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Sunday, December 25, 2005
nostalgia...
will feature an email from Toby, an ex-exchange student in NTU here... hope he doesnt mind...
when i read his mail, it somehow struck a chord in my heart.... i guess there are really wonderful memories that each of us hold dear to our hearts.... and as i have mentioned briefly in my previous post, it is not so much about the location, but more about the people...
hope this will touch many of you people as it had touched me...
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year first of all. Now my little reflection on my short trip to Singapore enjoy:
Nihao ma from Singapore lah,
to relief you from my unbearable loquaciousness I have been refraining from writing you as much as I did in Singapore. When I went back to Singapore a few days ago though I was somehow overcome with the urge to share with you my short melancholic flashback into the miraculous experience of last year. The garden Eden of Singapore in midst of the tumultuous South East Asia of disorder.
After one year of restlessly running against the time, hasting through the modern business lifestyle to which I remain such freshman, one year of a constant feeling of jetlag without having actually flown, I suddenly found myself in Singapore again. The strange discomfort of similarity but not being like the Singapore I remember, I was overcome with the fact that Singapore was nothing like it used to be. It was deserted to a degree because it all appeared all so familiar but in the end so strange because there was none of us, which actually means Singapore to me. A bunch of young adults from every corner of the world, even from San Diego or “Trnto”, a melting pot of nations that could not wait to battle its transatlantic dissimilarities over a game of “ball” or mindless drinking competitions in “00”, actually was Singapore, as strange as it might sound! It was not the tiny island itself!!
I first landed in the gigantic Singapore Changi Airport on an early Friday morning and already here was impressed by the diversity of faces. Arab families with 20 members, German businessmen in sweaty collar shirts on their mobiles to report the latest developments, Australians with their singlets and shorts, Americans with the thick leather soled shoes and the jeans rolled up and the girls in their tank-tops, the Canadians with the flags on every peace of fabric so everyone can identify them not as being American, the Indonesians with the dark skin and women wearing veils, the French couple in the boutique store using their impeccable English trying to purchase as many cosmetics as possible as they are so cheap in comparison to the Parisian shops in Les(not bound) Halles or the Japanese with their uncountable fashion accessories attached to every part of the body which nicely holds up every security check in.
Even myself, whom I would call rather affluent in English, was struggling with the staccato English of Singapore when I was asking for the toilet of which you could “potentially” eat from. To get the first taste of the Singapore climate I climbed up to the sunflower embedded rooftop to smoke a cigarette in the blinding equatorial sun. I forgot about the little water dusters that spray air to cool the air but even that didn’t help the Norwegian girl in her winter jacket, as she just came from the freezing Scandinavian latitudes on her way to the sun-kissed Australia.
After the immigration border check-out that less than 5 seconds, typically Singaporean, I was standing in the “free” land of independence, Singapore when I was led through the perfectly streamlined taxi queue to be welcome with a heart warming “TAXI LAHHH”. My charming “yeah MATE” response to one of the 2 taxi-calling-co-ordinators directly put me ahead of the queue of 2 people. “PIE Lah, downtown to Beach Road, ok lah?” did wonders and within 20min, traveling along the road we NTU Bike Rally Cyclers all know so well, I arrived in Bugis MRT in no time. Tranquil!
After I met with my friends in the hotel, that kindly offered me to use their room to get changed and have a shower, which I could not possible realize after those few hours on the road ;-), I was already back out of the front door and into the bustling Singapore city. Through the cornered streets of little India full of little Indians with moustache and American-flag bearing leather jackets straight out of Top Gun, I saw the first KFC and McDonalds which launched me into the tunnel of time back into the times of McDo in BoonLay. Arnau(l)d and Olivier, yes, they are still there, yes, they are still as cheap and yes, still put much ice into the coke! I had to dive into the freezing air-conditioned public transport systems after having purchased my beloved ezylink card. FYI: they are slightly more expensive now and less frequent but still as reliable. I drove direction Boon Lay and changed train at City Hall Interchange direction North, destination Orchard Road.
Funnily I realized that actually we didn’t go to Orchard Road that often after all but of course Lucky Plaza and the other key locations still looked awfully familiar. The McDonald below Lucky Plaza, the green Starbucks Coffee on the corner, or even the corner from which we watched the Chinese New Years train with Jackie Chan dressed all in white, on one of the cars. For all those impressions to sink in I decided to have a seat and reflect on the newly refreshed old impressions. 1 minute later I moved on in Singapore fashion, sweaty!
Was it 179 or 197? 179! I jumped on the 179 after my little MRT ride to Boon Lay and took the bus to NTU Canteen 2, where I first met two Swiss exchange students. For my greatest pleasure I was excited that they couldn’t really stand NTU and Singapore and were happy to leave, which only makes me feel better J We simply rocked. Canteen 2 is still the same but unfortunately the shop did not have any of the famous NTU memorabilia left. In my frustration I took a little walk to Hall 8 and Hall 9, where I was to discover that they are building a huge Arts and Design Complex next to that something IT Lab and Hall 9, where Andreas and I walked through the huge rain drain that ran through the mountain! Hall 9 and Hall 8 is the same and the cleaning ladies
still watch us as always, the are still the little geckos all over the bathroom and yes the toilet paper still sticks to the sweaty legs, for those that ever cared! ;-) Btw we did live it up in Singapore because a short time after our departure they actually enforced that hot water could only be used at certain times.
On the way back to Boon Lay and Bread Talk, where I was going to eat my beloved multigrain roll with a cup of orange juice, I had to realize that even now you still can’t take a proper photo in the fast bus from the red access-restriction signs on the left side of the driveway to NTU. My favorite shopping center in the world, Jurong Shopping Center in Boon Lay has not changed at all either and the shop on the second floor still has the best beanies and Arnaud, the best IPod pouches in the world.
Nothing sparkling happened in the last few hours of my stay in Singapore. ALL Malaysians still wear Chucks shoes, tight jeans, dark t-shirts and wear Mohawk haircuts with the shaved sides and if they are lazy wear the trucker caps. The Chinese still wear shorts, flip flops and t-shirt and you still can’t tell the difference between boys and girls in most cases. The Indians still look 20 years behind with their moustaches. The expatriated businessmen still sweat as much as I did and they still try to look more local than the tourists, often supported by their long phonecall highlighting that they are locals and live locally in Singapore. Total Local!!!
Long live that Singapore dream and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and happy-like-me New Year 2006! See you out there from Perth, Australia!
Sincerely yours,
Tobias
posted by winz at 3:13 PM
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