Goodness me, Singapore is a shopping Mecca. We picked up a street map before we left the hotel in the morning, but it was almost useless. What we really needed was a shopping mall map. Singapore is like Minneapolis, but for the exact opposite reason. In Minneapolis all the stores are connected so you can get around the town in winter without going out into the cold. In Singapore you can get around without ever leaving the shopping complexes to brave the humidity and searing heat outside.
When I visited Tokyo I was drawn to the Akihabara district to shop for electronics. But compared to Sim Lim Square in Singapore Akihabara in Tokyo is like a supermarket in the old USSR; barren and empty. I wandered around the hundreds of electronics stores for hours and bought many little gadgets to make my gypsy life a little easier.
All day I window shopped with only a break to visit Raffles Hotel. Raffles goes back to the days of the British rule of Singapore; a time of empire. You can still see the influence the English had over the place. The electric power plugs are British. They drive on the left hand side of the road. And I knew without a shadow of a doubt that England had left an indelible impression when I saw a sign at lunch that read: “Leave your used crockery here”; those Brits. Just to add to the mix; Raffles Hotel was built by four Armenian brothers and no Asians were permitted as hotel guests until the 1930s!
David Millett Publications
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