Lion City

It was the 8 am bus that almost left without me.  I took a taxi to the Malacca bus station, quickly bought a ticket (by being a little pushy), and was the last passenger on board.  On my way to the Lion City was I:  an express 4-1/2 hours, border crossing included.  The cost was about $7. 

Arriving in Singapore:  Only a short bridge connects Johore, Malaysia, to the Republic of Singapore.  Then, a green parkway leads traffic into the city.  All I can say is Wow!  I wasn’t expecting so much lush vegetation, but for many kilometers we traveled through a forest and past the Singapore Zoo.  Then, the high-rises began to appear on the horizon.  But, Singapore is not a city (or country, since they are one and the same) of high-rise canyons.  They have done more than any city I have seen to create and preserve open space, parks, gardens, greenways, and street buffers.  The first thing I saw when I got off the bus was a mahogany forest.  Actually, it was less than a dozen mahogany trees (brought from Africa in the 1970s) that provided shade for an urban park.   My first observation of the cultural landscape confirmed my supposition that Singapore was an English-speaking country.   Signs and billboards seem to be tightly controlled (along with everything else here), but almost all were in English.  Three-quarters of the country’s population is Chinese, but they have taken to English, the language of international business, which is what Singapore specializes in.

Orchard Road:  The bus dropped us all by the side of the road, not at a station, and I had no map.  The driver pointed everyone to a taxi station (so far in the distance I couldn’t see it), but I had a better idea.  Coming in, I had identified a metro station (Paya Lebar), so I hoofed it back there and boarded the Circle line to “One Orchard Road.”  That was the address of the YMCA, and I just hoped they would have a room for me.  They did.  I never knew much about the micro-geography of Singapore, but I did know Orchard Road, the city’s main shopping corridor.  To me, One Orchard Road sounded like the most prestigious address ever.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I was amongst the buildings of Singapore Management University, a beautiful urban campus; the commercial corridor began a few blocks away.  Like the Malaysians, Singaporeans are in love with shopping malls:  that’s what lines Orchard Road, some of the biggest malls you have seen, and all air-conditioned, of course, which has to be one of their attractions.  As for its name, the road used to lead from the civic precinct into the orchards that supplied the city with fruits and vegetables, just as Von Thunen would have predicted.  Laid into the sidewalk now are medallions commemorating all those wonderful tropical products from mangoes and bananas to star fruit and pomegranates. 

Geographically yours,

D.J.Z.