Marina Bay Barrage

For those not aware, all of the rivers and creeks of Singapore have been blocked off from the sea by a system of barrages thus making the whole island a water-catchment 'dam'.

These images are of the area around one of the barrages which has created Marina Bay. They show how the area has been developed as a recreation place for locals to enjoy. Like a number of aspects about Singapore, someone appears to have put a great deal of time and thought into its creation. And more to the point, acted on the results, to the potential benefit of a lot of people. (Thinks.....unlike Barangaroo......)

The only access to this area is by walking from Bayfront MRT or by managing to locate a somewhat obscure bus service from the Marina Bay area which, strangely, does not appear to operate on week-ends.

Devoid of shade-producing trees at this time, it can be rather hot on cloudless days but, on the plus side, there is usually a breeze blowing to aid with cooling, flying of kites and the making of dramatic wedding photos.

Satay By the Bay is the nearest 'hawkers' market if you are looking for food and, on the day I visited, was not over-run with customers. At least as far as I and the cook could determine.

Pulau Ubin

An island off the NE coast of Singapore. Accessed by 'bum-boat'

Changi Point to Pulau Ubin

Pulau Ubin Jetty

Bum-boat captain and crew

at a cost of SGD$3 from Changi Point.

There appears to be only limited access around the island with the main point of interest being the hiring of push-bikes to ride to the boardwalk at Chek Jawa which meanders through the mangroves and out into the strait .

Beware of pigs who like the look of shopping bags and don't know the meaning of  'no' plus monkeys that allegedly have a similar issue.

From the boardwalk views past the small island Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island) back to Changi await.

View from Chek Jawa across to Changi

Singapore by Bus

Travelling around Singapore by taxi and public transport is disarmingly easy, especially when compared to a similar exercise undertaken in a city like Sydney.

Arriving at Changi Airport you are through customs and out onto the concourse where taxis are plentiful and the traffic congestion is light. Totally unlike (again) Sydney Airport.

Taxis are cheap and plentiful. SGD$15 from the airport to the city, including the airport surcharge. Fifteen dollars in a taxi in Oz gets you about three kilometres on a quiet night, WITHOUT the addition of a surcharge.

What you don't find so easily at Changi are the MRT (train) and SBS (bus) services which are also available. The MRT system is magic. A train at every station on the island every three to five minutes. No ifs. No buts.

Wait, there is a "but". The "but" with taking the MRT, and this does not apply so much to the Green Line which services Changi Airport and which is above-ground almost its whole length across the island, is that the majority of MRT services travel below ground. All very well for speed but, as you find once you use it a bit, gives no feel for what the city is really like geographically or culturally.

Travel by MRT, whilst reassuring, leaves you with the confusion generally experienced when blind-folded, spun around a number of times and finally, with eye-sight restored, released to stagger off in search of one's goal.

Emerging from an MRT station has you popping up out of the air-conditioned cool invariably into either the stifling humidity outside, or most often the continued cool within, a huge and confusingly laid-out shopping centre or mall, with no firm idea of where you are in the larger, island picture or how to get elsewhere other than by once again taking to the MRT. This was not a problem initially because, as a newcomer, all I wanted to know was which shop or service I needed to access and the station at which I needed to alight in order to access it. Easy.

Another thing about using the MRT is that there is more than one entrance/exit to each station and, in most cases, they are not in close proximity to each other. There can be anything up to half a kilometre between entry/exit points. Which, to Singaporeans, is a taxi or bus ride away.

Once you have your head around the reliable and fast MRT it does become a little boring. Nothing to look at except hundreds of Singaporeans with their heads buried in their Samsung Galaxy Note 2's playing Candy Crush or watching the current-fad Chinese soapy or heaven forbid, and according to an expat (not me) who witnessed it, porn!!

So what's it like on the outside? Taxis are OK to get a feel for the place but you are low down and part of the problem.

The only place to be is up high. Preferably on the top level of a double-decker, SBS bus. From there you get the full Singapore picture.

Those we spoke to on our arrival advised that buses were OK as long as you were not in a hurry and this is certainly the case. Whilst they are supposed to turn up at regular intervals of say 7-10 or 12-15 minutes, depending on the time of day, the reality is that traffic and people impact on that schedule. A LOT.

Reality can be no bus for 30 minutes-plus and then two will appear one behind the other. Invariably they will be the same service number.

This situation has arisen because at some point the first bus's progress has been slowed due to the number of waiting passengers. This first bus, now full to overflowing and late, has the second, not having had to pick up any passengers for most of its journey, empty and on its rear bumper. This situation continues at subsequent stops thus continuing to slow the journey-time.

There appears to be some SBS rule that the second bus must never overtake the first because this situation can persist until both buses arrive at their destination. Hence, for speed and reliability, the MRT is the way to travel but buses are from where the real Singapore can be observed at a slower and less time-dependent pace.

By way of example you can make your way to Hougang bus interchange via the MRT and climb aboard a #51 to Jurong East which will take you on a ride from one side of the island to almost the absolute other. You will need to set aside a couple of hours for the whole trip but it is well worth it to observe locals working, playing, eating and shopping.

The final two being stated national (only?) past-times.






Just like the Hop-on/Hop-off tourist buses, you can jump off when you see something interesting, safe in the knowledge there will be another #51 along shortly to continue the journey.

I should mention at this point that the best way to facilitate all public transport travel, even taxis, is by using one of the EZ-Link travel cards.

These can only be purchased down in the MRT stations, next to the entry/exit gates, for a cost of $10. This gives you $7 of credit to use for transport and $3 being a deposit, refundable when you are finished using the card and it is returned to a ticket office. There is also a Tourist EZ-Link card available for an initial charge of SGD$20. This has SGD$10 of travel value and a SGD$10 deposit. The deposit being returned as per the above.

Topping up the card can be achieved at any of the ticket offices or at self-service kiosks located nearby. Be advised, the kiosks do not give change so whatever value note you insert is the amount of top-up you will get.

When it comes to time-tables for transport it is only the buses you need to be concerned with. The MRT trains turn up every 5-6 minutes, 5.30am to midnight.

SBS has an app called "iris nextbus" for your smart-phone which facilitates journey-planning and, from my observation across phone OS platforms, is one of the few apps that works better on Android than Apple. It does however require a bit of learning, together with a good internet connection, but allows you to plan bus journeys quite well.

SG Buses is another app which allows you to input bus numbers to determine their travel routes. This helps identify other bus numbers which use the same stops. This can be handy because other buses may be going past where you want to go and aren't necessarily offered via the iris nextbus app.

Price comparison. Hop on - Hop off bus @ $27 per day or EZ-Link card for less than $10.

Bank Queue Very Much

Into our third month in Singapore and, apart from the issues encountered in gaining accommodation, there are wonderful aspects about living here. It is those nicer aspects I have tried to concentrate on to date. There is however one rather aggravating thing I need to unload about and that is banking.

We needed to open a bank account for all the obvious reasons but alas the opening and operating of a bank account in Singapore is not what I would deem a simple and stress-free exercise. So at the risk of sounding like one of those "...it's all just so much better back home..." ex-pats, I simply can't NOT mention some of our experiences.

The opening of our account was a rather protracted affair firstly because, as mentioned in an earlier post, the rules for opening one varied between branches of the same bank. The sorts of problems that arose were as follows.

Problem No.1: To open an account you need a pass, either a Work Pass (WP) or a Dependent Pass (DP). We had neither, although Heather was in the process of gaining one. I had to wait for her to get her's before I could apply for mine. So.......to get a WP you needed to prove a job. To prove you had a job you needed to prove you were being paid. To be paid you needed a, wait for it, bank account.

Luckily by the time it was our turn to open the account this little chicken-and-egg issue had been sorted, with the bank's acceptance of everybody's work contract and passport.

Problem No.2 : Joint accounts, the like of which we wanted to open, appear to be frowned upon with a perceived preference being for all accounts to be singular ones. The decision was that, as neither of us had the required Pass, and I had yet to even apply for one, we should open a sole account and have me added in later. I did not see this as a problem as I intended to do as much transacting as possible via the net and ATMs. More on this later.

Problem No.3 : To operate an account via the net you require a mobile phone number and at this point Heather did not have a Singapore phone-sim. We decided to use my pre-paid one as we were told we could change things easily via the net. More on this later.

At last we had an account and it was at this point with an access card, a Secure Device

My Secure Device which needs to affixed to my phone

 for logging onto our internet account and a spring in our step that I started noticing the length of queues at banks we passed. They were at this point of fairly minor interest because I had intended to do all our transacting via the internet.Was I just a tad naive? You bet!

Be aware, access to cash is not a problem, there are ATMs literally everywhere. Sometimes four or five at the one location. The thing is, almost ALL of them have the aforementioned queues. Closer inspection revealed that not all ATMs perform the same function. Some are for cheque deposits, others for cash withdrawals while others only accept deposits of coins and notes. Still others it appears, ONLY allow you to make changes to your account details with no money transactions permitted at all.

Bank branch shopfronts also appear to be in plentiful supply, at least for the DBS/POSB bank we are using. Each branch has at least three ATMs out front and each has the obligatory queue. Looking inside reveals even longer queues of people waiting to be attended to by tellers.

I had until now thought it was Poms who liked to queue. If this be true then they have some serious challengers in the Singaporeans. That is of course if the assumption is correct that Singaporeans actually LIKE to queue. And if they are in fact all Singaporeans.

Interesting point
You only ever see the HDB dwellers or plebs like us wearing sandals and thongs, waiting in the queues. Never any of the 'fast-boys' with their designer pants, flash shoes and Lamborghini Gallardo's parked out front. Nor, it must be said, any other of the merchant-wanker-type ex-pats. Where do they go I wondered?

I digress. At this point I started to become a little concerned. One or two queues on odd days I could handle but so many every day was a different kettle-of-fish and it didn't take long until the need to deal with an actual person/teller in one of the banks came about.

Sunday Afternoon 2.56pm and the queue is out the door

A word to the wise.

Do not enter a bank, even an apparently empty one, without at least 30 minutes to spare. Do not enter a bank having any sort of an internal queue unless you have 60 - 120 minutes to spare.

All those people behind the counters are not tellers, they are bank staff doing their own stuff and they are not there to serve you. The teller is that one guy/girl at the end counter studiously checking the paperwork in front of them, counting the cash and confirming the name on the cheque before then re-checking the paperwork, re-counting the cash and re-checking the spelling of the name on the cheque. Ah yes, and so we get to the name on the cheque.

I can understand that the actual name on the cheque is reasonably important. For most of us, or at least those not being questioned at ICAC investigations, the name on the cheque is not necessarily life-threateningly critical. As long as there is enough cash in the account to cover the cheque being deposited our banks tend not to have too much of an issue taking a cheque. Initially, not so true in Singapore.

Our experience of this had arisen because we attempted to deposit a cheque, over the counter, made out to Heather's initials and surname, which of course was not her full name and which weren't in the correct order, as per the account.

To explain. If the name appearing on my birth certificate, passport or NIC (National Identity Card) is John Malcolm Smith-Phillips and I wish to deposit a cheque in my Singaporian bank account then I had better make sure that THAT FULL NAME is to whom the cheque is made out. Should I have at some point decided to call myself Jack, dispensed with the double-barrelled Smith and then go into my bank to deposit a cheque made out to Jack Phillips, I will be setting myself up for a great deal of grief.

When I say 'grief' I mean that of the standing around, watching the teller find and read instructions on how to handle the situation, type of grief. The waiting for the teller to check numerous times with his/her supervisor, type of grief. Explaining to the teller why it is that I have a different name on the cheque to that appearing on other documentation. That kind of annoying, aggravating, time-wasting grief. Meanwhile, the queue behind gets larger and more crushing before spilling out the door and onto the hot and very humid street.

When this happens to you, be sure to have your NIC (National Identity Card) with you. Also, even though the NIC has your photo and name printed on it, it will not be sufficient so you should also take your passport. Even that will not be enough. You must prove an address so the leasing agreement for that unit you just moved into must be shown as well. God knows what happens if your name is not actually on the lease or worse, you are living in a hotel prior to finding a unit.

Never fear. Subsequent discussions with other, more experienced folk revealed that the cheque depositing scenario described above can in future be handled in one of three ways.

Method No.1 - present your cheque at a teller in person in full expectation of an argument.

Method No.2 -  present your cheque at a teller after making doubly-sure the naming details are correct.

and having in both cases spent 30 to 60 minutes in a queue.

Or, by far the quickest........

Method No.3 - Simply write your account number on the back of the cheque and place it in the deposit slot out the front of the bank.

No questions asked, no-matter who it is made out to, it will appear in your account the next day.

Simple.

Returning to the problems mentioned earlier, I would like to address Problem No.2 more fully.

We had by now been issued with our Work and Dependent Passes so decided to brave the banking queues again to have me added to the account. During the previous cheque depositing fiasco we had asked about the joint account and were told we would need our Marriage Certificate. Who takes their Marriage Certificate everywhere with them? Well, we do as it turns out. Luckily.

Returning to the bank another day our teller stepped through the process. All was reasonable until we got to the mobile-phone number part. Because I had initially used my number for Heather's account, I was unable to use it again for mine so we put Heather's recently acquired number on my new account. "Don't worry.." we were told, "..you can change that later on the net..." All was good, and funnily enough without being asked for the Marriage Certificate. Oh wait, at the very last moment he remembered we had not shown it to him. Not a problem, we had it with us this time so very soon we had a second card and were set to go....or not!

Issues soon arose at home when I attempted to find something akin to our Oz B-Pay facility for paying bills via the net. To use a local expression, "...no can..." (whilst shaking the head in a negative fashion.) The only way to pay bills easily is set up a direct deposit arrangement with your bank. Crikey, you would think they had been taking advice from a self-storage facility owner in Oz.

As stated previously, it had been my intention to use the net as much as possible. Also, because Heather did not initially have a local mobile-phone number I had used mine when setting up the account.

Why is a mobile number needed? It is needed for all the SMSing that goes on when you transact via the net and, as it turns out, for some ATM transactions. Let me tell you, there is a LOT of SMSing.

Now that Heather had her own local mobile-phone number I logged onto our account, changed the notifying number from mine to her's and attempted to set up a direct deposit. Problem.

I had the Secure Device to punch in the numbers and access the account, but the SMS to finalise the transaction was going to Heather's phone and she was at work. I was also noticing that my new card was not appearing on our web account. Transactions made on it appeared but no details of the card itself. Hmmmmm, might be time to revisit the joint account scenario. Off to the bank, and the queues, yet again.

Luckily we managed to find a branch with a short-ish queue and were done in 30 minutes. The result being that I too was issued with a Secure Device for accessing the account. For good measure we had the teller swap our phone numbers over, as that was the only way I could get mine registered. All was good or so we thought until.....

Back to Problem No.3.  As it turns out, one cannot change many account details via the web. Even with mobile-phone numbers and Secure Devices. Face-to-face transactions are the only way, which goes some way to explaining the queues I guess.

And even when you have done the face-to-face routine there are still problems. Two days after we thought we were all set up a letter arrived from the bank stating that Heather's number is already assigned to someone else and she must provide proof that it is hers. The annoying thing is, it is probably assigned to me because I used it when I was added to the account.

The saga continues......

Ignorant Aussies Abroad

It has been Chinese New Year for, what feels like, the whole time we have been here. Preparations for ages before, then the 'celebration period, followed by the recovery and clean-up. During this whole time I have watched armies of (Indian/Burmese) workers erect and dismantle huge pavilions on spare pieces of ground scattered throughout Hougang and other suburbs.

These became markets selling all manner of CNY decorations, flowers and food plus karaoke venues and they appeared and disappeared, seemingly over-night.

Following the witnessing of the recent karaoke tent down the road, it was with interest and trepidation that I watched the erection of another large white tent on a piece of spare ground below our bed-room window this past week. Tables and chairs filled the interior. Flowers decorated the spaces between tables and displays of Chinese art and signage were also created. Whilst generally quiet, there being no karaoke apparent for the first few nights, there were games of mahjong being played at some of the tables until well into the small hours of the morning.

Was this an international mahjong competition we had not been informed of? Who knew?

With this in the backs of our minds Heather and I made our way to Chinatown for a wander and lunch. Subsequent to these pleasant events we eventually made our way to a DBS bank to transact some business.

(NOTE: this process is a story in, and of, itself.)

On our way to the bank we noticed another of the aforementioned white tents filled with the same contents plus people dressed in, what appeared to be, a uniform of sorts. Filled with a curiosity and finally deciding to act on it by asking questions, your trusty correspondent strode into the midst of the tent gaining the attention of a young lady. Said young lady appeared somewhat startled by my approach. I, of course, did not let this phase me as it was the default reaction of most females with whom I attempt to converse.

Unable to understand what it was I was jabbering about she was saved by the arrival of another, older lady who, hearing and understanding what I was on about explained that it was a FUNERAL!!!!! And we were in the midst of it.

Back at Hougang we now understood what it was set up under our window.

Later the same night......

There comes a smell of something burning, followed shortly after by the sound of, what seems to us to be, Rugby players sending up cheers during a post-match drinking session. Peering through our window we see a large group of locals standing and chanting at a huge bonfire.

This fire being, as it turns out, the funeral pyre symbolical, we hope, of the recently departed.

Needless to say I had no further questions to ask about what was going on.

FOOTNOTE: Unfortunately I have prior history when it comes to this sort of thing. During a visit to Malacca last year, and whilst wandering the back-streets, we came upon a procession consisting of drums, trumpets, signs and, most significantly, a large black people-mover.

Hoping to get great shots of a some local pageant I jumped out into the middle of it all snapping away eagerly only to eventually realize its true significance.

DOUBLE FOOTNOTE: Further inquiries and observations have revealed more facts about Chinese funerals.

The bonfire we witnessed last night is not, in fact, the recently departed being disposed of. That happened this afternoon in a process more in tune with our experience back in Aus.

Be advised though, the body of the deceased remains in the marquee for the whole time, which in this case was around four days. The bonfire fuel consists of paper and cardboard replicas of items the deceased used, owned, wore or appreciated in this mortal life - yes, I am talking clothes, cars, furniture etc - and can be purchased in Chinatown at shops whose sole purpose is the supply of said replicas. The object being that they go with the deceased into the next life.

It is worth noting here that, should one of these tents appear in the vicinity of where one resides, it is a good idea on the third night to close any windows down-wind of the crematorial fire so as to block the ash and soot emanating from the fire when lit from entering one's unit. And no, eleven floors up is not high enough to get away from it. For the record, the sound of chanting is a good 'heads-up' that the fire is ignited.

Again for the record. The karaoke did happen. Lots of LOUD recorded music accompanied by equally loud and dreadful singing which could only be confirmation to the departed that they were going to a better place.

Architecture as Art

Divine Times in Gotham City

When I was growing up in the 1960's I would always watch the Adam West/Burt Ward version of Batman. The setting was of course Gotham City and I have it in my mind that the city hall, where some of the action would take place, was somewhat of a dark and foreboding structure in an Art Deco style.

As it is, I find Art Deco items and buildings quite interesting and take notice when and where I find them.

Fast forward fifty-odd years and I find myself in Singapore. A place not necessarily renowned for its period architecture. That is, of course, unless there is something called a 'Now Deco' style. I say that  because, apart from the 1800's 'colonial-style' buildings which have been preserved to some degree and developed internally and vertically from below to above, nothing seems to hang around in Singapore for long.

Things get built and then, twenty years later, they get knocked down, subsumed and redeveloped into something grander and more 'now'. History is twenty years ago and ancient history is before the Second World War.

With that said, you can imagine my interest being piqued at the sight of a very recent construction, possessing the appearance of 1930's New York and sitting in mid-town Singapore.

The building I refer to is Parkview Square.

NOTE: I chose this image in an attempt to high-light the juxtaposition of  twenty-first century construction, in a mid-twentieth century style, overlooking a (potentially) nineteenth-century-created remnant. (Whew! What a mouthful)

By day, Parkview Square, obviously Art Deco, appears to be rather innocuous. It is only at night that the building takes on a more sinister persona.

The benign, slightly out of place, but none the less interesting, 'old' building turns into something quite suited to a Frankenstein or Austin Powers movie. Light shafts up the sides of the building lead the eye to lighted statues at the top appearing to survey all that which unfolds below.

From there a lit from within glass atrium at the summit gives the impression of being an observatory/control-centre for some malevolent ruler of the universe who could be either Austin Powers' Dr Evil, his cat and Mini-me or The Joker from Batman - The Dark Knight Rises.

One unsettling feature is that whenever you look up as you walk around Bugis and Arab St there is always this building looking down at you. A bit the Mona Lisa's eyes, it follows you around.

At ground level there is a courtyard which, again when viewed at night, could be the Reichstag of Nazi Germany. Statues of famous and long dead people encircle the courtyard and there appears no consistency of thought process as to who's likeness was chosen or why.

Which brings us neatly to what is on the inside.
 

The majority of the building is taken up with various diplomatic missions but it is the ground floor where the real show is. Divine wine-bar has to be one of the most attention grabbingly expensive 'drinking holes' I have ever frequented.

Opulent is probably a reasonable word to describe the layout. Over the top could be another. Either description certainly applies to the wine storage facility and bar pictured above. The lounge areas are no less so.

 On our visit we chose to have cocktails. The reason being that, at $25 a pop, they were the least expensive items in the list. Should your tastes turn to wine then I include a sample of those on offer and their cost....

...and as far as the age of wines go, the last time I had a 2003 vintage wine was in.....um....2004 I believe.

Now, as you will have noticed in the image of the bar above, the wine storage rack is a very tall affair. How does the bar-tender retrieve the wines when ordered I hear you ask? Well he/she doesn't. The 'wine fairy' does it.



So, in drinking, as in some areas of (other people's) life, all you need to make her perform is the cash.