Many video games are filled with “dungeons.” These are multi-level, enclosed environments that the player has to navigate and eventually escape to advance to the next level of the game. There’s often puzzles, villains, and various challenges embedded in a dungeon.
Singapore, being a great video game, has some dungeons of its own!
A dungeon is a fitting term for my surroundings at the moment. I’ve just been assigned to start working with Internal Audit with my company, and I’m temporarily in Singapore going through training with the team. Until recently I didn’t even have a flight out, and I don’t know where I’ll be living long-term (South America is looking doubtful, most unfortunately). Singapore has been my (well-conditioned) dungeon for the last three and a half weeks.
Singapore has a lot of great potential dungeons. There are the hawker markets, the underground malls, the above-ground malls, the office buildings, the airport, and even the hotel.
Your hotel has been invaded by an Italian soccer team! Try to get out of the hotel without running into any of the players or their ravenous fans.
A few weekends ago Juventus was in town for a match against Man U. Luckily Man U stayed elsewhere, but Juventus was in my hotel. The hotel was mobbed all weekend by fans and burly security guards. The elevators were nearly inoperable and when the team was coming and going the lobby was blocked off as well.
The army is on the streets. Helicopters are in the sky. Try to escape Singapore island.
The Italian invasion was made worse by the rehearsal for the National Day Parade one block away from the hotel. Apparently, for National Day, Singapore roles out its entire armed forces. All of the streets around the hotel are blocked and a stadium is erected a block away. Throughout the event, there are performances, fighter jets, paratroopers, helicopter fly-overs, and a parade of tanks, Humvees, and police cruisers.
Singapore has mandatory military service for all 18-year-old men. For the rehearsal, these reservists are basically the ushers. They line the corridors of the subway and the streets, directing the spectators. So not only was the vicinity of my hotel invaded by heavy artillery, but there were also Asian adolescents in fatigues everywhere.
You’ve managed to escape the Italians and the troops. Just traverse Pulau Ubin to make it to sweet freedom in Malaysia.
Singapore is an island off the southern tip of the Malaysian peninsula. It’s easy to get from Malaysia to Singapore and visa versa. Just drive over one of the bridges. In the boundary water, on the eastern side of Singapore in the path of the airport landing runway, is a small island that has been mostly set aside as a national park. It’s much closer to Malaysia than Singapore, and you have to take a brief ferry ride to reach the island. Once you get there you can rent a bike and trot around, seeing birds, different habitats, some traditional Malaysian-style villages, monkeys, and old quarries-turned-reservoirs.
They’re after you in Malaysia! Head up to Thailand.
I got cabin fever in Singapore. I went to Phuket, Thailand for one brief weekend, which was a nice getaway. Phuket has an old town with Chinese shophouses, similar to Singapore and Penang. Malacca, Malaysia has a similar style of architecture and history. If I had not gone to Phuket, I probably would have gone to Malacca instead. Along with Singapore and Penang, Malacca was the third city in the British Straits Settlement colony.
I did get to wander around Chinatown and other neighborhoods in Singapore extensively. I left with a profound appreciation for the shophouse architecture and that despite the development Singapore has undergone, many beautiful shophouses have been preserved.
The final dungeon: Changi Airport. At the center of the airport is a prized jewel. Steal it and get outta Dodge!
Changi Airport is consistently ranked as one of the best, if not the best, airports in the world. Singapore just opened a new “terminal” called Jewel. It’s not really a terminal. It’s more like a mall in-between other terminals. The center of Jewel is a large atrium with a column of falling water surrounded by gardens and people taking selfies. The atrium is very nice, and that’s the nicest thing I can say about Jewel.
