Day 3 - Museum and Chinatown

Last night's meal was my first disappointing one of the trip.  T and I went to "My Humble House" for his birthday dinner.  I think a better name would have been "My Self-Aggrandizing Circus Tent."  The bizarro decor seemed to have been borrowed from the set of Beetle Juice.  The service was both lackidasical and overbearing.  (At the same time--go figure!) And the food.  Hmm. The food.  It was all I could do not to channel my inner Gordon Ramsey and bellow out "Must you garnish every plate with a mayo salad of cut grapes and strawberries?... Christ! This is real shit." 

But today, our 3rd day in Singapore, was quite nice.  We mixed things up a bit and took the subway to see the Asian Civilizations Museum.

Worth noting are the subways in Singapore.  Unlike every subway/tube I have ever been on, these subways might even compare favorably to above-ground modes of transportation.  They are air conditioned, which may seem trivial, but as someone who has nixed multiple trips to Soho on the basis of having to take the 'way, stand sweating and sticky waiting for the 5 train so I can get out at a decent stop, just this fact alone seems to be a game changer.  Air conditioned and double-bonus, almost spotlessly clean!  In fact yesterday, we saw what would count as a subway lurker in new york actually put his panhandling on hold to pick up a large stack of

 leaflets that had fallen all over the floor!  I can't imagine anyone picking anything up off the floor of a NY subway.  In fact, I know people who may reach for the Purell after even reading this sentence.

Other points of interest.  You can't buy round trip tickets for a subway destination.  You must return your subway card to recoup S$1 deposit per trip, and apparently this must also be done the same day you bought it. Fussy, no?  And all the escalators work, just at dramatically varying speeds--face-plant waiting to happen.

By the Esplanade, the Asian Civilization Museum was well worth visiting.  T and I enjoyed the Musee Quai Branly during our last couple of visits to Paris and this museum, while smaller and maybe less sophisticated, was probably even better by comparison.  Both museums focus on the ethnography, including ceremonial and ritual items,

 clothing, weaponry and masks.  But this one focused especially on Asian art, and included more commentaries for various pieces, with the resulting effect being that each piece felt worth pausing for, rather than displaying them as one of fifty spears, or funerary statues.  This felt like a museum, rather than a curio cabinet.  

The most interesting piece was a Peranakan bride's headdress.  Peranakan is a term used to describe Chinese immigrants to Malaysia and Java.   The headdress included a traditional Chinese veil of pearls, and intricate gold pins that would be worn in the bride's hair and on her dress.  The curator's note mentioned that many of the pins traditionally would have referenced Buddhist icons or symbols.  These however, were made in Malaysia and as such, were likely made by Hindu metal workers.  Over the generations, the bride and/or the artisan had lost their fluency, so that many of these symbols no longer reflected their traditional Buddhist conventions and meaning.

After that, we went to Chinatown, which is really where our hotel is located too.  Our cab driver commented that 75% of Singapore is of Chinese decent, and made a joke about the whole city being a big Chinatown--this was just the street they decorated for New Years.  Certainly, the area was atmospheric, with pagodas, vendors selling dried everything (shrimp, pickles, mushrooms).  In fact, not only were they selling dried everything, they seemed to be in the midst of drying everything too, including these curious wares featured in today's Fancy Food.