a document of days

We arrived in Singapore on Sunday morning at 3 a.m., caught a cab and headed out to Raffles Marina, where we would be staying for the next three days. Not long after we arrived and did some exploring, we fell fast asleep.

In the morning, we ordered room service and decided to try a local dish called Congee (pictured below, right.) Congee is a sort of rice porridge. It is mixed with a raw, or partially cooked egg, and in this case, chicken. Congee is served with a fried breadstick. We also ordered an "American" breakfast, just in case. Our local meal was quite good, but I was glad to have some fried eggs and a hashbrown too.


Raffles Marina is located in the industrial area of Singapore (making it easy for me to get to and from the printing plant) and it is quite nice. Many international travelers sail up and dock for a night or two. In the photo below, the land you can just barely see in the distance is Malaysia. From the hotel, you can also see the customs checkpoint and the bridge to Malaysia.




From the few facts I picked up while talking to our printer representative, Desmond, I learned that Singapore has an interesting relationship with Malaysia. Because Singapore is so small (only 273 square miles), has no fresh water resource, and virtually no land to produce crops, the city-state relies heavily on Malaysia for their water supply and the import of fresh produce. In order to ensure that they will not forever be reliant upon Malaysia for water, Singapore collects a large amount of rainwater for domestic use, has a water recycling program, and is currently developing desalination plants.

Other interesting facts about the Singapore/Malaysia relationship:

Because gasoline is so inexpensive in Malaysia, border patrol requires (and checks!) that a Singaporean's car has at least 3/4 of a tank of gas or they won't let you in the country. Previous to these laws, Singapore residents were driving over to get cheap gas and subsequently forcing prices up for the Malay people.

Though unregulated (they don't check your trunk for groceries) Singapore people commonly shop in Malaysia because it is cheaper. Again, this change in supply/demand drives prices up. The Malay people aren't too happy to shop alongside folks from Singapore.