We are centrally located at the Grand Park City Hall hotel, an area I have not stayed in since 1997, when Dad and I stayed at the Peninsula, which is virtually next door. I am looking forward to exploring this area, and soon after breakfast, we check our baggage with Imagine Cruising and hit the streets.
We have about three hours to explore before having to return to join our bus to the cruise port and to meet our ship, Azamara Pursuit.
We could have gone in any direction. To the left of us is the iconic Raffles Hotel, but it is too early to be drinking Singapore Slings, so instead, we move towards the iconic Marina on the Bay building, which is about two kilometres away. We do not get there because we are right in the centre of Colonial Singapore and we want to explore the old civic section of the city, which was built by the British, and that is still in use today. Walking between St Andrew’s Cathedral and the imposing grey Greek revival style art gallery, a covered walkway is filled with young people picnicking. It appears to be a gathering place for them. We later find out that these are likely to be Burmese people who work as maids and gardeners and who meet their friends here in this central location on Sundays, their only day off. The base of the nearby Peninsula Hotel is also crowded with young people, many of whom are standing in an interminably long queue, apparently waiting to collect parcels from ‘home’. I now wish I had asked someone to explain exactly what occurs here each Sunday, as I am fascinated.
Along the way, just steps from the hotel, and just where these young people are picnicking, is a long display of hand-drawn faces that have been etched into a horizontal mural, and which also serves as seating. In the centre of one panel is the Singapore Pledge,
‘We, the citizens of Singapore, pledge ourselves as one united people.’ Here, in Singapore, every citizen, no matter what colour or religion they are, are all treated with respect and with equality. We in Australia could learn a valuable lesson from this.
We find a place where the elusive but iconic Marina Bay Sands building stands behind a cricket ground and pause for a moment to take photos before walking to City Hall, another beautifully maintained colonial building. Gardens soften the hard lines of the buildings and some sort of tropical plants in orange and yellow hues fill the garden beds. Beyond that, and close to the River stands a statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who landed in this very location on 28 January 1819, and who is considered the person who first changed the destiny of this once small fishing village into a thriving metropolis. No sign of damage or destruction by activists here. Oh! I forgot. Should anyone be found defacing public buildings, it is likely that they would serve a very long prison sentence and a caning. Hence, the history, whether it be good or bad, is preserved and intact.
We walk across the Cavanaugh Bridge, the oldest surviving bridge in its original form, which crosses the Singapore River to link the colonial public buildings to the far more modern financial district. We are more interested in following the riverwalk from the now-pedestrian Cavanaugh Bridge to the Elgin Bridge, wandering through the streets that were once bustling businesses and dwellings, and are now the restaurants and bars that make up Clarke Quay. Shophouses, the unique-to-Asia terraces with businesses on the ground level and residences above, built between the 1880s and the 1950s, were the brainchild of Raffles. Today, nobody is allowed to reside in a shophouse; all Singaporeans must apply for a permit to either buy a home with a 99-year lease or to rent a unit from the government. Only a few extremely rich people live in the tiny number of bungalows that have remained in the country.
We walk along the river, diverging into the streets behind from time to time. There is little to no activity this morning. The Singaporeans come to life after 11:00 AM, and maybe later on the weekends. Reaching the Elgin Bridge and with some time to spare, we seek refuge from a sudden and violent burst of tropical rain and have coffee as we contemplate how we can continue our walk to the hotel without getting completely drenched. This is a task that appears impossible.
Eventually we must succumb to the elements, and we dash across the road, getting very wet with the effort. The humidity dries our clothes quickly before we are washed out again having taken our last intersection under the flooding rain. We arrive again at the Peninsula Hotel and its wall-to-wall people, who have spilled onto the footpath, making it difficult to force our way to the lobby of our hotel. Think salmon swimming against the tide.
We arrive back in our room with just enough time to use the hairdryer on wet clothes and hair and to collect our one bag, having sent the suitcases on earlier, before joining the queue for the buses that will take us to the port.
The ship slips slowly from its moorings, gliding past Sentosa Island, passing oil tankers, and as we watch iconic buildings fade into the horizon, it’s time to say goodbye to Singapore as we embark on our adventures over the seas.
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