Thursday, December 27, 2007

New

Its 9 in the morning and one hour since I arrived.
I am in a corner noting the whole scene unfolding in front of me.

People are moving around with determined, focussed faces like they have somewhere important to go and something important to do.

I am bored and bewildered. A most confusing mix of emotions to be sure.

Everything is new to me and I am new to everyone.

They all seem to be talking in a weird language that sounds familiar but is not, or is it the vice versa. I am nodding my head knowledgeably right along with every one. Are they all feeling as lost as I do? Or do they really understand what is being said and done? But how can that be? Aren't they are all as new to this as I.

Is everyone discussing something important?
Have I missed something?
Have I completed everything that needs to be done?
What does fate have in store for me next?

I really should get up and move around and check out what is being done.hmm! But I am so comfy right where I am and drowzy .. so here I am sitting in a corner, noting the scenes unfolding in front of me,feeling bored and bewildered....

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Sing with me

Singapore is one of the loveliest places that I have visited.
What makes it really a worthwhile place is that every attraction there is totally man made, with hardly any help from nature. Even the forests there are secondary rainforests.
The second largest island, called the sentosa, was a prison in the british time, which was later converted into a tourist attraction, to the extent that no one would even know that it had prisons there unless expressly told so.
And the whole thing came to , due to the vision of one great man, Lee Kuan Yew.
They hardly have any crime and everything works like clockwork. No wonder the citizens there are so proud of themselves and their country.
They have four national languages in Singapore: Mandarin script, tamil, malay and chinglish (english spoken by chinese).

We would need to understand and speak chinglish if we need to converse with the people of chinese origin there, which would be the taxi drivers, shop keepers, hotel receptionist, guides and just about everyone (except those in little india...but thats a story for another time).
The chinglish is spoken in a singsong manner with no words more than two or three syllables max. Please note that if spoken grammatically, it will not be understood, and do remember not to pronounce full words. For example you can ask a taxi driver "Mustafa can?" and he will promptly reply "can can"... which translates to "will you drop us at mustafa?"(Mustafa being a BEEG mall) and he sez yes. But ask him the full question, the chances are great he might give u a blank stare :-)

Coming to Little India. the only place in all of singapore that is, what dya expect, not so clean. I was told that the police and govt tried and tried and then decided to just let the indians be... Mera Bharath Mahan!!!
It feels just like any indian market. But ironically while everyone goes shopping there... no one wants to actually stay in Little India.

With Christmas just around the bend and Singapore was getting all set to celebrate in style. The Orchard street is the place to be at this time. God! but the place was beautiful. This street is full of malls and the whole place was covered in lights and santas and mannequins and what not. It reminded me of Las Vegas during Christmas time.

All in all, Singapore is a great spot for vacation and for those interested, some of the more memorable places to visit are: the night safari, the jurong bird park, the sentosa island with all its attractions (esp the songs of the sea, laser show) and be sure to go on a city tour to get a feel of the place.
U can also check out the Singapore travels site for more about Singapore.

Of course if u plan to stay more than 3-4 days, there is no guarantee your English might be able to weather the trip.
Bon Voyage!!!

PS: Ooops!!! Did I forget to mention that it is a great place for shopping. Be ready to lose a big chunk of loot there are at the various malls...esp on Jewellery and Electronics. :-D