has an eye for Singapore. As a person who lived in Singapore for three years, I can vouch for Annie’s observations. Her picks of what to eat in Singapore are right on.
Jeremy is heading away from his series Undiscovered New York for Southeast Asia. Stay tuned for his missives about his findings.
There’s much more among these weeks offerings. As usual, here are posts that might have slipped your notice:
Katie’s Top 10 travel destinations for Twilight fans. Even if you’re not a Twilight fan, these could be fun–particularly that corn maze in Utah.
I was particularly pleased to read that Playing for a Change is heading out on tour. Brenda’s been a faithful advocate of this worthwhile global music effort in previous Gadling posts. Likewise, she provided the heads up about the tour. The CD is WONDERFUL. I can’t say that enough.
For more fall travel, check out my post on vintage trains across the U.S. These are only 10 of them. People, the number of vintage trains in the U.S. is astounding.
If there ever was an unusual place to take kids for a road trip meal, Sean found it. I never would have come up with Hooters on my own. Who knew?
I was recently given a personal tour of Singapore’s new Peranakan Museum by the curator himself, Randall Ee. I walked in with no idea what “Peranakan” meant, and walked out more than impressed with the culture, the museum, and the fascinating new history of Singapore.
I say “new history,” because Singapore is such a young country — they only became independent from Britain in 1965 — but the story of the Peranakans begins hundreds of years ago. Singapore, sometimes called “the Gateway to Asia,” has been a busy trading post for the entire continent for longer than anyone can remember. Merchants from all over the world would come to Singapore to buy and sell goods.
The markets were controlled by the women in Singapore, and what began to happen was that foreign merchants, both to keep themselves company and to improve their fortunes, would take Singaporean wives (many of them keeping their other families in their home countries and “loving the one you’re with,” so to speak). Some stayed — but during the fall of the Ming Dynasty in 1644, the unrest in China made going home look pretty bleak, and a whole new culture was born.
Peranakan is Malay for “child of,” and was coined to refer to the burgeoning new population of children born to local mothers and foreign fathers. The Chinese are not the only Peranakan fathers; there are several different groups of Indian Peranakans and more, but the Chinese are the largest group by far, and the group focused upon by the Peranakan Museum. %Gallery-75148%
As in the other Peranakan communities, the Chinese Peranakans would marry their children to other children with the same heritage, so as to continue to pass down Chinese blood and traditions. In this way, the families became and remained true hybrids of their two worlds — for example, Peranakan food is similar to Malay food because the local mothers are the ones who did the cooking (Malaysia is next door), but the serving bowl might be Chinese.
The galleries at the Peranakan Museum include Origins, Religion, Food and Feasting, Public Life, Conversations, Nonyas (the term for girls) and an entire floor of Wedding rituals and artifacts. According to Ee, 95 percent of the items in the museum are locally sourced from private collections and are heirlooms of the wealthier families. “I tell everyone I’m a professional beggar. I go from home to home,” he joked.
I was fortunate enough to catch a special exhibition called Baba Bling (Babas is the term for boys), a breathtaking collection of over 400 pieces of unbelievably opulent jewelry, most borrowed from local homes. Ee says that the women actually helped him build the collection; telling him who had what piece that matched what. “Women never forget what other women have,” he said with a smile. Baba Bling will be running through December 2009.
I found the Peranakan Museum engaging, interesting and extremely informative about Singapore. If it weren’t so specific to the Chinese Peranakans, I’d recommend it over the National Museum of Singapore — but one ought to see that, too, to get a better idea of the whole of the country (be sure and visit the Photography portion of the Living Galleries; it’s not to be missed). Still, The Peranakan Museum taught me about a whole culture I didn’t even know existed. I’d tell anyone heading to Singapore to check it out within your first couple of days — it puts things in an insightful perspective.
This trip was paid for by the Singapore Board of Tourism, but the views expressed within the post are 100% my own.
Food in Singapore is like baseball in America — it’s the national pastime.
In most countries, people say: “Hi, how are you?” In Singapore, they say “Hi, have you eaten?” usually followed by “What?” “Where?” and “How was it?”
Singaporeans love food. They love eating it, making it, and talking about what they’re having next — “What should we have for lunch?” is a frequent topic of conversation during breakfast.
Food in Singapore is usually served family style, with lots of lots of courses. If you think you could only take that once a day, stay away — I think I had at least four meals every day I was there. I remember my friend’s mom looking sadly at me when I only ate two sandwiches for breakfast. Food is part of how they do things in Singapore. (And yes, I ate a couple more; I didn’t want to cause an international incident.) (And yes, I thought sandwiches for breakfast was weird too — most of her cooking was Malay, and I think she was trying to make me something American.)
So. Be Singaporean with me for a few minutes; let’s talk about food.
Malay and Peranakan food is similar and both are very common in Singapore. If you’re not accustomed to Malaysian, think Thai food, but less spicy — not less hot, it’s very hot, but with a lighter concentration of spices. Also big in Singapore are Chinese (about 75% of Singapore’s population is at least partly of Chinese descent), Indian, Japanese and oddly, Italian. Italian food is the most popular western food in the country.
To check out some of the most popular foods, have a look through the gallery. And if you want a cheap bite to eat in Singapore, ask a cab driver to take you to a hawker center; it’s like a food court, they have everything, and some say it’s the best bang for your buck. Interestingly, cab drivers take Diners Club. Seriously! %Gallery-74889%
This trip was paid for by the Singapore Board of Tourism, but the views expressed within the post are 100% my own.
The first Night Safari in the world is in Singapore — it’s a 40 hectare property with over 120 species of animals; most of them nocturnal and best viewed at night.
You take a zebra-striped tram ride deep into the forest, past the dimly lit habitats of all kinds of animals. Once your eyes adjust, you might just find that you are actually being watched by thamins and Malayan tapirs — that’s before you get to the elephants, tigers, hippos, lions and even rhinos (above right). What’s really special about the night safari is that some of these animals just lie around all day, and though you may previously have thought the ones at the zoo were “boring,” or even “tame,” at night, it’s a different story. I mean, even the sioth bear was busy. And you get really, really close to the animals. No glass.
There are also the options of several walking paths, which are really not for the faint-hearted. Not only are you wandering around paths, winding amongst the lairs of some very dangerous animals, but you start to worry that the local fauna might jump out and attack you at any time, too. There is glass on parts of the walking paths (and really, how close did you want to get to that wide-awake leopard?), but you also have the option of entering several enclosures for an up-close experience with giant flying squirrels (that’s their name; I didn’t add the “giant”) and even — I shudder to recall it — bats. (warning, creepy bat photo coming …)
Yes, you can walk, unguarded, down a path surrounded by bats just like this one at left. I personally have no fear of heights; bats are my thing. They strike terror into my soul. I think I walked like a stage-hand trying not to be seen by the audience, my arms curled up like a t-rex’s. They were just as close to me as your computer screen probably is to you now, dangling from the trees on either side of the path. Some of them were like, dog-sized. And in case I might have felt lulled into any sense of security, they had no qualms about flying directly in front of me across the path. I could feel the wind from their young greyhound-sized wings.
It’s the kind of moment when you wonder just what insurance is like in Singapore, and why this is the only place that has a “safari,” or basically a nighttime outdoor zoo, like this.
In any case, what an experience. The Night Safari is absolutely not to be missed if you are in Singapore — you’ll probably never see anything like it.
The zoo to which it’s attached, Singapore Zoo, is no slouch, either. You can even have breakfast with free-roaming orangutans — just ask Michael Jackson, who, after having the Jungle Breakfast, famously invited the orangutans back to his suite at Raffles for tea. And they accepted. There’s also the affiliated 600-species Jurong Bird Park, but the Night Safari was one of the most exceptional and unforgettable tours I’ve ever taken.
As a bonus for experience junkies out there, you can also get your feet nommed at the Night Safari by garra rufa fish, or, as they’ve come to be known in exotic spas around the world, doctor fish. You literally stick your feet in a tank of water and a swarm of fish eats the dead skin off. It’s amazing. Here’s a video I took of a woman getting the treatment (about $7.09 for 5 minutes).
I had the treatment too, but I’m not about to post a video of myself screaming like a little girl. Puh-lease.
This trip was paid for by the Singapore Board of Tourism, but the views expressed within the post are 100% my own.
Singapore is home to the world’s tallest indoor climbing wall. Climbing it is unique for more reasons than just its height!
The BorderXvia ferrata, aka “iron way,” aka “traditional European mountaineering activity reputed to have been started in Italy in WWI as a means of letting the Italian troops cross the Dolomites,” is an usual experience indeed. It is located in Orchard Central — a shopping mall. You climb past a food court. And yes, people sit there eating and watching you.
The 30m high wall has several color-coded paths you can take, depending on the length and difficulty you want. I took the challenge with my friend Natalie Soh, and, tied to each other, we made our way to the top. There are a number of different safety measures in place; for one, as I mentioned, Natalie and I were tied to each other. By looping the rope that connected us in and out of each “pigtail” (a curly metal rod rooted deeply in the wall) we passed, we were assured we would balance each other’s weight should one of us fall. We also had to have at least one, and preferably two, claw clips on our path’s safety cord at all times. Lastly, we had a very handy, very strong clip on our belts that allowed us to take a swingin’-monkey-style break at any time — quite a relief when your arms get tired or when you’re waiting for your compadre to catch up!
BorderX has trip times all day every day and the prices range from about $14.14 to $24.75 USD, depending on how long you want your trip to be and whether it’s a weekend.
If you think you can’t do it, be advised — they are not in the habit of letting people quit! But rest assured, we climbed with a broad age group; we had someone over 60 with us. “We want to help people overcome their doubts about themselves, and their fear of heights,” said our mountain guide and base camp manager Poh Yu Seung. The best part of the experience, besides the glory of reaching the top and gazing down upon the shopping mall? Eating okonomiyaki (Japanese pancakes) in the food court afterward, discussing our Michelle Obama arms (Wei brought it up, I swear — they’re an international phenomenon) and watching other people tough out the climb. It’s like a whole new level of entertainment. %Gallery-74624% This trip was paid for by the Singapore Board of Tourism, but the views expressed within the post are 100% my own.