Singapura!

Hola, Singapura! 

The Asian tryst continues with a rendezvous with the ultra modern, chic, and progressive island-state: Singapore! 

My recent Hong Kong trip felt like a stroll down memory lane. I made it a point to revisit old haunts- the area around Victoria Peak, Tsim Tsa Tsui, the vicinity of Central's Star Ferry Port, Mongkok, Causeway Bay, etc. Ended up purchasing an iPod. Hey, I bought a dated model, but as is the case with a good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon- Apple products only get better with age. A 160 gb multimedia player for less than 2000 Hkd seems like a swell deal to me. 

So Singapore might not be as conducive for shopping as Hong Kong was (due to the dreadfully painful losing battle the Philippine Peso is in with the Singapore Dollar), but hey, travelling is about economic irony. You should be thrifty on the bare essentials, then, remember to whip out the plastic and foreign dinero where and when it matters so as to make your trip that much more memorable. 

On the way to Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport today, I got around to doing a little game of comparison. I made the plausible decision to dwell on the positives.

How does Manila stack up with Hong Kong? How can one be more like the other? And the same goes with Manila unto Singapore, and the Lion City unto Manila. 

Travelling is so fulfilling for me because it gives one a tremendous sense of perspective. To see, hear, smell, and taste what the locals in another province, another country, another continent, experience is utter joy- even if sometimes that could mean wrestling through crowds, or sweating your tush off walking through polluted city streets, or, doing an Andrew Zimmer and grabbing the most stomach turning fare one can find. It all falls into a single receptacle, a conglomeration of body, spirit, and temporal madness which can only be elicited by the soul-snatching power of stepping out of one's own personal Ritz Carlton and exclaiming unto the "brave new world" that you're just as thrilled and as ballsy about going toe to toe with it as it is with you. 

So where to this time? Singapore, and in a way, to a higher level of cognition on what it means to bask in the undulating, erratic, sweet and sour journey known as our collective consciousness, about own modern, modern, life.

MC