Sentosa and the Lunar New Year
Trip Start
Nov 15, 2011
1
19
47
Trip End
Ongoing
Singapore, Singapore
Sunday, January 22, 2012
I will also mention the MRT or Mobile Rabid Transit system. In Canada, this would be our subway, in England the tube. What a gem of a system. They have 5 lines here in Singapore that criss-cross at different points. You are charged for the distance you travel but it is much cheaper than say the Toronto subway. A ride here averages around $1 to $1.50 in our money. The Toronto system, when I left was sitting at $2.75 a ticket. The whole system from the escalators and waiting areas to the trains themselves is immaculate. No rubbish anywhere. No food or drink is allowed on the trains. The ticket you purchase for your ride is similar to a credit card or bank card in shape and form. They purposely overcharge you a dollar. At the end of your ride, you put your ticket back in the machine and get your dollar back. Hence, no used tickets left lying around needing to be swept up.
The escalators move at twice the speed that ours do. Everything is set up to really hustle people along. One train follows only a couple of minutes behind another. And the tracks are partitioned off from the waiting area by a wall of glass. When a train arrives, sections of this glass open up where the doors of the train are. In this way, no one has access to the actual tracks.
And finally I have to mention the courtesy aspect. I have ridden the subway in Toronto for over 25 years as a teacher going to and from work. Never have I seen such courtesy as they show here. Not only are the elderly always allowed to sit, but people trade seats so that couples can sit together. In a land with so many people living in such a small space, courtesy abounds or one is simply ostracized.
We spent the day of the 22nd, the eve of the New Year, at Sentosa, the giant flower garden down at the Harbour Front. The pictures tell the story better than words do - it is like a giant Disney World made out of flowers. The main themes of course circled around the Dragon because of the New Year and the Lion because Singapore means the Lion City. Everywhere you go in Singapore, there are gargoyles and statues of lions. It reminds me of the fifties movie that made Audrey Hepburn famous, Roman Holiday, with the Lion of Truth gargoyle. Supposedly if you put your hand in the mouth of the lion and told a lie, the lion's mouth would close and bite your hand off. I remember writing a short story in University using a theme where a western woman went to a third world land that had a lion statue and she followed a dare and stuck her head inside the lion's mouth. When she stepped back, she saw a young man walking by and he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. She just had to meet him. She pursued him and a romance begun that the native man never really understood until she told him about the episode with the lion statue. Than he knew. For anyone who put there head into the lion's mouth, would be given the courage to love, and that love would go to the first available mate one would see. The man knew that if took the woman back to the lion, put her head in a second time, the spell would be broken. But she laughed at such a thing. She was not under a spell. She knew what love was. They went back to the lion and just as she was going to put her head in a second time, the man pulled her back - and put his head, instead. Not sure I am such a romantic anymore.
Anyway, we did get a pic done in the heart of red roses or carnations. The arrangements are beautiful. We hustled back in the late afternoon to rest up for the evening festivities (it seems to rain every afternoon here in Singapore, like a steambath).
We headed out to Chinatown to celebrate the New Year. The colourful designs and arrangements were fantastic and most of the streets were blocked off and shut in preparations for a large parade. They had a stage set up for a live show and their were thousands of people all milling about and sitting on the streets in anticipation. However, it is nothing like our New Years Eve. None of the craziness and fun. The people are very disciplined and obedient - we saw very little drinking never mind drunkenness. The stage show was amateurish in nature and there really was not any sort of count down to mid nite. This is probably because New Years is not one day but a full week. There just did not seem to be the excitement that we are used to seeing in Times Square and Nathan Phillips and the like. However, this event is something much more sacred than just the putting up of a new calendar.
Everywhere we went, people are putting out offerings - fruit, oranges, small pits of things they are burning, incense. The New Year is much more than just an excuse to get wasted like it is in the western cultures. The Chinese shops and all closed for the week and we are told that if any open during this week, their families will shun them. This week in itself determines the fate or luck for the rest of the year so it is taken very seriously.
Very interesting watching all of this. Off to the bird park tomorrow.
