The first thing you notice are the hundreds of cargo ships, scattered across the color wheel, speckling the water below. The second thing you notice, before and after the tremendously expedient trip through Singapore’s immigrations and customs, is the verdant patches of plant life tucked and nestled around each bend at Singapore’s International Airport. The architecture of sharp angles, beautifully selected materials and high-tech wizardry, like the ceiling which is covered in glass skylights that tilt to pefect angles ensuring pleasing, diffused light around the clock.
[Sidenote: Singapore Airport is said to be getting a biosphere with a waterfall]
You walk up to several people waiting in line that snakes to a counter at a manned booth. After waiting a short bit, you notice a sign that no airport to city train tickets are sold there; you must use the ticket machine in the corner. You wander over to the machine, and work your way through the menus. Since this is Singapore, you have decided you will buy a ticket with your credit card until you realize that the machine only takes cash. Welcome back to the 19th century. Fortuitously you had withdrawn cash upstairs at the ATM, and don’t have to make the special trip. You put the bill up to the slot and it starts its adventure. The machine thinks, rattles around and spits out a receipt. The screen flashes an error message which is not generally what you were hoping to see for your money.
Now you are back in line at the ticket booth. It is taking a while.
“Can I help you?” she asks. She has no emotion on her face, beaten down by the thousands of marauding hooligans attempting to leave the airport on a daily basis.
Silently you slip her the machine-generated slip. She stares at it for a second and looks up exasperated. She grunts, huffs, sighs and then scrabbles around in a drawer for the cash. “Can you issue me a ticket?” you ask hoping to save some time. You have already been inconvenienced by the machine and you would rather not be stuck in an endless loop looking at error screens and exasperated transit agents.
“No, tickets are at the machine,” she mechanically sputters, like a well-trained lawnmower that knows that it has a long afternoon ahead. She points with a flagging energy level to the corner and stares at you with empty eyes.
So now back over to the ticket machine to do everything you did last time. What was that quote (perhaps originally from a rehab manual) that is—most likely errantly—attributed popularly to Einstein, Franklin and Twain about doing the same thing twice but expecting a different result?
The machine whirs and the money disappears once more but this time, for whatever reason, a real ticket exits the slot for a new life in the world. Your thumb and index finger latch onto the card, give it a gentle tug and, with that finally accomplished, you head back towards the information booth only to find yourself winding through a mob of confused Chinese tourists who have spread out in a most inconvenient fashion, effectively stymieing access to the ticket gates.
…
From the Aljunied station, you amble down into the neighborhood of Geylang, located just to the east of Singapore downtown district. Strong, attractive scents waft about, getting stronger as you walk, and soon you find yourself taking a detour to inspect the food for sale.
You step into a mini-food court of sorts. One vendor on the corner has perhaps 50 plates of different food dishes on display. People are pointing at the various trays and ringing up on the other end.
The adjacent vendors are a mixture of juice huts, fruit sellers and more Asian food options. Behind you a warm-tinted row of roasted ducks hang on metal hooks, waiting to be chosen. You wonder how long they’ve been hanging there; cold duck isn’t very appealing.
…
Geylang might be a major red light district of Singapore, but it has some grit and character to it. It seems to be home to many foreigners. The streets and buildings are not perfectly cleaned and proper. The food isn’t perfectly plated or paired. There is a slightly rough edge to the atmosphere, and it is nice.
Missing is the warmth. It seems people are scrapping here. It seems you come here out of necessity and try to work your way to somewhere else. But the nice thing is it has a realness to it all.
…
There is a hundred different variations for hello that they muster, confidently standing in impossibly tall high heels and skin-tight dresses. You nod to them as if they are but business colleagues, at times responding with a simple ‘hello’ as you make your way past them. It must be a rough life, and they are people too.
Houses and buildings with large red street numbers painted outside are where the prostitutes operate from—a gentle, unobtrusive identification system. The hotel is placed amongst all of this, yet is very well-kept and modern. At least the area has colour.
…
You are in Singapore for about 24 hours. In your scarce free time, you have two specific cocktails shops you want to check out.
You slowly open the door to the Tippling Club, a fresh-looking, dimly lit restaurant located in the Singapore’s historic Tanjong Pagar district. Green and white tile line the floor, giving it a comforting feel. Intricate light bulbs in metal cages hang from the ceiling offering a warming golden glow. The highly-rated cocktail bar sits straight ahead on the back wall. Diagonal from the entrance is the acclaimed open-kitchen, with its intricate menu.
You walk up to the bar counter and wait for the bartender. He sees you and heads over.
“Do you want any beer or wine?” he remarks. “We are closing so more cocktails for the night.”
“I came special for a cocktail…a special visit…” you stammer out. He shrugs, he has probably heard it a million times before. “I guess I’m all set,” and you wish him a good night.
0 for 1.
The door snaps behind you and you are back into the warm air. You head northeast and after 10 minutes, left left onto Hongkong St. A little more walking and you are pulling the door open at 28 Hong Kong Street, another highly acclaimed cocktail shop.
The noise pours out from the open door as you enter the dimly lit vestibule and ask the maître d’ for a spot at the bar. She guides you inside and you are set up with a menu.
…
You are on foot, on your way back to Geylang, since the trains have all stopped at 1AM. 28 Hong Kong Street was a total mockery of a New York cocktail bar. It has a lot of money behind it assuredly. It has the ambience—dark wood and warm light. It has the right location—tucked off the main street behind a non-descript entrance. But it is trying so hard to be something it is not, an artificial speakeasy. The execution is sorely lacking and the customer service appalling for a place inspiring for this caliber. It looks like everything it needs to be, but it certainly isn’t.
Not one drink impressed, most middling, one awful. You took one sip and push it away, a travesty. It remained on the bar for the rest of the night, an obvious orphan, and even after your feedback, it remains on your bill. What kind of cocktail bar of “world-class” pedigree can’t clear an orphaned drink much less make an Old-Fashioned?
So you are walking the street-light pocked path home. The city is very quiet.
…
Singapore does three things very well for a city. Vegetation and the feel of nature is incorporated very well into the urban environment. The city does not smell, lacking the smells of sewage, trash and exhaust that permeate so many other international cities. The city is peaceful, with nary a horn to be heard. Generally, it seems almost park-like.
What Singapore lacks are buildings with age and texture. It is perhaps too polished, too new, too characterless.
…
The rain has passed and the sun peaks out. You are sitting on a rundown corner in Geylang in a small four-store communal food court. In the back corner, tucked mostly out of view, is a grimy shop slinging coffees from over the counter. As you sit sipping from the worn table, you watch the immigrants and prostitutes going about their morning routines, one invariably heading to work and the other on their way home. For being so close to the spotless downtown of Singapore, Geylang certainly has character that is quite welcome.
Just down the street you find yourself at a large fruit seller. A wall of durians is on your right and a durian supplier offloading the fruit on your left. You pick out some mangosteens and eat them on the sidewalk, always a good treat when visiting southeast Asia a the right times.
…
After a several hours of walking around downtown Singapore, you are back at the Tippling Club to try again. This time, the sun spreads itself across the interior adding a warm cheer to the spot. You seat yourself at the bar and the bartender remembers you from the previous evening.
The space is unpretentious but very sophisticated in a carefree manner. The bartenders exude focus, deftly maneuvering about with the various instruments and ingredients. After having been burned by the lackluster 28 Hong Kong Street, and after having been through the mediocre cocktail scene in Ho Chi Minh, you began to wonder if your expectations are too high. They aren’t.
The Tippling Club impressed to the hilt. Each drink, from the Bubble Tea with its lofty mound of bubbles, to the Juniper Sling served in a perfume bottle, to the La’ Final with its well-executed (if not unoriginal) edible cigar, were presented in very unique fashion, an event. As these were being crafted, another bartender is working in the back corner crafting liquorice lollipops (which are used to top off the Suck First, Questions Later cocktail).
…
Based on the Tippling Club, in conjunction with the wealth of new operations springing up with great lineage, it would appear that Singapore is a great place for cocktail enthusiasts to explore.
…
Back on the train, back in the airport and back on a plane. A quick 24-hour jaunt into the country, island and city of Singapore.
![TripHash-[0128-0870]-Tippling-Club-Scene-Singapore](http://triphash.com/wp-content/uploads/TripHash-0128-0870-Tippling-Club-Scene-Singapore.jpg)
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