Laura’s Vastly Insufficient and Uninformed Guide to Singapore

• Hit the Botanical Gardens in the AM and there are huge bunches of elderly people doing Tai Chi which seems so graceful and natural in the setting… walk further and find the one bunch who does country line dancing instead of Tai Chi- no laughing out loud.

• Watch out for the Mall traps in Singapore. Every time you get off a subway, you will magically be in a mall, every time you use and underpass or an overpass, you will end up in a mall. Beware.

• There’s really no reason to ride the subway most of the time. The entire city can be walked on foot. The exception to this is if you are riding the subway as a source of amusement, which I highly suggest. There are some fantastic public service movies and posters that are worth checking out and surreptitiously photographing.

• Like most cities Chinatown is the most interesting place. However Little India on a Sunday night gets a little Bolly…

• Hawker stalls are the only place you should eat.
  

• If you are a young professional man you must have a slight faux-hawk

• Eat “black carrot cake”. It is neither a cake, nor black, nor contains any form of carrots that I am familiar with, but it tastes delightful.

• If you are so so lucky you might come across a COSPLAY competition in which people dress up as anime or video game characters (hey, we have trekkies…)

• Eat blocks of ice cream between wafers. You can even get them between slices of white bread. Try the corn flavor. Why don’t we have corn flavored ice cream? Everyone likes corn! Plus then you feel good bc it’s like your getting your daily vegetable supply while eating ice cream.

• If you are so lucky to visit while the “infectious diseases past and present” exhibit is still up in the National Library, go play the “bioterrorists attack!” videogame. As time ticks down you have to answer one bioterrorism quiz question at each terrorist hot spot (mall, airport…) to save Singapore! Pretty exciting.

• Take advantage of the fact that people here speak English and talk talk talk. Eat lunch near a nursing home and talk to the old people, they are delightful.

• Leave after 3 days, there’s really not that much to do (unless you’re a shopper)