{"id":675,"date":"2023-12-26T08:35:56","date_gmt":"2023-12-26T08:35:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerowalsh.com\/cr\/?p=675"},"modified":"2023-12-27T03:59:36","modified_gmt":"2023-12-27T03:59:36","slug":"mon-25th-dec-singapore-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cr.aerowalsh.com\/?p=675","title":{"rendered":"Mon 25th Dec – Singapore (Christmas at Punggol)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Declan is on a mission to wear me out, walking more or less aimlessly around the whole island of Singapore and the day ends with a massive exertion headache that forces me to abort night safari. It is too humid to be walking 15km a day and it’s clear the pace needs to downgrade in future days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Walking to Prata breakfast we take a wrong turn and end up in a parallel universe where industrial fans and vents have taken over Singapore.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Breakfast Prata and kopi. The Indian workforce of Singapore do not follow Christmas as a public holiday. Our later walk through a new housing development district was filled with Indian construction workers still on the clock at 7pm. We also saw their high density temporary dorm style housing close to the sites and it’s not the luxury of the Fullerton… The Barclay’s Singaporean sales girl I saw on Saturday evening said that Singapore has only been able to achieve such economic prosperity due to the massive imported ‘cheap’ labour, and it’s very clear that these labourers live an entirely different life to the banking class, to the extent they would never mix in the tiny island. I didn’t notice this amount of economic disparity in Thailand or Malaysia, where mansions with slides into a pool sat as neighbours to decaying shacks. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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9am on Christmas Day, the gaming floor of a shopping centre was completely deserted.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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After breakfast we catch an MRT to the end of the line to Pungol, the suburb Declan lived in for three months one summer while interning at RR. Behind the boyfriend with the teh ice is the local kopitam where he had dinners, and one of the many HDBs of Pungol. A HDB is a bit like social housing, where you need to pass an low income test and be married in order to buy one on a 99 year lease. The marriage clause is contentious, as there is no gay marriage in Singapore, so these couples are not able to qualify for affordable public housing. The Barclay’s sales girl also said that a lot of Singaporeans get married young with the sole intent for qualifying for access into the HDB ballot. Apparently HDB appartments are ‘cash cows’ once you get one because the owner is able to sell in the secondary market to anyone at market price.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The HDB where Declan spent his summer. It has not changed at all.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Walking around the north east of Singapore in Pungol. A river softly snakes through the suburb and into the channel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Declan has told me before that Singaporeans are scared of lightning. I also found Thais had the same phobias.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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In the middle of a walk around a less populated water treatment region region a storm disrupts our day and we, as culturally sensitive tourists, take shelter from the lightning. A lightning siren is triggered and instructs us to take shelter in five different languages. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Lie down and get comfortable as the storm rolls through. We’re here for close to two hours. We read, Declan naps and others arrive. There is a cyclist corner, a hiker corner, a family corner and a teenage boy corner. Teenage boy corner has a speaker and are blasting electronic tunes.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n