SG24 – Day last

“Cold and final, the imagination shuts down its fabled summer house” are as true as any other words by Sylvia Plath and, metaphor or not, they are as good as any to kick off the last leg of this short sharp sweaty taste of Singapore.

Caught up with N last night near Farrer Park, where we caught up on how the world is treating us and had some excellent vegetarian Indian food at a place where tourists don’t go on the corner of Racecourse Rd. Wonderfully thick palak paneer, flavourful palak tikka, creamy yellow dhal, rich and well spiced aloo gobhi, and cheesy naan that was so good to be almost dangerous. N is living the expat life, which with two school-aged children means working long hours and spending the weekend helping with homework. There’s a bunch of debate around homework in the Australian education system, with some schools moving away from it to more in-class assessment so the students don’t just get their work from chatgpt. Sounds like Singapore international schools aren’t likely to have that problem, as some mothers seem to be doing their kids’ homework anyway. The whole thing sounds crazy competitive.

It’s probably a good sign of getting older to catch up with people who I knew in my younger days, simpler times of no blogs, social media, or any permanent record, and just kick back and chat of the weirdness of here and now. The people who’d turn up in a crowd on my doorstep at 2am to hang out and drink cheap vodka and cheaper beer, are now spending their weekend with hot glue guns helping their offspring make models of plant cells (turns out we should have coordinated that better, as I’ve just relearned a bunch of that through my home brew reading).

It was good to get another take on life in Singapore, too, the challenges that non residents face (the stat I heard on this trip is that only 60% of the population here are citizens). It’s like there are two types of non-citizens, the migrant workers doing what economists like to call “low skilled work”, you know the important things like cleaning, making buildings, that kind of thing, and the more highly paid highly skilled people who also don’t get all the perks of citizenship like free education, free healthcare etc. I guess it’s a scenario common to a lot of countries, just the ratios change.

Talking with N also allowed me to make sense of some of the sights of the day. Just past the old firehouse, next to a police station, I saw a park full of people, predominantly men, sitting on rugs drinking beer. Similarly near Farrer Park station was another park full of men sitting around. Turns out these are some of the migrant construction workers, likely from Bangladesh, and Sunday is their day off.

After the wonderful Indian food, we went to the cake house just up the street, where they bake a delightful range of cakes, cheese cakes, and other sweet treats (they also understand gluten free, fyi). I went for a slice of a pandan and coconut layered cake that was amazing, full of fresh pandan flavour with a hint of coconut that didn’t dominate, perfect flavour balance.

I bid adieu to N, as she had an evening of domesticity ahead, and headed back to the Auld Alliance for some final Singapore drams. Wanting to start with something to warm up the palate, they suggested a 16 year old Dalmore bottled for the Auld Alliance, and it was a delight. Dalmore is exquisite as a rich sherried whisky, while this one showed it could also shine with some depth when a little lighter.

Next was a 30 year old Sansibar bottling of Isle of Jura, with a stunning nose of oak and spice, a full rich flavour, a hint of mint, and a lingering finish. Finishing with something punchy, I had a 15 year old Bowmore, Ealing Lim bottling, a flavoursome and lively spirit, balanced smoke, a little short on the finish but a decent dram.

Then it was back to the hotel to pack, repack, shuffle things around, and make sure any clothes still a little sweaty were left hanging to catch the aircon. I think I packed close to just right for this trip, could have done with maybe another t-shirt or two, but I did wear everything I packed. It didn’t leave for much room in the case, so it was a good thing I wasn’t really looking to do a lot of shopping.

Of course I was awake before the alarm went off. Final pack, check the room, check out and then Grab to the airport. My driver was almost unnaturally cheerful for a Monday morning, so we chatted about not really sleeping on planes, taking holidays (seems Singapore standard amount of annual leave is 2-3 weeks, so he was stunned that Australia gets four weeks), the grand prix (road closures during that time make his job difficult), and prices at Hawker centres (Newton is one of the most expensive).

Breezed through check in, grabbed some duty free bits, and then figured I’d put my new appreciation of congee/porridge to the test at an airport food stand. I’ve had okay food at Changi, but I think that Viet Nam is the only country I’ve been to where the airport fare is better than it needs to be. This time around the congee with hundred year old egg and pork was, while not the stuff of nighmares, underwhelming. Tongue burning, lacking flavour (the only ingredient that had substantial flavour was the egg, and not in a great way), and a texture, to use the technical description, was gloopy. Sadly no fresh youtiao, just some slices with the texture of croutons. Edible, but hardly something that would draw a queue.

I tiredly ambled to my departure gate, heading for home. I attempted several movies, but there was nothing in the Korean or Singapore offerings that I wanted to watch: I tried part of a Chinese movie about women spirits jumping around and fighting on wires that fell into misogyny too often; a Hong Kong movie, something like Detectives Vs Sleuths, that started interesting and dramatic before turning into shoot-outs and explosions; and a Singaporean films about some older people having money issues — I could tell it was a bit of critique/self reflection of conditions in Singapore, but tired me just couldn’t buy into any of the characters.

If I judge the holiday against what I set out to do, I missed the mark on a few parts. I looked at but didn’t buy electronics. I tried almost all the congee I could, and neither died nor hated it. I didn’t get to eat any chilli crab.

But if I look at the experiences, I had some fine times. I ate well, I met some great people, I got so little sleep it’s amazing I’m not sleepwalking. Had some whiskies I may never get to try again. I sweated. I walked (average or 21,000 each day). I’m writing this from the couch at home, and I can barely keep my eyes open, I keep nodding off and waking to a line of letters. I ate very well.

I don’t know that I have some sort of final poignant sentence or paragraph to wrap up this trip. Would I go back? Definitely, and with a whole new recommendations. A huge shoutout thanks to all who threw suggestions: M, Mr M, D, N, your local input was appreciated. Could I have spent longer there? Possibly, one more day would have probably totally exhausted me, while two more days might have given me the presence of mind to pause a little more. Finally a shout out to the handful of readers of this blog, I hope you got something out of these ramblings.