7NNT25: Day 36 – Singapore & Monsterville
Soundtrack: “The Edge of Glory”, Lady Gaga
Today is the most important day of the trip, because today I had laksa.
Noodle 13: Katong Laksa (Sungei Road Laksa)
Right or wrong, I’ve always considered laksa to be more of a malay/indonesian dish, so have not had it in Singapore (despite Singapore’s malay heritage, yeah, I know, I never said I thought everything through) but today I decided to change that. After reading several lists of the best laksa in Singapore, I found a place within walking distance of my hotel that is claimed to do some of the best laksa around. There’s no menu, all they do is laksa, though you can order extra fishcake if you want. The serving isn’t a huge fishbowl, but that’s okay, it means I can eat other things today. Katong style also involves chopping the noodles to a short length, so no chopsticks, only spoons; there’s no prawns or tofu, but cockles instead. The noodles were firm, and held the gravy well, and the sambal had a good kick to it. As I was leaving I saw the queue forming, and noticed that several folks were ordering two bowls each, obviously wanting that stuffed full of good laksa feeling.
I stopped at another stall at the hawker centre (note, Sungei Road Laksa isn’t actually on Sungei Road, but in a hawker centre off Jalan Berseh) as they had otah filled youtiao, which was wonderful. Who doesn’t love deep fried crispy doughnut filled with a flavourful yam paste. So good, and as it was a small laksa I had room for these.
Singapore has many interesting vending machines. There’s the toasted sandwich one, I’ve seen on previous visits the frozen salmon fillet machine, there are machines everywhere that do freshly squeezed orange juice, and they also have a sugarcane juice machine. I just had to try it out, and it was great to watch as you can see it crush the sugarcane through the glass. I’d hate to think of the development process, working out the right length of cane to fill a cup, how to avoid it jamming etc, but the resulting drink was great. It’s probably a good thing I can’t get this all the time, but I do enjoy travelling this area and having that magical juice.
If I have one issue with the Singapore hotel, it’s that housekeeping comes at a different time each day. One morning it was pretty much right on 10am, but other days it hasn’t been before midday, which makes organising myself to be out of the room a little harder. As they hadn’t been through by the time I got back from laksa breakfast, I headed out again on a side quest for the ex-Singaporean colleague who fondly remembered Famous Amos cookies from her youth here. Turns out they are US chain, but are popular here. Again, there was a mall within walking distance so off I went. The cookies themselves are either small and crunchy, or large and soft, and the small ones have several flavours, so I went with the container that held a mix and seemed most likely to pass Australian customs. I could just see that episode of border patrol or whatever, me sitting there being interrogated over a pack of biscuits. I’ll just tell them that billionaire teevee station owner gave me a bunch of cash in an envelope and told me I had to go pick up this shipment for him.
Also in the mall was an outlet for Hawker Chan, the very famous soya chicken rice place that had the distinction of being the cheapest Michelin-starred meal when their Chinatown stall got the award in 2016. Since then they’ve expanded to a number of locations, the question being whether that has affected the quality of their product. I’d like to think that it has inasmuch as the outlet I tried today was good, but not stunningly good. I’ve had Michelin-starred food before, and today’s serve didn’t seem there for me, I don’t even think it was the best food I’ve had in Singapore (I did get a couple of recommendations for soya chicken places I should try, I guess on the next trip). The food was good, but the proportions were wrong: the mound of rice towered over the serve of chicken, and was on par with the Ah Tai rice. The sauce was good, but the wilted green was way beyond wilted. Hopefully it was just that outlet having an off day.
Fed and shopped, I headed back to the hotel, only to find housekeeping still hadn’t done their thing, so I sat in the lobby reading a book until they did, so got back into the room after 3pm. Having heard the merch queue at Lada Gaga was crazy, I figured on getting there a bit early so I could load up on loot.
Fortunately it was a short walk to the MRT station that fed me direct to the National Stadium. Even though I got there at least 30 minutes before the doors opened, the area around the stadium was already busy, with drag queens, folks dressed up, some people in normal clothes, and me in a Hawaiian shirt. The merch queue must have had close to a thousand people in it, so I queued up once more. I feel like I have spent a non-insubstantial amount of my life queueing in Singapore for Lady Gaga-related things. The queue progressed. Slowly. I do feel that the promoters missed a chance by not having someone selling water to the queue (again a distinct lack of Vietnamese-style capitalism) and what would have been even better would have been a few large fans just to push some air around. At various points in the queue were signs showing what items were available and prices, which should have meant people would at least have an idea of what they’d buy, which ideally would have sped things a little. Sadly, 100 minutes later when I got the the front, my top three picks had all sold out, again the promoters missed out on some cash, but at least I managed to score a t-shirt, even if not the one I wanted most.
In an ideal world, concerts would advise attendees a meaningful start time. I get that these things don’t always start on time, but at least a meaningful estimate would let people gauge if they have enough time to seek food at the convenient mall, or if they will have to take their chances with options within the venue. Lacking this info, I chose the latter, and after more queuing, bought a double cheeseburger, chips, a beer, and some water and headed to my seat. Unlike Gordon Ramsay, the chips were just ok, but the burger was similarly underwhelming (but less than half the price).
Lady Gaga, the show was awesome. The acoustics in the National Stadium are surprisingly good, and as the drums and bass built up the intro the atmosphere was fantastic. The stage setting was not elaborate enough to be distracting, allowing for a changing centrepiece to add to the drama: first a tower, then a box of dirt and skeletons. There was a large screen either side of the stage, and unlike some concerts I’ve been to, these were used well, in acknowledging that she was playing to tens of thousands including folks up in the nosebleeds, the camera operators were organised and almost in the thick of it, doing constant laps of the dancers, while Lady Gaga spent as much time performing to the cameras as she did to the folks in the front rows. It really made a difference, bringing an intimacy and inclusivity to the massive venue. Her dramatic pauses, sometimes to catch her breath, while looking at the camera provided a connection. If I was to find any issue with the performance, it would be that there were a couple of moments of dead air, pauses where no one was playing, no one on stage, but the rest of the performance was amazing. By the time she got into the more ballad-like “Blade of Grass”, “Shallow”, and “Vanish Into You” she had the crowd in the palm of her hand — who am I kidding, she had them there from the first time she came out on stage and yelled “Singapore!”
Looking at the set list, she performed 12 out of the 14 tracks on her most recent album, Mayhem, and the crowd were loving each one. Being honest, prior to this show I wouldn’t have really said I was a serious Lady Gaga fan, I’ve liked her most famous songs, and seen queens perform to many, but couldn’t name more than three of her albums nor really anything she’s done between Born This Way and Mayhem, other than that movie, or was it two movies? I figured she’d put on a solid performance, which she certainly did, and the atmosphere would be amazing, and it was, but I never expected that she can really sing powerfully. I knew she could sing, but her live delivery was something else again, beyond what you hear on the record. When she closed the show with “Bad Romance” there was magic in the air, a spell that even survived the scramble to get out. Would I go to another of her shows? Definitely.
Outside, approaching the MRT station, the venue were sensibly limiting the flow into the train station through a temporary barrier and a guy on a platform talking to the crown between playing Lady Gaga songs, so at least the crowd were entertained while waiting. At intervals the barrier would open to let several hundred people through at a time, and I think they had put on extra trains to move the crowd.
I briefly considered popping into the Auld Alliance for one last dram, and I probably should have, but was tired (I got a little lost navigating my way out of the Bras Basah station, ending up wandering through a university) and felt I’d need to put in a solid effort to pack, so I went back to the hotel and did that. By the time I went to bed, knowing full well I’d be awake before either alarm went off, sleeping next to the open case that had just enough space to cram in the last minute items like toiletries (and today’s shirt that was damp with sweat), I was pretty much ready to go home.
Oh, and to answer the question that’s burning deep in you, Lady Gaga did do a pretty good job performing to “Abracadabra”, at least as good as the various drag performers.
