S.E.A. Aquarium

My main reason for going to Sentosa was to check out the Southeast Asia Aquarium, which claims to be the world's largest (I think this is computed by cumulative tank volume).  Also in true Disney fashion, you're faced with a queue to buy an expensive ticket, a queue to enter the outer museum area, and then a particularly long queue to enter the aquarium itself.

Overall I enjoyed the aquarium, lots of colorful tropical fish, and several sections with very large viewing walls which provide a nice opportunity to gaze for a while.  There was not a large diversity of sea life presented though, even though the place is huge it shows little besides tropical fish and dolphins, but fortunately that made it fast to get through.  The combination of intense crowds, small children, a culture that insists on photographing everything, and confined spaces does not make for relaxation :)

Sentosa

Sentosa is Singapore's other new massive integrated property development besides the Marina Bay Sands, on a largely man-made island just south of the central part of the city.  You can imagine it like a Disney-style resort, family-friendly with multiple hotels, beaches, a theme park (Universal Studios), a water park, an aquarium, and a whole lot more, plus a casino.  I mainly wanted to see the aquarium, since it claims to be the world's largest, and then at least wanted to see what the rest of the place was actually like.

There are three ways to get there, and in the true spirit of Disney, none of them require any exertion.  You can take a cable car from the mall across the water, you can take the monorail from the same mall, or you can walk across the boardwalk that crosses the strait that separates the island, but don't worry, the boardwalk has people-movers so you don't actually have to "walk".  Also almost anywhere on the island that has a hill is accompanied by an outdoor escalator. They've learned so much from us.

The place is impressive for its scale. And it's cool that its self-contained, so once you're on the island, all transit is free, for example.  It's tacky masquerading as classy, full of overpriced chain restaurants and faux-Caribbean music, and yet they wouldn't even let me check out the casino because I was wearing flip-flops.  But they've attracted fine dining as well, among the offerings are both a Joel Robuchon and L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon in the weirdest setting imaginable, with L'Atelier offering menus going up to a whopping $455 SGD for the full dinner tasting.

The man-made beaches are weird, they appear nice enough, though perfectly rounded and sloped, but they face south into Singapore's surrounding waters, which have literally thousands of ships anchored due to Singapore's incredibly busy port, which makes for both an odd view and murky waters.

I left via the cable car to get views of Sentosa and the Port of Singapore, and because the cable car has a second station on the mainland at Mt Faber, a tall hill in the southern part of the city with striking views and is a milestone on the multi-mile Southern Ridges Walk.

Second day food round-up

Not as many places today, nor were they as good.  The day started off with Iggy's, so I wasn't really hungry the rest of the day and so didn't accomplish that much.

My afternoon snack was chapati with mutton curry and hot chai from Azmi Chapati, which was quite delicious, and worth it for the experience, since that place is a kick and right out of a different era.  I then ventured a few blocks to 320 Below Nitro Cream Cafe, a highly regarded dessert shop that flash-freezes your ice cream using liquid nitrogen, but it was completely closed without explanation.  I didn't feel that bad though (other than wanting something cold), Smitten in San Francisco does the same thing, and to me it's just a gimmick, the ice cream is not better for having been freshly frozen, and it's just more expensive and prevents you from doing tastings.

For a late dinner I went to check out hawker offerings at the Tiong Bahru market, though sadly the majority of the stalls had already closed even though it was only 8:30pm, so the pickings were slimmer.  Nevertheless, I finally got to try a carrot cake (a cake made from daikon and rice flour stir-fried with egg and other goodness), as well as mediocre duck noodles.  But a banana shake hit the spot, though after I had already bought it I discovered a place that sells soursop juice, which if you haven't tried before, is among the greatest liquids on the earth.  So that will be top priority tomorrow.

Chapati with keema (mutton curry).

Azmi Chapatis.

Duck noodles at Tiong Bahru market.

Carrot cake.

Banana shake.

The pros and cons of a toxic haze

Today's haze was the worst in the entire history of Singapore.  They have something called the PSI index, where 100 is considered bad, and the previous record high was 226.  Today it hit 401.  It was difficult to see down the street.  My first hotel room smelled like a forest fire.

In addition to ruining a lot of my pictures, a lot of outdoor activites were being canceled, which I discovere the hard way.  After missing out on seeing horse racing in Hong Kong, I was pleased to discover that they do Friday night races here that I'd be able to check out.  So I rode the MRT nearly an hour to the Singapore Turf Club to check out the action, only to find out that due to the haze all races had been canceled, and they were simply showing a video of races in Europe and elsewhere.  So I snapped a few photos o the empty facility and headed back into town.

But on the plus side, when I tried to go to 1-Altitude, the rooftop bar on the highest building in Singapore, I was pleased to find that they had stopped charging their cover, on account of the poor conditions.  Fortunately the smog situation had improved by the evening, so I even wound up with a few reasonable pictures of the skyline.

Bettors awaiting the start of the next European horse race.

Empty seats in the lower grandstand at the Singapore Turf Club.

A Friday night is typically packed but the viewing area was nearly abandoned due the canceled races.

View from the 63rd floor 1-Altitude rooftop bar atop One Raffles Place.

Central bar at 1-Altitude.  Really not great other than the view.

Downtown Singapore skyline.

Gardens by the Bay

Too tired to write much, so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.  But even though this is a giant man-made exhibition on reclaimed land, it's quite fascinating to look at, and the two enclosed greenhouse exhibitions are particuarly nicely done, and a very nice climate-controlled respite from the haze from hell.

I was expecting a row of marijuana plants, but apparently they had a different interpretation.

Staying indoors: a challenge

After traveling to a few big cities in Asia, like Hong Kong and now Singapore, you pretty quickly notice a common theme: every city is basically one enormous shopping mall. There are an unimaginable number of giant shopping malls, and they're usually connected directly to subway stations. So in theory, you hardly ever need to go outside, you can just jump from one mall to the next via the subway and never bother setting food outdoors.

So that got me thinking, how much of the planet could you cover this way? Most of these cities are also connected by their subways to the airport, so once you've covered as much of one city as you can, you could take the subway to the airport, connect directly to the terminal, then to a jetway onto the plane, and still never set foot outside, and then repeat the process in another city, and then another.

So the question is, how many miles of the earth, and in how many cities, could you cover by moving from covered structure to underground train to airport, without ever setting foot outdoors? You could probably actually compute this given the right data, and possibly even with Google Maps data since it now covers most shopping malls as well as subways.

I just submitted this at http://what-if.xkcd.com/ to see if he's interested in actually figuring it out!

A golden name

So far 3 people have commented on my name in 2 days.  They all think it's a great name that indicates wealth and good fortune.  Most simply say that I have a good name, but I believe the convenience store worker who activated my sim card said (jokingly): "Goldman. Gold-man.  That's a good name.  You sound rich.  I should rob you."