Travel Bug

Have found myself day dreaming about my time in Singapore the last few days. Well, that and actually dreaming about it. The last few nights have been filled with dreams of booking flights and faraway countries, like Egypt and Japan. They're very detailed; in some I'm even clearing traveller's cheques and paying for taxis. It's clear to me now that traveling really is a huge passion for me.

If I try to pinpoint why, it comes back to that whole idea of just being somewhere completely different. Of that strange mix of fear and excitement and enjoyment. The more I think about it, my last day in Singapore was probably one of my favourites. I had nothing planned, and was merely killing time until my flight in the evening. Walking down the streets, I had no idea what I was going to find. And then suddenly, I was in this massive mall, where people frequented and lived their lives. Something I would've passed by otherwise. It really felt like a dream, where the world just keeps expanding in front of you, and you drift through, not quite sure how you got to the place where you are, but seem to both know, and not know, your surroundings.

The last few weeks have been really good for thinking about where I'm headed now. I'm nearly 23. Just thinking about the fact it'll be 2014 soon boggles me. I've recently started my own business. I'm thinking of moving out. Girls are now on my radar. I'm seriously thinking it's time to fly the nest and beginning more of these adventures, which are now occupying more of my headspace than a simple, fleeting pleasure would.

It's daunting of course. I wouldn't just be leaving my comforts behind, but also my best friends. My family. But it's got to happen sometime though.

Things I Learnt in Singapore:

So, thought I'd throw in a second installment of dissection of my Singapore trip, this time with a bit of humour, and (gasp!), imagery thrown in. Who knows, I might do a Peter Jackson, and draw it out for a trilogy with a behind the scenes DVD special.

Last post we discussed how traveling can change your perspective on yourself, your life and what matters to you. This post I'll ask, what did I actually learn from my time in Singapore? Well for starters, I can tell you that poorly-hydrated, fairly pale, New Zealand guys, don't really mix with the Singaporean heat, as made evident by my early exit from the first day of the frisbee tournament with severe heat stroke. Lesson learnt. Sun hot. Bald heat need big cold. With that kicking us off, let's journey forth into a wonderous place, where I share what I learned in my travels... *Cue reverberating harp echo*

1. Malls. Singaporeans really like malls. No, like REALLY like malls.

Coming from my town, where there are only two malls, both with a single foodcourt and the old, familiar shops, and both far out in the outer suburbs, nothing could really prepare me for what appeared to be utter insanity in Singapore. The first time I got lost (I can assure you, it was only the first time of many) was actually in a mall. Well, you could say it was several malls. I walked for hours, all without seeing sunlight, all inside a series of malls. There were big malls, small malls, there were malls that linked the bigger malls together. There were even trains to more malls. I managed to find my way out, after 2 long hours of struggling to escape my mall-ish hell. What should await me when I emerged into the humid heat of the Singaporian street above (which, I might add, was several kilometres from my starting point!)? Why, the entrance to another mall of course!

Now, it's not a bad thing. I'm all for malls. Especially in the heat of Singapore. But when your malls begin to have little malls inside them to merge larger ones together, and when you can walk for hours without seeing any natural light, well, I think you may have a tiny mall problem. It doesn't just stop there either! I went to the hospital alongside a team mate who had dislocated his shoulder. While waiting for him to wake up from whatever procedure they'd conducted, I went in search of food. "Cafe on Floor 3!" I was told. Making my way up the stairs, what did I find. There was a mall inside the hospital. Shops, foodcourt, a fountain of some sort. I swear I'm going to wake up some night in the near future, with a cold sweat, a nightmare of getting lost in endless malls fresh in my mind.

2. If you're a taxi driver, road rules are optional.

It wasn't until I was being driven, a few ticks over the speed limit, down the middle of two lanes, with the driver beeping another driver off, while he was drinking his water bottle and using his iPad to tell his taxi friends where he was going so they could meet for coffee, that I began to understand that taxi drivers in Singapore are slightly different to those in New Zealand. Red lights were ignored. Tires were shredded. I'm sure there was some nitros involved in there somewhere. Having many of the main streets barricaded off for the coming Formula 1 probably didn't help.

After a while you get used to it, and even more than a bit involved, often getting disappointed when drivers didn't squeeze through red lights when there's a gap in the traffic, or when they don't turn the corner like a rally car. It's probably not that bad, and more likely a result of them trying to speedily get me to my destination so the unending rambling of how many times I've gotten lost can finally end. Plus the fact my accent kept messing with their heads. Every time I'd say "How's your day been?" they'd reply with "Why are you asking about my driving? I'm driving you to where you need to go!" and then look at me strangely.

3. If it hasn't rained already in the morning, you should be worried.

Singapore had the heaviest rain I've ever experienced. On day three of the tournament, we were playing up to our ankles in thick mud, often with a few inches of water on top of that. Each step was a struggle. My shoes are more or less ruined. They stunk so bad, I had to declare them to customs, and just to get them in my suitcase without fouling the rest of my clothes, I had to triple bag them and seal every inch with tape. I imagined that when the custom's officer opened them back in New Zealand, it'd be akin to that scene in Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where the Nazi's open the Ark of the Covenant and their faces melt off. They were that bad. Not to mention they gave me a rash, well rather, the mud.

Although locals said it was unusual, it seemed to rain heavily overnight or in the morning, before turning into a cracking day. Those days where it didn't, you'd better have a raincoat for the afternoon. At least umbrellas are useful in Singapore, for both rain, sun and pulling yourself out of mud! Scarier still were the aforementioned taxi rides. Imagine those drivers, but this time in torrential rain, and in each instance, their wipers seemed to be going just that bit too slow to wipe the waterfall of rain from the windscreen, making for an... exciting ride.

4. Everyone speaks English. Until you need directions.

I love Singapore. I love the people of Singapore. But seriously, they are really bad at giving directions. "Just cross over" means something along the lines of needing to take a 30 minute walk, probably across a canal somewhere. "This train goes to X" usually means, "This train doesn't go to X". Sometimes you have to laugh and go with the detours, even if they take upwards of a few hours. Everyone tries to be helpful; it's clear they have no idea where you're asking to go, but still want to point you in a direction anyway. It's hard to get angry at that.

In fact, the only time I got angry during my adventure, was right after I dropped my team mate at the hospital. I was in my studs, I was tired, sore and dirty. After waiting in line for a taxi, I told him where I needed to go. Unlike New Zealand taxis, taxis in Singapore don't have GPS. At least not in any of the cars I rode in. You're relying completely on the knowledge of the driver. Had I known that, I wouldn't have left my cellphone, map and good humour back at my room. After circling around for what seemed like a lot of money, the driver pulled up to an apartment block. I was told this was my destination. Glancing up, it certainly did look the part. Same height, even had a playground in the middle! The colour was a tad off, but hey, I'm colour blind, so what authority am I?

Yeah, you guessed it. It wasn't the right place. Was barely the right suburb. The apartments just happened to have the same design. After realising I was truly lost without any way out, I tried to make my way around the block. Surely the driver dropped me somewhere in the vicinity of the place, right? I walked and walked (which took forever on account of my grass shoes), and after much effort trying to flag down a taxi to lodge a complaint (which was in turn met with angry beeps and swerves), I lost my cool. Okay, I full on had a tantrum on the sidewalk. I needed to use the bathroom, and no one would let me use their toilet without buying stuff. No one had a map or knew where I was. After a hard stomp in what I thought was the right direction, an old lady finally told me I was about 20 minutes from where I needed to go. Dejected, I finally found a police station, which pointed me in the direction of the MRT. I finally get to the station, and a train is about to leave. I see a guy at the door. "Hey! Does this train go to Queenstown?" The guy looked at me in the eye and said "Yes." I jump on the train. The door slam shut behind me. "Oh wait, no! This train doesn't go to Queenstown." He turns to me and shrugs. I get taken 10 minutes down the track. Resisting the urge to slap someone with my umbrella, I finally, somehow, make my way back to my room and let out a gutteral howl of despair. The worst thing was that I'd tried to do something nice by seeing my friend to the hospital, and in turn, I'd been stranded in the middle of no where for hours. Which leads me to the 5th thing I've learnt in Singapore...

5. If you think you know where you're going, you really don't.

I ran out of money fairly quickly in Singapore. Not from shopping. Not from food. But from transport. I could take the MRT into the city, but then I could never find my way back to it. By the end of my trip, I was an expert taxi flagger. As I've mentioned in my previous post, taxi fares are actually fairly cheap over there, so it just goes to show how many times I was flagging a cab down. For me, an extra $5-8 was well worth not getting lost for another few hours.

There were a few times I decided that I was confident enough to forego a cab, and make my way back to the MRT like a big boy traveller! Yeaaaah, no. One time, I literally went around in a huge, hour-long circle, which encompassed overpasses, underpasses, malls (of course) and several parks. And that was several days into my trip!

When I first got led to the MRT subway by my team mates, given a transport pass and told "Best o' luck!", I really did feel like that dog above. Yeah! Let's go to City Hall! I don't know why, I don't know where it is, and I don't know how long it'll take, but that's where I've been told to go! Yeah! By the end of my trip, I had getting less lost down to an artform. If I just stuck to the area I'd been to a dozen or so times of course. Because each time I ventured out of that area, and thought "Hmm, that looks like a familar entrance to a familiar mall, and possibly the MRT", well it turns out I was wrong.

6. I would probably get obese and broke (perhaps in that order) if I lived in Singapore.

Traveling budget aside, my gosh, the food in Singapore is amazing. Foodcourts with local cuisine (think in some cases, anything from noodles, to frog porridge) are good and cheap, but not really my thing. Mall foodcourts and restaurant clusters however, are. They have chilli cheese popcorn. Chilli. Cheese. Pop. Corn. I was walking around the mall, my hand and mouth covered in yellow cheese dust, and I'd only just begun my culinary expedition! Sushi, Indian, Thai, Steak, Seafood, Western, Eastern, Southern, Northern! So many choices. In a way I'm glad I left when I did. With the tournament over, it was only a matter of time before the nights of deep fried ice-cream, deli sausages and mixed grills caught up to me.

So I'll leave my experiences there for now. I've learnt a lot during my time in Singapore. Mostly about how much I love the place, and most definitely more than I've remembered to write here. I hope this little insight into my time away has amused you, and maybe even inspired you. If this is my last post on traveling, I'll let you with this: do it! Traveling is such an amazing experience. You meet crazy characters, experience wonderful things, challenge yourself and your perceptions, and you learn a whole lot. Even though I'm almost certainly a travel-newb, even in Singapore, I feel I've grown so much. It seems crazy that one can mature from simply being in a different place, a different time and different culture, but it's true, and for that, I urge anyone who wants to feel that rush of experience to go out and enjoy it for themselves!

Wanderin' Perspective: A Singapore Trip

My parents think I'm mad, maybe a little strange sometimes; I'll be on the living room couch after a long day, (usually in a dishevelled state from a hard game of frisbee) in that peculiar state where you're tired enough to fall asleep where you sit, but also so tired that your legs are too lazy to carry you upstairs to your comfortable bed. Instead, they vehemently persuade you that the couch, perhaps a foot too small, and a bung spring less comfortable, is a far better place to crash for the night. The television is blaring, but the power remote is oh so far away... I'll just close my... eyes...

And yet, through your drooping eyelids, you can still see the flashing antics of E! News or reruns of Friends. Argh! If only there was a place I could get some peace and darkness! Committed to making my night's sleep as unaccommodating as possible, I push through the discomfort and try to sleep in the last place I probably should be sleeping, on account of the numerous times I've awoken from that couch with a sore neck or bruised back. The last obstacle in the way is that darn tv! Parents are asleep. Getting up to fetch the remote would surely result in my cognitive arousal. Fumbling in the darkness under the accursed couch, I find something - the Sky remote!

Now I could switch it off. Mute it. For some reason, I never do any of those things. If I had any sense, I'd have just walked 30 seconds up the stairs to bed in the first place. No. I always find myself turning to one channel. Real Good Life TV. Up in the stratosphere on Sky channels, I'm sure no one watches it. You see, it's a radio station. Just a black screen and voices coming out. However, it's a Chinese radio station. I don't understand a lick of what they're saying, and I'm not sure if I want to. There's just something easing about listening to some far away place, some distant culture. Something different. They have their own thoughts, their own dreams and problems. Your mind tries to fill them in. An effective wall of pleasant white noise.

So my parents will often walk in on me at 5am, 6am, sometimes if I get that pesky middle spring to rest juust right, maybe even 7am, with the television blaring Cantonese radio, me fast asleep.


That's how I felt walking around Singapore the first night of my stay there. It was as if I was alseep and awake, all at the same time. I felt like I was just a mere visitor, a spectre, walking amongst the people there, observing and invisible. Back home, I understand what's going on. I'm the centre of the universe. Nothing is foreign. But here, stepping out into the dimly-lit streets and smelling the burnt offerings for the Day of the Dead, it was exactly as if I was back on that couch.

I stayed in Singapore for ten days. Without question, Singapore is a strange place. Everything is warped there, most certainly, units of scale. A "long way" was a 10 minute walk in one direction. An expensive taxi fare was anything over $10. In New Zealand, you're lucky if you can go around the block on that, let alone a half-city crawl as it was in Singapore. And yet a cheaper abode in Singapore would be in the $400-500K range.

In that sense, and many others, traveling does give you a rare perspective into not only the lives of others', but also your own. Foremost in my mind, was how grateful I was for everything back home. When taking a wrong turn can lead you to getting lost for more than a few hours, you learn to appreciate the staleness that you thought your life back home had become. The excitement and the full-nature of traveling is amazing, and something everyone ought to do at least many times in their life, but it must be said that simply coming home and finding your room, still as ever, with its familiar smells, feeling and sights, is something very satisfying, and those who have traveled will understand. It's not that you're overwhelmed by your experience, or that you disliked the impact of your wanderings, it's just something unwritten that fills you with peace, and you learn to appreciate that simply because something is not exciting, does not mean that it is any less "good" or "bad" than something that is.

I know I sound very philosophical, but you can't help be changed by such an adventure away. As with all experiences, even if they're meant just as fun, enjoyable encounters, they do have an impact on you. You brush by them, and they brush by you. Especially when you've traveled as little as I, you do come back with a new perspective on things and see the world around you in a new way. In that sense, your adventure has not ceased, but really, continued.

On the flight back, I got very misty-eyed over seeing my home's lights peaking through the clouds below. It's where everyone I've ever loved was met. It's where almost all of my best memories have been. And even though the ground shakes, the wind blows and bus drivers are grumpy, it's my own home. My trip to Singapore was the longest I've been away from my family, indeed, it's the first time I've even been out of the country on my own, so I'm not ashamed to say I missed them a lot. Sometimes it does take a while away from what's closest to you, to truly recognise just what they mean to you. And that's really what traveling does: it gives you an amazing perspective on what life is, abroad and at home. Sometimes it does take going halfway across the planet just to realize what you feel in your own heart.