Singapore: The Durian Adventure

One fun memory of Singapore is the adventure of the Durian Experience.

The Durian fruit is rather large fruit, green with a thorny spiked exterior.

Even uncut it has a rather pungent smell. Above you can see Terrance in purple deciding on which Durian in the stand behind him that we were going to try. Terrance is rather an expert when it comes to finding the finest Durians. I use the term finest rather loosely, as we shall explain as we go on with the tale.

The Durian is so smelly that carrying a Durian fruit is banned on public transportation in Singapore:

Our Singaporean friends Terrance and Johnathan (an expat I knew from my High School and university days) after a dinner took us by a fruit stand that sold durians as we had to experience it during our visit to the Far East.

The Durian is sliced open, revealing the yellow fruit inside.

Verily the smell got worse. Yes, just like a Tauntaun, you only thought they smelt bad on the outside.

Eating durian is done while wearing disposable plastic gloves, or the stench will linger on your fingers for a long time.

Eating it was an experience.

Leah, the first of us to eat it was rather doubtful as she was poised to take a bite. Some native Singaporean strangers seted behind us enjoying their Durians watched rather intently.

Her expression upon tasting a Durian for the first time did not disappoint, and they had a good kindhearted chuckle at her reaction, as did we all.

She quickly spat it out. Abby and Tash tried it with much trepidation and found it yucky but less so than Leah had, but neither finished their serving of Durian.

I then gave it a go.

The best description I could give it is that of enjoying a smooth creamy custard while sitting in and tasting a sewer.

Can't say I'd recommend it, but I did finish my piece.

My Singaporean friend Terrance considered it a great delicacy and happily ate the parts we passed on, while my friend the expat Johnathan sadly shook his head that Terrance could like such a smelly yucky fruit.

We then ate some mangosteens which washed away the taste of the Durians.

The Mangosteens and were sweet and really, really good.

Such was the great Durian Adventure, not an experience that will soon be forgotten.

Singapore's Navy Museum

It's been a year since I visited Singapore, and I've realized I neglected to post quite a few of the places I visited there.

One area that stands out is Singapore's Navy Museum.

Singapore's lifeblood is the shipping trade. An island nation,it has one of the busiest ports in the world. With such a symbiotic relationship to trade, its no wonder they have a substantial navy to protect it. Adding their rather interesitng neighborhood and the presence of pirates, their navy is indeed necessary.

It's also quite a powerful one in terms of overall capacity and for such a small nation.

The Navy Museum is located on an active naval base. It is a secure location, so if you wish to visit you need to bring your passport.

On checking in at the front gate, I and my friends from Singapore presented our IDs and signed in, and we were issued visitor's badges.

We were told to keep them on and visible at all times. Given the rather serious sentries at the entrance we certainly didn't argue.

We also received an escort - a sailor serving on one of Singapore's amphibious assault ships who had injured his ankle on duty got the job of taking us from the main gate to the museum. A nice young fellow doing his mandatory service, he enjoyed chatting with us on the way to the museum and asked that we not take photographs of the base, but only in the designated museum area and we happily complied with that request. He then got to kick back and relax as we toured the museum, and we were allowed to wander around it at our leisure unescorted.

The museum is three stories indoors as well as some outdoor displays.

As you enter you see models of Singapore's naval vessels, both past and present. Like all the museums in Singapore I visited, it is not very well lit. most likely this is to save on air conditioning costs and keep the interior cool, but it makes photography a bit difficult.

There's a variety of informative signs about navy life.

There's a whole wall of knots used in the naval service.

Multiple historic photographs of early and present Singaporean navy life.

A description of readiness conditions aboard ship.

If you've ever wondered what all those colored flags on a navy ship mean, wonder no more:

There's also quite a display of guns.

From a Bofors single mount:

To weapons seized from the Vietnamese boat people when their boats were boarded as they reached Singapore's waters.

I'm sure there's quite a tale as to how the boat people acquired these firearms in the first place.

That's an Australian L1A1 complete with functioning happy fun switch (I checked), an Ithaca 37 shotgun (interestingly it was the only one of the three firearms that was deactivated with its barrel cemented shut), and a Long Branch manufactured Lee Enfield No4. Mk.1.

Look how they identified the Enfield:

I mentioned the error to the museum's curator, and they're going to fix the label accordingly.

If missiles are your thing, they have those on display as well.

Then outside there's even more to see. A variety of weapons from decommissioned ships are on display.

There's also full scale mock-up of a conning tower from a Challenger-class submarine. Yes, Singapore currently operates two different classes of diesel submarines.

There was lots more to see and do at the museum and lots of interesting exhibits and artifacts. After we finished, our escort took us back to the main gate where we handed in our badges and got our identity documents back.

The takeaway from the museum is the Singapore has a surprisingly large and very capable navy that is well suited for protecting Singapore's interests in the region and its lifeblood, maritime trade.

Singapore - The Botanical Gardens

Singapore is often called the Garden City, so of course we had to visit the botanical gardens.

The gardens from the outside look like two large domes, with posts that look like large trees in a large courtyard in front of them.

As you enter the gardens after paying the entry fee, you see a waterfall with two walkways that circle the perimeter of the entire building letting you look down upon the natural beauty before you.

Flowers are all around you as you stroll through the gardens.

There are multiple levels to the gardens, including a lower level forming a cave complete with stalagmites and stalactites.

Ascending the highest walkway around the inside of the dome, to the cloud forest, we looked down through the mist left by the waterfalls.

The large posts outside in the shape of trees are lit up at night.

Each night there's a musical show with the trees all pulsing different colors.

As we visited during the National Day celebrations, the songs were distinctly patriotic and stressed the unity of Singapore's people and that Singapore was their home.

Yes, they were really pushing the "One Nation Singapore" theme.

The gardens are a really beautiful spot to see in Singapore, with an amazing variety of flowers and plants from the tropics and elsewhere, and the night show with all of the posts pulsating in time to the music was really neat to watch and the gardens are well worth visiting and enjoying.

Singapore Day 6 - To The Beach

So at my birthday party the day before, Jonathan suggested we go to Changi beach as we wanted to swim in the Pacific Ocean on our trip.

So bright and early we got on the bus to head for Changi Village.

It was a nice double-decker air-conditioned bus, figuring out the fare was interesting as the driver had limited English, and we had no Chinese and limited varieties of banknotes, and the fare is based on distance and age, but we got it figured out.

Taking the bus was rather enjoyable and we got to see quite a bit of the city. We passed by the Malabar Mosque on the way:

And the famous Gay World Hotel:

Gay in the original and very English sense of the word. That hotel has been in Singapore with that name for a very long time which might disappoint certain travelers who might book there expecting the more modern meaning.

Then we passed by the infamous Changi prison.

Yes it is the same site as the Changi prison of World War 2. The Changi World War 2 prison museum is now at a different location. The prison today still looks very imposing indeed.

The bus drops you off at a station in Changi village and it's a short walk from the bus station to the beach.

On the way you cross a bridge by the docks lined with small boats.

Then you reach the beach.

It is a nice sandy beach with trees farther back for shade. It's also quite near a shipping lane so large freighters come by while you're swimming.

The water was warm and the beach was nice and sandy, and there were nice clean changing rooms and shower facilities, and restaurants close by so we had a nice picnic lunch on the beach.

The day was full of swimming and watching the boats go by.

Not only did boats go by, as Changi Beach is, luckily for an aviation buff like myself, in the flight path to Singapore's Changi International Airport.

I may have gone a little plane crazy, with so many planes from so many different Asian airlines in liveries that I've never seen in person before (click 'em to embiggen as they say and see the liveries, quite a few of which are rather ornate):

Air Asia has a cheerful slogan: "Now Everyone Can Fly", so carry on flying Mr. B.

There was Lion Air:

There was Tiger Air:

There was no Bear Air, Oh My.

But there was Royal Brunei:

EVA Air:

Vietnam Airlines:

China Airlines:

Malaysia:

Garuda Indonesia:

Thai:

Myanmar:

The venerable Cathay Pacific airline:

Heck, just when you get over Fox cancelling Firefly, you find out it's still flying -- in Asia:

That was quite a nice day at the beach.

After getting our fill of swimming, lunch, swimming some more, walking along the beach and sightseeing, we then took the bus back into town and had to stop for Starbucks.

However, we decided to have drinks there that you could only get in Singapore:

We got a Shiok-ah-ccino, and two more drinks that I don't remember the names of, but one was rather memorable as it had oatmeal in it which was rather interesting, but I really wouldn't recommend it. However, the Shiok-ah-ccino was very tasty as was the special iced tea drink.

Then we headed back to our abode, rested for a bit, and prepared for the next event of the day.