late stories: singapore: behind the scenes!

tom’s cousin has a good friend (britney) who lives in singapore with her husband (mack), so we take a train from kl to singapore to hang out with them for a long weekend. 

our taxi driver has no idea how to find britney and mack’s apartment complex.  “don’t you have the name of the apartment?” he asks.   tom repeats the address.  i scan the numbers on the street – they leap up and down like a high-voltage cable, with no apparent pattern.  “nobody here knows numbers,” says our driver, “we only know names.”

the name is the fabulous bel-air, and we are escorted to the 17th floor by a dark, quiet man, who rings the doorbell for us.  britney opens the door – she is blond and bright-eyed, and i don’t think i ever saw her stop smiling for the duration of our stay – hugs us, and starts talking about a tiling project with our escort.  apparently he is not our escort.  the apartment is spacious and lovely, with sweeping views of sunset over the city, marble floors, and comfy-looking couches.  it also sports a colorful carpet made of spongey alphabet-tiles, several baskets overflowing with toys, and some arty pictures of a small, handsome blond guy named anderson.  britney and anderson show us around orchard street and i try to wrap my mind around the singaporean shopping psyche.  

the gateway to singapore’s pleasure-dome: the mall.  gucci, ferragamo, chanel, mont-blanc, vuitton – there are like five louis vuitton stores within a quarter-mile radius – miu miu, yamamoto … the list stretches on, and a line stretches down the block just to enter the prada store.  it is dizzying. no indie stores in sight; here, they only know names.  britney explains: “you know how if someone asks you your hobbies, you might say something like ‘traveling’ or ‘cooking’ or ‘riding my bike’ … well, here, they say ‘shopping.’” 

we meet mack at the beaujolais (familiarly, the “beauj;” it’s their favorite spot) for some happy hour.  he is a total sweetheart, despite (unbeknownst to us) suffering from a crap day at work and being several double-vodka-sodas deep to compensate, and i can immediately see why his company was so desperate to lure him back to asia, just months after they bought a house in mill valley.  “so,” britney probes, “what kind of travelers are you?  do you, um, like to wake up early and see the sights, or do you go out a lot?”  this is a hard one; our current party-pattern isn’t really representative of my general willingness to rage, but i don’t want mack and britney to feel like they need to take us out clubbing if that’s not their thing.  “we haven’t really been drinking much while we travel,” i say around a mouthful of chardonnay.  “at home, though, we like to go out,” tom adds.  so we rage, delicately.  food is mentioned, and everyone falls all over the place trying to be accommodating of each others’ dining needs.  in fact, no one really cares where we eat by this point, so it is nachos at the beauj.  everyone has switched from chardonnay to vodka-sodies.  i overhear mack saying to britney something like “i think they’re 3 a.m.-ers” in a tone that could indicate anything from enthusiasm to despair.  someone mentions dancing and britney is suddenly on a mission.  we cab it to the tallest bar in singapore, and mack and tom wait in the cab while britney and i sweet-talk the bouncers into letting the four of us in for the price of two, plus four free drinks.  mack is still toting a murse-like briefcase.   the place is like the signature room, 90-something floors up the hancock building in chicago, and it is raging.  someone orders champagne.  mack starts eating fries off a plate at the neighboring table – “they said they were finished!” he explains.  the music gets good, and we start dancing, and pretty soon i look around and everyone is dancing.  a bachelor party revives nearby. tom and mack compare manly chest hair.  i spank bachelors. 

it is an eminently satisfying night out. 

only slightly bleary the next morning, britney and mack introduce us to their favorite noodle shop.  the noodle ladies give me and tom a cursory glance, coo and admire anderson, and deposit several plates’ worth of yummy on our table a few seconds later.   for me, a gorgeous seafood hor fun; for everyone else, some sort of pork noodle dish that tom happily pronounces “insane.” 

further explorations of singapore reveal more shopping and more food.  we discover an aptly-named place called “marvelous cream,” which sells fluffy waffle sandwiches filled with variously-flavored marvelous creams.  the big thing here is food courts that mimic traditional hawker stands – the government likes to control food quality and sanitation standards – and every mall boasts one.  yum, best hokkien mee ever, and tom finally gets the fried beef noodle he’s been dreaming of.

 

 

further explorations of mack and britney’s apartment reveal that anderson is right up there with leo as best little guy ever.  he’s really good with nouns (“hat! hat! hat!” enthusiastically pointing at my hat while britney drags him away from our room so i can change to go out), he’s got the cutest accent (britney: “everybody loves toast!”  anderson: “evewwybuzzy lub toash!”), and he does this thing called “getting excited” that basically looks like he’s going to jump out of his skin, and you can tell isn’t good for him but it is so damned funny you can’t help pissing yourself laughing. 

it amazes me that britney and mack can tear themselves away, but they can, and they take us out for a real expat’s day on the town.  we sip free-flowing champagne and snack on italian delights, brunching with friends on the resort island of sentosa, and britney persuades one of the staff to give her a ride on the back of his go-kart.  “she’s obsessed with ‘behind the scenes,’” mack explains as she rides away, literally whooping with glee.  we check out a long stretch of fake beach, complete with imported sand, fake wave machines and very real mojitos, and britney gets behind the scenes with the dj until his boss ambles over and we all return to our proper roles as staff and guest.  we lounge on the quays, sipping aged japanese whisky like the bankers of old who made singapore the glorious monument to perfected consumerism that it is today.   and finally, after a rousing and mostly on-key chorus of “happy birthday” to our taxi driver, we end up at home, playing “where’s the salami?”  with anderson and a piece of plastic italian sausage. 

i usually say that san francisco is like a playground for adults, and singapore is too – a colorful fluffy southeast asian playpen, snacks and baubles galore.  except with secret police.