ASIA - SINGAPORE: SINGAPORE IS JUST SHIOK
by Ursula & Eldrid Retief



Whatever you pack for Singapore, make sure you take along the word shiok (pronounced "she-auk") – a hybrid that has been incorporated, like many others, into Singlish, the everyday language of Singaporeans.

It’s from the Straits Chinese word meaning fantastic, marvellous, as in "Wah, that satay was shiok!"

You’ll be using it frequently in Singapore – at the perennial favourites like Jurong BirdPark, home to over 8,000 birds, after a day on Sentosa, Singapore’s holiday resort island, and at the many new attractions, like CHIJMES, the 1860 vintage convent and girls’ school restored as a picturesque plaza at a cost of some US$70-million, and at the world’s first Night Safari and the revamped Boat and Clarke quays.

The restoration of CHIJMES (pronounced Chimes), formerly the Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus, has brought the original fabrics, stained glass windows, intricate plaster work and neoclassical design of the site back to life.

While the design elements of the original buildings have been preserved, the four-acre site has been transformed into a picturesque plaza with outdoor arcades and courtyards, cloistered walls and long-covered walkways tastefully accommodating restaurants, retail shops and charming meeting, seminar and exhibition spaces. The restoration goes so far as to revitalize the marble plaques listing CHIJMES’s early benefactors.

The Night Safari in Mandai Lake Road holds many surprises for the urban visitor. You can hear the howls of a pack of striped hyenas as you navigate the walking trail or look a one-horned rhino in the eye as you explore on a tram ride. There are 1,200 animals of over 100 exotic species.

Singapore River is enjoying a new lease of life with Clarke Quay transformed into a colourful riverside festival village. Five buildings housing 60 godowns and shophouses have been restored to their original 19th century style with a spread of shops, restaurants, pubs, a food centre, a fruit and vegetable market, discos, street entertainment and a Disney-style adventure ride. Graphics and signage inspired by traditional shophouse and warehouse signs strengthen and recreate the historic ambience of an early riverside village. Broad shade trees, gas lamps, food kiosks, and moored tongkangs recall the riverfront’s heyday.

Boat Quay, too, has been completely renovated with more than 35 bars and restaurants featuring alfresco dining along its scenic riverbank. Bumboats ferry diners between Boat Quay and Clarke Quay but you can recapture some of the old romance of eating at wooden tables and benches in an open-air street market ambience. Vendors from the old Satay Club at the Esplanade have set up stalls in Clarke Quay selling satay, mee rebus, mee siam, mee goreng and fried rice.

Cruising down the Singapore River in an authentic bumboat is the best way to see the legacy of Singapore’s colonial past. The Singapore River Boat Tour starts and ends at Clarke Quay jetty. The other pick-up is at the Raffles Place jetty. The cruise passes godowns and old shop houses. A recorded tape commentary on board provides you with an historical account of various significant colonial buildings, famous bridges each with its own architectural style and developments along the river. Guarding the river mouth where bumboats once jostled for space is the majestic water-spouting Merlion, the half-lion, half-fish creature which symbolizes the Singapore tourism industry.

Much of Singapore close to the city centre remains unchanged.

The old section of the city around Arab Street provides an intriguing glimpse into the Muslim way of life, and Arab Street itself is a riot of colourful textiles from all over Asia at very low prices. Overflowing from the shophouses onto the pavements are saris and batik, basketry, leather goods, cane and rattan, jewellery and hand-beaten brass, perfumes and other treasures. The Sultan Mosque, a fantastic building with its impressive gold dome and vast prayer hall, dominates the area.

Amid the narrow streets of picturesque shophouses and humming restaurants of Chinatown, a palpable hub-bub of its own creation, the temple idol carvers, herbalists, calligraphers, traders and trishaw drivers pursue a way of life that has changed little for generations. Much of Chinatown has been renovated, but its century-old baroque architecture has been sensitively preserved. Now traditional clan houses share a street with boutique hotels and French wines and Chinese temples festooned with sculpted dragons. Chinese merchants engage in business from the ground floor of quaint pre-war shophouses much as they have for generations. There are specially-created walking tours around the streets of Tanjong Pagar with its pubs, bars and karoake lounges.

Hop a taxi to Serangoon Road, home of Singapore’s Little India where the air is permeated by pungent spices and where you’ll be greeted by the sight of of graceful, sari-clad Indian women scurrying between shops. The Little India user-friendly signage helps visitors better understand the customs of Singapore’s immigrant Indian community. Here you can have your fortune told by a parakeet, make your way to Curry Row (so called because of the South Indian banana leaf curry houses) and discover why the fleshy cheek of curried fish head is considered the greatest delicacy, visit an Indian karaoke pub, learn how to mix a curry the traditional way, and be shown how to wear a sari.

No doubt you’ll end up at Raffles Hotel, one of the most famous hotels in the world, now restored to her former glory. The Long Bar is no longer as long as it was – it has had to bow to the pressures of design and restoration and is U-shaped.

But the Singapore Sling at Raffles remains as shiok as ever.

Photo courtesy Singapore Tourism Board
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