Singapore (Friday, August 29)

My expectations about Singapore were confirmed even before arriving at the hotel:
- The draconian laws were made explicitly clear on the arrival card – “drug trafficking punishable by death” in bold red letters.
- Everyone spoke sufficiently clear English, including the taxi-cab driver (though he maintained a fairly thick Chinese accent. I also learned from him that the country, like the United States, is a nation of immigrants (mainly from Malaysia and China), many of whom are second and third generation, unified by our shared former colonial tongue.
- The city’s efficiency was exceptional – it took less than thirty minutes to collect my bags and go through passport control, and the drive to the main city was similarly swift on a road that connects the airport to the main city.
After resting for a few hours, I met-up with two of my Peruvian GSB classmates – Mateo Bedoya and Alejandro Camino – and the former’s fiancé (and latter’s cousin) Gabriela on Orchard Street (one of the main commercial thoroughfares). Mateo and Alejandro are in Singapore conducting a four-week internship for one of the world’s largest tuna fisheries. From there, we wandered around Chinatown. Although nearly all Chinatowns sell universally the same items (souvenir t-shirts, Asian clothing, and tons of trinkets), the architecture here was in the colonial style, with Chinese lamps and signage serving as reminders of our whereabouts.

We then headed to the Esplanade, a shopping and entertainment complex located on the marina (right outside from where they were setting-up barricades for the upcoming Formula 1 race). The complex is rather large and its shell-like architecture rather grotesque (giving off the impression of a poor man’s Sydney Opera House). While we waited for my Mexican GSB study-group partner, Ana Garza, and her boyfriend David, who is studying at INSEAD’s Singapore campus, we watched a rock band performing out on the Plaza. The music was decent and a positive indication that metal/punk/alternative music was tolerated, if not promoted by this authoritarian city-state. After dinner we walked around, checking-out the lively bar scene and the cityscape at night. The crowds, the music, and the atmosphere were generic and had I been told that we were in any metropolitan fill-in-the-blank American city, I would have believed it without hesitation.

India Trip introduction (9/3/08)

Namaste from Jaipur –
Nearly one week ago I first left San Francisco for the Far East, and yet today I feel that I have reverted several centuries back. Over the past few days, I’ve traveled to Singapore and in India – to New Delhi, Agra, and finally, just a few hours ago, Jaipur, one of the jewels of Rajasthan, the “Land of Princes.”
The trip so far has consisted of stunning contradictions – from the well-planned and efficient city-state of Singapore to the chaotic and (yet) bureaucratic New Delhi; from the overwhelming odors and beggars of the street bazaar outside the Jama Mosjid (mosque) to the elegant veranda of the Amarvilas hotel overlooking the Taj Mahal; and from the conscientious (and egalitarian, given the high-touch treatment in Economy Class on Singapore Airlines) service in Singapore to the persistence of nearly every Indian trying to make an extra rupee off of an American tourist (hence the differences between industrialized and developing countries) . All of which is not to suggest that I prefer Singapore or dislike India, but rather India is a place of extremes and unpredictability that require a great deal of adjustment to fully appreciate. Moreover, the country is a collection of diverse states, cultures, and peoples that I look forward to exploring over the next couple of weeks.