2024 | singapore 24
singapore september 2024
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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…
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SG24 – Day 3
One day I’ll be too old to be standing on a couch in a drag bar next to a transgender cheering on drag queens at 1.30am. For better or worse, that time is yet to come. For all of the multitude of wrong that is the Hard Rock Cafe, the Singapore establishment has been hosting a regular Saturday night drag performance Riot! for some time. For 2-3 hours they close the main area and let Becca D’Bus and other queens take over the stage (while there are still diners upstairs, who are probably wondering what they’ve walked into).I’d booked a seat in the “nice” area, far enough back from the…
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SG24 – Day 2
The Swan Song bar is the wonderfully eclectic result of three very passionate whisky people. Since discovering this place in 2020, in their old location neat the Auld Alliance, I’ve had the pleasure of going to their current place last trip with L, and being back in town, went their again last night. I say eclectic as the whisky on offer is definitely not the standard bottlings, I’m not sure they even have any whiskies on offer that you could just pick up a bottle at a local outlet, instead there are rows of independent bottlings, limited releases, and single cask offerings. They might not have a single Ben Nevis…
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SG24 – Day 1
Flight was fine, boring and smooth just how I like them. Caught a couple of movies, Oversteer, a Singaporean movie set in Malaysia (I thing it was Singaporean, it was in the Singaporean Showcase tab) about families and street car racing, and The Roundup Punishment, a Korean cop movie starring Ma Dong-seok where he goes around and punches people (it’s possibly a sequel to others I’ve seen, as a lot of faces looked familiar). Took a Grab to the hotel, apparently it’s school holidays this week so things will be a bit quieter with families going away. Hotel is okay, good location, room is a little small and lacking in…
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SG24 – Day 0 Transit
July to September is the worst. Southern hemisphere winter, the cold, wet, dark, and no public holidays as far as the eye can see. Get up in darkness, go to work, go home and by the time the dog is walked it’s dark again. Five hours away sits Singapore, that Disneyland with the death penalty, lit up brighter than every xmas tree, where there’s almost always 12 hours of daylight, and while it might be wet, at least it’s warm. It’s a land where some happiness is guaranteed: just join any queue for food that has 10 locals; or take in an evening dram or three at the Auld Alliance…
