A four-day weekend, courtesy of a fortuitous combination of public holidays, offered a good opportunity for our annual trip to Singapore. Actually the weekend turned into a five-day holiday, because Malaysia did so well in the SEA Games that the PM decreed an extra day off... (Given all the sniping about Malaysia's hosting, I'm not sure how well this will go down in the region...)

Anyway, the announcement came too late to extend our Singapore trip, but hey, it's no bad thing to celebrate Malaysian success in Malaysia.

As always, it was a pleasure to return to Singapore. How do they keep it looking so smart? Even the trees look glossier than other people's. As Nigel pointed out, even the roadworks are tidy.

Hotter than usual, though. Normally we find Singapore cooler than KL, but not this time.

We stayed at the Bay Hotel, as our normal favourite, the Innotel, was full. The Bay has smaller rooms, although they're very well equipped. Both places have complimentary minibars, but the Bay's are more comprehensive. And although we found the Bay less friendly, a key plus is its closeness to the Seah Im Food Centre, which we frequented on all four days (first prize goes to the duck noodle soup, which was both duck-heavy and exquisite, but the sliced fish teochew porridge was a good runner-up).

As always, our trip was divided into breaking new ground and enjoying again the tried and tested old stuff.

Highlights (old):

-- Having breakfast at Ya Kun Kaya Toast. We went back to the oldest outlet, on China Street, and as well as the classic combo (kaya toast, soft-boiled eggs, and black coffee), we tried out the steamed bread with kaya (big tick).

-- Watching a movie at the Shaw Centre. This time it was the very sobering Dunkirk, which we'd missed in KL. A balanced telling, I thought, juxtaposing the courage of the little fleet with the horrific slaughter brought about by this military debacle.

-- Walking the length of Orchard Road with the holiday crowds. I've read reports that business is declining along this flagship stretch, but we certainly saw no evidence of that.

-- Walking, more generally. Singapore is highly pedestrian-friendly, and you always light on interesting cityscapes.











-- Taking the bus. When we lived here, I always enjoyed this way of getting around, and buses now seem more abundant than ever. Making your way through the traffic is slower than sliding along underground, but much more scenic, especially if you sit at the front on the top deck (which we did). Borne along on high, you get good views of Singapore's 52nd birthday banners, the Divali decorations in Little India, and the amazing greenness of this crowded city-state. But bus-riding also gives you lots of intimate, ordinary glimpses into the city's working heart.



-- Enjoying al fresco evening drinks. Our first evening's venue was Brewerkz, down by the river, which I last visited in 2010, when we lived here. You always get a good choice of beer, and the "merlion" pizza, with prawns, squid, and mussels, was very commendable. Der Biergarten, on historic Prinsep Street, was the second evening's choice. With its energetic touts, it looks like the classic tourist trap. But the food (garlic bread, smoked duck, and burrito) was very good, and though choosing wine in a beer garden was perhaps a bit counterintuitive, it was an OK bottle. (Another advantage of this locale is that you can revisit The Daily Scoop for a post-meal ice-cream. Would recommend pairing lychee martini with avocado.) Our third evening's berth was the rooftop bar of The Bay, a place called Propeller. Beware: You need to book, even if they tell you that you don't... But once you've got yourself in, it's a nice place to enjoy a drink and tapas as the dusk turns into dark. On your right, the twinkling Mount Faber cable cars make a necklace of stars; in front of you Sentosa's fairytale castle turns from pink to blue to green. To your far left is the graveyard of the Johor Sultans, while the whole of the foreground is taken up by the port, where big, butch cranes move containers around like they're empty cardboard boxes, and every now and then a vast container barge slides by. Propeller does a nice take on the Singapore Sling, longer and less sweet than many.









Highlights (new)

-- The Former Ford Factory. We had planned on visiting the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the National Gallery, but we're queue-phobic, and the crowds at the ticket booths put us off. So we enjoyed the external art, and then brought forward the next item on the agenda, namely, the site that witnessed the surrender of the British forces to the Japanese in 1942. It contains a really good exhibition, rich in primary sources, which takes you through the lead-up to the invasion, the ill-equipped defence, the surrender, the period of occupation, the next surrender, and the challenges of the post-war period. I felt it tried hard to be balanced. The ruthlessness and cruelty of the Japanese occupiers are not concealed, but neither are the pressures that sent Japan off in search of Southeast Asian oil, nor the lives of those who managed to ride out the Japanese occupation.





















-- Bukit Brown Cemetery. This is a veritable archive, tragically under threat of development. It is a most beautiful, atmospheric place. Yes, it's full of dead people. But it's also full of trees and birdsong. And despite the occasional clang from the road construction already underway, it's wonderfully quiet. Clearly, people come to make offerings for the dead; and we passed two small camps that the construction workers obviously use. Otherwise, we met (separately) two Europeans out walking their dogs, and two Europeans exercising two horses apiece. Otherwise, green serenity. It's touching to observe how the inequities of life are very visible still in death, and the graves range from the simplest of stones (in the area marked "pauper") to the most splendid pieces of real estate, guarded by Sikh soldiers and other tutelary figures.

















-- The Japanese Cemetery Park. You might be starting to think that too much of this trip was spent in graveyards... But this beautiful, flower-filled place is full of history, some of it controversial. As one of the signboards pointed out, the graves tell the story of Japan-Singapore relations. Their occupants range from the merchants who came because they could, once Japan had opened up, to the young sex workers, or "karayuki-san", who came because times were bad and they were effectively trafficked, to the spies who came to stake out the land and the opportunities it presented to a rising nation, to the members of the occupying forces who came to build a new empire and a new, even harsher colonial order. It's certainly a thought-provoking place in which to stroll. (And if you need a drink, then -- in true Japanese fashion -- there's a Pokka vending machine, dispensing melon milk, Kikkapoo, and other such beverages, and emblazoned with the highly ironic slogan "relive the good moments"...)















-- Black and white houses. There are several clumps of these, but the site we visited was off Alexandra Road. These houses were built in the 1930s and early 1940s, and according to an old gentleman we met en route, were officers' houses. The roads have names like Berkshire, Cornwall, York, and -- curiously -- Hyderabad. Black and white doesn't mean mock Tudor, and the styles varied quite a bit, but the uniform colour scheme does lend plenty of elegance. Again, the surroundings were idyllic. Venerable old trees, aswarm with squirrels; bright green sward; land folded into dips and dells; and intriguing views out to the real Singapore beyond the colonial enclave.











We walked back to The Bay via a route consisting of a creek-hugging boardwalk and a promenade separating glitzy condos and their adjacent marina.





We have in the past had our first lunch at a Korean place in Harbourfront. We had planned to have our last lunch there this time. It seems to have disappeared, however. In its place is Ramen Hitoyoshi. So we had ramen. Why not? If things go according to plan, our next overseas trip will take us back to Japan...