{"id":107,"date":"2005-12-04T10:14:40","date_gmt":"2005-12-04T18:14:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/?p=107"},"modified":"2005-12-05T20:46:54","modified_gmt":"2005-12-06T04:46:54","slug":"singapore-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/2005\/12\/singapore-impressions\/","title":{"rendered":"Singapore Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was recently in Singa\u00adpore for a Liberty Alli\u00adance<\/a> meet\u00ading. I had\u00adn\u2019t been in Singa\u00adpore for 10 years, so it was inter\u00adest\u00ading to see what was the same and what was different. <\/p>\n

Orch\u00adard Road was the same, but more so \u2014 more West\u00adern shops, more malls, more hotels. The air con\u00addi\u00adtion\u00ading in hotels and res\u00adtaur\u00adants, which I had remembered as being some\u00adwhat over the top, was even more so, to the extent that we moved meet\u00ading rooms with\u00adin the meet\u00ading hotel to find a room that was some\u00adwhat warm\u00ader and went out\u00adside as much as pos\u00adsible to thaw out! Out\u00adside was the warm trop\u00adic\u00adal air and thun\u00adder\u00adstorms I remembered, the mix of people on the streets, and the trop\u00adic\u00adal plant exuber\u00adance on the streets that helps make Singa\u00adpore so memorable. <\/p>\n

\"Street<\/a><\/p>\n

Things have changed since 1995. People seem more relaxed, the streets aren\u2019t by any means dirty but they\u2019re not quite as \u201cis this really a city\u201d-spotless as they used to be. The tax\u00adis no longer have the annoy\u00ading bell that says when they\u2019re going too fast (just the stand\u00adard annoy\u00ading bell when someone isn\u2019t using their seat\u00adbelt). The Long Bar in the Raffles Hotel is new, built to look much like the old one, but some\u00adhow without the same feel. It feels like a movie set, com\u00adplete with over-eager air\u00adcon\u00addi\u00adtion\u00ading. The old Long Bar, the authen\u00adt\u00adic one, had much more of that trop\u00adic\u00adal sun\u00addown\u00ader feel. It\u2019s prob\u00adably still worth see\u00ading as a tour\u00adist, but I would\u00adn\u2019t both\u00ader going back, where\u00adas the old Long Bar was some\u00adwhere you could spend hours in, lazily watch\u00ading the fans and listen\u00ading to the crunch of pea\u00adnut shells on the floor.<\/p>\n

The old and the new \u2014 one block from Orch\u00adard Road \"construction<\/a><\/p>\n

On the way back to the air\u00adport, I asked the taxi driver about the high\u00adway with the large plants in pots, planned as an emer\u00adgency run\u00adway. It was quite a sight and I could\u00adn\u2019t fig\u00adure out how I had missed them. It turned out that Singa\u00adpore had added a new dir\u00adect high\u00adway into the city; the pots are still there on the older high\u00adway. The taxi-driver was sure that emer\u00adgency run\u00adway would nev\u00ader have to be used and I found his explan\u00ada\u00adtion touch\u00ading. Singa\u00adpore is in the Com\u00admon\u00adwealth and the Queen is very proud of what Singa\u00adpore has accom\u00adplished, and there\u00adfore all the nations of the Com\u00admon\u00adwealth would help if Singa\u00adpore were ever to be attacked, he said. I hope he\u2019s right, and I hope his belief is nev\u00ader tested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was recently in Singa\u00adpore for a Liberty Alli\u00adance meet\u00ading. I had\u00adn\u2019t been in Singa\u00adpore for 10 years, so it was inter\u00adest\u00ading to see what was the same and what was dif\u00adfer\u00adent.  Orch\u00adard Road was the same, but more so \u2014 more West\u00adern shops, more malls, more hotels. The air con\u00addi\u00adtion\u00ading in hotels and res\u00adtaur\u00adants, \u2026 Con\u00adtin\u00adue read\u00ading \u201cSinga\u00adpore Impressions\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.laurenwood.org\/anyway\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}