The Colour of Malaysia

We had planned to go and see the Jurong Bird Park today but it looked like it was going to rain so we decided to take a walk around the area near the hotel instead.

From the hotel room window I spotted what looked like ruins next to the fire station so we decided to investigate. It was actually a set of steps up to Fort Canning Hill. The walk around the hill was quite interesting. There is a lighthouse up there and as we read the signs posted up at various locations we found out that a lot of Singapore is built on reclaimed land. Where we were standing used to be a lot closer to the sea. The lighthouse was closed in 1958 because the tall buildings were masking it from being seen from the ocean. When it was in operation it could be seen from around 30 kms away.

As we walked further there were more signs explaining the history of Fort Canning. It was used as a communication centre after the British established a port there in 1819. The first communication device used on the hill was a flagstaff, followed by a time ball, the lighthouse and a telegraph office.

Flagstaffs were used to issue information to the public in port cities around the world. Various flags would be flown at several different positions on the flagstaff and depending on the flag and the position people around the town could decipher the meaning.

The time ball was a time-keeping device used to provide the public with a signal of the correct time. According to one of the signs it was raised at 12:55pm and dropped at exactly 1pm every day which enabled businesses, government offices and the public in the downtown area to set their time keeping devices to a common standard. Personally, I think it might have been used to signal the start of happy hour at the pub!

If you’re wondering how whoever was in charge of operating the time ball knew they were doing it at the correct time, I think they also had a sun dial close by. I’m not sure what they did on cloudy days. Maybe everyone just missed out on lunch. A digital watch may have come in handy but seeing as they wouldn’t be invented for about another 120 years, that probably isn’t much help.

Continuing around the hill we discovered that this area is also the site of a botanical garden (some of the trees were awesome), a water reservoir, a microwave station (I’m guessing it’s where all the microwaves go to recharge) and the “Battle Box”.

The “Battle Box” was an underground bomb-proof bunker used during World War II, which is situated nine metres beneath Fort Canning Hill. It is the site where Lieutenant-General Percival reached the decision to surrender Singapore to the invading Japanese on the 15th February, 1942.

The Box has been restored and is now managed by The Legends Fort Canning Park, a country club at the front of the hill. They operate guided tours through the bunker which has been decked out with wax figures, animatronics and audio-visual effects in a re-creation of the last few hours before the surrender.

It is quite well done and definitely worth doing. There is a bit more info on the tour in this Wiki article.

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written by Twoflower

The kids were up a bit late this morning. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 7:30. Then I realised that I hadn’t set my watch to Singapore time and it was really only 5:30. Doh!

Had breakfast at the hotel. There was an old fellow manning the egg station who turned out to be the head chef from what we could gather. The kids dubbed him “Cookie Man.”

After breakfast we walked from the hotel to the City Hall MRT station (about 3-5 minutes) to catch a train out to Tampines, which is out near the Airport. There are about 11 stops on the way so we should get a fair sort of a look at the country.

The public transport system in this city is quite impressive and seems to work quite efficiently. All the ticket booths are automated. Basically you just tap where you want to end up on a map of all the lines, tap another screen with how many tickets you want, it tells you how much money to insert and then spits out a small plastic (about the size of a credit card) computer chipped ticket. You then swipe that against a sensor to gain access to the platform through a set of gates. Once you get where you are going you swipe the ticket against another sensor and it lets you out. Bloody Brilliant and pretty much fool-proof, which is a good thing.

The first thing that struck me as we travelled on the train was the amount of high rise apartment buildings, mostly clumped together in complexes of 6 or more buildings. Most of them have parks, playgrounds and walking/biking tracks throughout the complexes, some have swimming pools, barbeque areas and community halls. Of the 4½ million people who live in this city, I reckon maybe 500 000 of them live at ground level. The other 4 million live at least 8 metres off the pavement.

The other thing that struck me was the cleanliness of the place. Very rarely did we see a piece of rubbish laying on the ground.

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written by Twoflower

Alrighty! We are on our way. Took the red-eye flight from Townsville at 6am and arrived in Brisbane about 7.30. Had a few hours to kill in Brisbane so we took the train into town to meet some family. We wanted to leave our carry on luggage at the airport so we stopped into the International terminal on the way and were going to hire some lockers to put the bags in. There were 2 major problems with that. 1. They have no lockers at the airport and 2. They have no lockers at the airport. I realise that, technically, that is only one problem but I thought it was such a biggy that I’d mention it twice. I can only assume that the reason they have no lockers is because of the terrorist thing going on. Maybe they are afraid that someone will put a bomb in one or something.

So, we lugged the bags with us into town. The tickets for the train cost us around $70 for 4 adults and 2 kids. Thought that was a bit steep. Even worse when we have heard that you can travel just about anywhere in Singapore on the trains for less that $2.

Once in town we met up with the rellies. Grabbed a bite to eat, ambled around for about an hour and then it was time to get back to the airport.

The international flight was probably 8 of the most unpleasant hours of my life. Strangely, a whole lot better than 8 hours at work though.

The free alcohol and the hot chocolate were the business though. I like their measure of a nip. I could make 2 or 3 drinks out of one shot.

My nephew met us at the Singapore airport and had organised a minibus to take us all to the hotel. By the time we got there, checked in and got up to our room it was about 10pm local time, which for us was midnight.

Once in our room we pretty much just crashed. Never knew just sitting on your backside 34000 feet in the air could take so much out of you. I don’t think the alcohol had anything to do with it.

written by Twoflower