East Meets West SmackDown: Welcome to Singapore
East doesn’t meet West nicely in Singapore. It’s more of a WWF smackdown that leaves you confused amidst the metal botanical gardens next to the famous ship on a hotel. Singapore is a lesson in wonderfully strange.
In a city state that seems to be equally proud of its bright shutters past as of its steel minimalist present, it seemed only right to add an unreasonable time restriction. JD and I had 36 hours to “do” Singapore in a glorified layover on our way to Bali. In just over one day we were meant to explore, analyze and report back on a place whose leading export is Strangeness. We were up for the challenge.
Finding Normal in the Strange
Our news headlines are from the wrong era. Girls are being kidnapped for trying to get an education. We can’t, or won’t, find a plane. A whole plane. Russia’s moving in on Eastern Europe and China’s pushing down on Vietnam. What strange time warp are we in? Surely our technology, our global politics and our human rights have evolved beyond all this. I begin to wonder just how (un)advanced we actually are.
I travel seeking the unusual. I look for what is different from my norm; different people, different cultures, different landscapes and languages. I travel with the idea that my life is the status quo for human existence and the different I encounter is the strange.
Then Travel shakes its head at me. When will I finally learn that my world is not the world?
beyonddisneytraveltips 