Singapore: July 30: The City Gallery and More Chinatown

Aside from one (cool) gallery, I spent most of the day finishing my walking tour of Chinatown. These pictures provide details about the day's smaller sights in Chinatown; the bigger sights are discussed here.

The morning began with a trip to the Urban Redevelopment Authority's building and its two galleries: the Singapore City Gallery and the gallery displaying Singapore's 2008 (Draft) Master Plan. Between the two of them, this is the museum-like sight I found myself most thinking about and remembering from my time in Singapore, perhaps because they combine my interests in architecture, design, and maps with a twist of policy.

These galleries contain incredible models of the city of Singapore and the country. The two models of city show every building in its correct shape and size. You have to see the pictures to truly appreciate this fact. I like that I visited the gallery near the end of my trip to Singapore because it allowed me to identify many sights and put everywhere I'd seen in perspective.

The city gallery also has nice exhibits on the history of Singapore and on how the city and even particular neighborhoods developed. In addition, it describes some of the city's architectural features, including the designs of shophouses and bungalows.

The master plan section of the gallery hypes the plan that describes in detail the improvements the country plans to make to each district. I appreciated this rare glimpse into how a country / city plans its evolution, answering questions about how to make a place livable, how much space to keep for nature, how to conserve historical features while allowing growth, etc. The redevelopment authority describes how decisions are made and calls for feedback on the plans. The most interesting single statistic I learned from these exhibits is that most of the populace live in government housing.

I then spent a good hour exploring parts of Chinatown I didn't see the previous day.

For lunch, I was finally near the respected Hong Lim hawker centre when most shops were open. (Recall that I previously tried to visit late at night but found mostly everything closed.) Well, the second time was not the charm. The famous laksa place I wanted to try in this hawker centre was closed for vacation :(. Instead, I went for my second choice, a well known purveyor of a different dish.

After lunch, I explored Chinatown further. I spent some time in Yue Hwa Chinese Products Emporium, a large Chinese department store. It didn't allow pictures. :( The building, formerly a hotel, is an airy space, and even includes a nice koi pond. I browsed a display of wooden, carved teapots ranging in price from tens of dollars to ten thousand dollars. I saw pretty, decorative clay pieces as well as stunning glass figures. One of the six (?) floors was devoted for food. Surprisingly, there's relatively little clothing for sale here.

I also spent thirty minutes in the Chinatown Heritage Centre. It's a small museum in an old shophouse that evokes, through quotes, the plight of immigrants (opium, gambling, crime). At first I thought it definitely wasn't worth the price of admission, but then I found the adjacent building (another shophouse), with rooms modeled after how people used to live. After that, I felt less strongly about the museum being overpriced, though still stand by the sentiment.

The Chinatown Complex was my last major stop in Chinatown before I had to get ready for dinner. The complex, really a market and food court / hawker centre, is gigantic. There are over 200 food stalls. I know because they're numbered. I was looking for a particular one and even had its number, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be. Sometimes they move. Ah well.

In the evening, I finally met up with an old college friend of mine who lives in Singapore. (We didn't meet earlier because he was traveling for business.) His family invited me, along with a few of his other old friends (in this case, from high school), over for dinner. They're friendly people, all in the same line of work (finance). I didn't feel comfortable taking pictures of the people or the food at dinner, but I do remember one really good eggplant dish.

After dinner, his wife stayed behind to watch their baby, and the rest of us walked to nearby Clark Quay for drinks at China One, one of the many hip bar-lounges in the area. It wasn't quite my scene. The music from the live band was too loud, and the chips came from a bag and the salsa from a jar. I had a Tiger Beer, a good pilsner that's sold everywhere in Singapore.