Tuesday, May 22, 2007

More Singapore

Here's the view from the nausea inducing 20 degree sloping floor of the bar on the 71st level of the Swissotel in Singapore.

And here's the view from the perfectly flat floor of Equinox restaurant on the 69th level of the Swissotel, where only the terrible food and the ridiculous prices induce nausea. Believe me, you are paying for the view. The lights towards the bottom right are Clarke Quay, which used to be a bunch of warehouses but now they've all been converted to bars and restaurants, including a Hooters. Even though Hooters serves fried crap with little or no flavour, its food is better than the food served at Equinox. The lights in the bottom left are Boat Quay, which contains lots and lots of riverside dining choices offering food at a 20th the price of Equinox and about 75 times the taste and quality.

I had expected Singapore to be all modern skyscrapers, and there are a lot of them, but many lovely old buildings have been preserved, including the Central Fire Station, which is still in use. The communications tower behind it is in Fort Canning Park, which is a nice place to spend a morning, in addition to being home to The Battle Box, subject of an upcoming blog post.
By far my favourite building in Singapore though was the Old Hill Street Police Station, which is right next door to the fire station and is the current home of the Ministry of the Arts. The different colours on all the storm shutters really look fantastic in the sun.

16 comments:

Jen said...

Those pictures are stunning! Love them! You 2 must've had a great holiday! Someday . . . *me, wishing*

Ian said...

Thank you. We, well, me, mostly, took 503 photos on our trip. The 9 that have been posted here so far were selected from the first 30, so I expect there are more to come.

Anonymous said...

So the Equinox wasn't very nice then?

Ian said...

Bloody awful.

Ian said...

In fact, sorry, bloody awful doesn't do the bloody awfulness of Equinox justice. I thought I was over it, but I re-read my comment and realised that I have much, much, more to say on this particular subject. Fortunately for everybody I'm going to bottle it all up inside until the day I explode in an angry rage, which may well be the next time I see a substandard dish offered for a huge amount of money simply because some chef has added foam to it. To add insult to injury it turned out to be the most expensive meal I've ever bought.

Jen said...

You mean, like, the most expensive meal ever bought in your entire life? ? ? Seriously?

I know I'm a bit sheltered, I don't get out much, but is this Equinox place very famous or houtey-toutey?

Ian said...

It was the most expensive meal ever bought in my entire life. I don't think it's terribly famous outside of Singapore, but it is pretty posh.

Anonymous said...

Man, that's pretty bad, I happen to know roughly the price of the most expensive meal Fi and I have ever had which was here:

http://www.martin-wishart.co.uk/main.html

I'm assuming your previous most expensive meal was maybe 30% higher than mine... in which case I would be mightily p1ss3d off!

Anonymous said...

Incidentally Martin Wishart was worth every penny, I can still taste the well hung beef now. Mmmm

In fact for a short time I wanted to take up a life of crime to pay for meals there!

Doesn't reduce your pain though... Mmmmm

Ian said...

I wouldn't have minded that it was the most expensive meal I'd ever eaten if it had been any good. I was fully prepared to pay top whack for a meal, on Nikki's birthday, at the end of a relatively cheap holiday, in a world class restaurant, with a great view of Singapore. I just wasn't prepared for it to be crap.

Ian said...

Martin Wishart sounds good, how come you never took me there? Do they not sell Bellhaven or something?

Anonymous said...

Sorry I missed your call

Ian said...

No prob, sorry I missed yours.

Anonymous said...

They probably do sell Belhaven but I couldn't handle the withering look from the sommelier so I had to have the wine. Life ain't fair!

Allison Horner said...

Great pics! I miss S'pore!!!
I lived there for a year (1997-1998) & worked in their great Zoo! Did you get a chance to see the zoo or the Night Safari while you were there?

It's a great place! I can't wait to return someday for holiday. How long did you "holiday" there?

Ian said...

We didn't make it to the night safari although it had been high on my list of things to do. It was kind of awkward to get to and Nikki had done it before. Next time, for sure. We were there 5 days before Thailand and then two days after.