Dr. Who works in Singapore- Who Knew?!

 We took the Hippo Bus Tour today.  They have four different lines that tour around the city.  Hippo also runs Duck tours which is an amphibious tour vehicle, like the one that sunk on one of the great lakes or wherever that was..  The Hippo bus sells bottles of water  for $SD 2.00  ($1.40 american).  The water is in an ice chest all by itself so I took one.  I asked the bus driver where to put the $SD 2.00.  He said "in the tip jar", so I did.
Here is the bottle.  It was apparently processed by Dr. Who of TARDIS fame.

Singapore Art Museum.(SAM)

  

I spent about 4 hours on the open top of a double decker bus today touring Singapore and I have the sun burn to prove it.  There is a great  tour company called Hippo and Duck that has double decker buses and amphibious vehicles to tour the town.   The Hippo part of the company runs four lines of buses touring different parts of the city.  You can get on and off wherever you want, eat, go to a museum, shop, drink whatever.
So my sister and my niece got on the red line hippo this morning getting off in China Town to shop and eat, then getting back on and finishing the circuit. That took about four hours.  My traveling companions then took a cab ride back to the flat while I ventured out alone on the yellow line.
The Singapore Art Museum is on that line so I decided to get off and soak up some culture.  What I forgot about what I read in my guide book is that SAM is CONTEMPORARY art museum, you know, modern "art".
The main building of the museum is now dedicated to a special show called "5 Stars: Art reflects on Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress". I should probably tell you that the Singapore flag has five stars on it that stand for, you guessed it: Peace, Justice, Equality, Democracy and Progress.  Plus, last year was the 50th anniversary of the founding of Singapore.  So, it all kinda makes sense, except its modern art, which doesn't always make sense.
Here is the flag.

Here is the logo and explanation of the exhibit

Probably the best part of  SAM is the building it is housed in. It was built as a catholic boys school in 1867 and was added on to in 1906 and was opened as an art museum in 1996.

Since they didn't have any air conditioning in 1867 OR 1906 it was built with wide balcony s with arches that allowed the air to circulate through the buildings.  Well by 1996 air conditioning had been invented so during the remodel they put up  glass on the edge of all the balcony s to keep the cold air in.  It makes it a bit claustrophobic, but  the original architecture was left intact.

above 2 pics you can see through the arch.  Notice the metal bar reinforcing the glass panel.  That steeple and dome are part of the old school.

Above are more pictures from the balcony taken through the  glass.

The more things change the more they stay the  same ; rowdy school kids running up the stairs.

Althouigh the building was devoid of crucifixes, the chapel remained the same with the stations of the cross and places for the holy water.  This is the front of the chapel.

One exhoboit consisted of copper pipes installed by a  Singaporean"sound artist" named Zulkifle Mahmod with  long metal wires and elctroinc gadget that made random sounds.  I wouldn't say music, but close.  I did catch the art monitor/security guard humming along.

Here is an exhibit I could have done. T.K. Sabapathy taped a bunch of old art magazines to the wall, turned off the lights then lite up the magazines

.

A fun exhibit was food made out of post it notes.  There were tons of fresh post it notes and visitors were encouraged to make their own art.  The same room had a 3 foot by 3 foot board that looked suspiciously like a carrom board  buit with no sticks.  I didn't get a picture of it becasue two Muslim teenagers were playing on it by flicking the "cue carrom" with their index finger. I am guessing they were Muslims because there are a lot of Muslims in Singapore and the girl was wearing a very colorful and stylish hijab (head covering).

There was an annex building but my bus was coming soon and I wanted to get back to the central point so I could do the green line tour.  It turned out that I could have stayed because the green line bus never showed up.

Singapore- Little India part II

The main street of little India is Serangoon Road.  One one side of the street there were very fancy shiny shops selling gold, very nice Indian clothes, etc.  The shops were small but very nice.  Directly across the street the shops were dingy and selling cheaper stuff.  In fact one shop claimed to be the cheapest is Singapore.

Fancy

 not fancy

Not Fancy, but apparently cheap

Directly across the street from the Temple was a convenience store that had everything a worshiper at the temple would need.

 Hindu Worshiper Mini Mart 

Mini Mart Proprietor 

Boys are Boys everywhere.  There was another Temple that had hundreds of pigeons in front of it.  A little boy about 8 would run through them.  he'd wait awhile until they all came back and do it again 

Pigeons taking off

Pigeons gone

A man decorating the front steps of the temple.  The mini mart was selling those wreaths

After several hours it was time to go.  I needed to get back to the apartment as I promised my hostess I would give her a lesson in "American cooking".  We were planning beef stroganoff with beef from Australia.

 I found my way back to the MRT managing to get on going the right direction, to Punngol.  I made it back to the apartment only 10 minutes late.  I would have made it on time but when I got to the bus stop, bus 72 was there but had moved about 20 feet from the stop and wouldn't let me on.  No problem at this time of the day, the buses were coming about every ten minutes

Singapore - Little India

The grand nephews were totally engrossed in their new video games Grand Ma Frances brought for them;  my sister and niece were otherwise occupied so I decided to strikeout on my own to explore Singapore. I walked about a large block to the bus stop and took bus 72 to Central Haugang, then walked about a block to the subway (MRT) station NE 14 and got on the MRT headed towards Harbour front.  Seven stops later I got off in the neighborhood known as "Little India".  When Sir Thomas  Stamford Raffels founded the British colony in Singapore in 1819 he thought it'd be a good idea to have the "races" live separately in different areas of the city.  Those neighborhood still exist as Chinatown, Arab street and little India.

The entrance to the subway station and the picture I took out the entrance to help orient myself as to which way to get back to the bus stop when I returned.  By the way that upside cone looking building is the mall where I went to the bookstore yesterday. The mix of architecture here is amazing.






Here are some random pictures of Little India.

Notice the lotus flower shaped street sign?!

I saw these empty boxes behind a restaurant.  it was a beer named "Knock Out Strong Beer".  As tempting as that sounded I didn't go in to try it as I still needed to navigate my way back to the apartment. :)





The main reason I went to Little India was to visit the Sri VeerMakiamman Hindu Temple.which was built in 1843.

Everyone had to take off their shoes and wash their feet before entering the temple.  Here is my foot selfie, washing my feet. Wow did it feel good taking off my shoes and rinsing off in cold water,although it WAS a bit of a hassle because of course I had to put them back on again when I left!

There was a collection of beautiful clothe for people (I guess mostly women) to cover up with after washing their feet and before entering the temple.  Of course the male Yogis at the temple were half naked, as you will see, but I guess that is  a different story.

"Half naked guys", sometimes they were meditating, sometimes they weren't.

Here are some random pictures of the temple

The temple was very beautiful and the details of the deities were overwhelming both inside and out. The scent of incense hung in the air like Tule fog.