Do you remember reading a book, and was so taken by the story that when you finally got to a point where you thought you could pause long enough to go to sleep it was early morning?  Yeah, time indeed flies when you’re having fun, and I’ve been having a bit of it!  So much in fact, I forgot to put up this month’s desktop!  The image this month is again from Singapore.

Please accept my apologies and download the size that fits your screen!

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Wow, I’ll bet you thought there would never be anymore coming about Singapore! haha There’s still more I would like to show. It was so much fun to run around with my camera and just be a crazy tourist! And I’ve included a little slide show of what tourist pictures I took when I was downtown Singapore.

But before you check out the little slideshow, I want to let you in a little Singapore legend. Singapore is the English version of Singapura, the original Malay name for the city. The word means Lion City. How it got its name is a fantastic story that rates right up with the best of legends.

You see, a long, long time ago, there was this Indonesian prince named Sang Nila Utama who lived in Sumatra. He decided, one day, that he wanted to build a new city, so he started to sail around the islands close to Sumatra to find a suitable place. But one day as he was hunting on one particular island, he ran up onto a rock that overlooked the ocean, and he had what I guess you could call a vision. He saw an island over the ocean with sandy beaches, called Temasek. He decided to go find this island, and set out with his men. Well, as any good legend would go, they ran into a huge storm as they sailed across the ocean. According to one version of the story that I heard, during the storm a huge sea monster started to attack the ship. The men tried to throw heavy things overboard to keep the ship from sinking but try as they might, it wasn’t enough. The Prince finally decided to try to make peace with the sea and the sea monster, and threw his heavy crown (which according to this version of the story was the crown of Solomon) into the sea. Evidently the sea and the sea monster felt that was fair enough and the storm subsided.

As the men arrived at Temasek and began to search around for food, a huge lion jumped out in front of the Prince. But the Prince just looked straight into the lion’s eyes. And after a second the lion calmed down, and left, as if the two had come to a silent agreement. Thus the Prince named the the city, Singapura, or Lion City.

Now in the little slide show, you’ll see a strange looking fountain, that has a lion’s head, and a fish or sea monster body. It is the Merlion, and represents the combination of sea monster and the lion that Prince Sang Nila Utama met while coming to Temasek.

I hope you enjoyed this little story of legend. I love learning things about places I live or visit, and it’s hard not to share a little!

As a continuation of my Singapore experience, I’d like to show you a more mundane area of Singapore life that used a technique that was new to me.  I haven’t seen this particular method in the United States, although, that is by no means a barometer of the true state of the nation.  

To frame this, let me say Singapore is a very beautiful and modern city.  But when the daily temperature is rarely below the 80’s Fahrenheit, there is one item in the laundary equipment list that Singaporeans don’t find all that useful.  The clothes dryer!

There are many Singaporeans that have dryers, but most Singaporeans don’t own one.  And when offered one, they don’t really want it!  Their view, why pay electricity, when I can hang it out to dry.  And they have quite a system for doing that.  Almost every flat built (excepting some of the newest ones) have little holders in the wall just out the window to allow them to hang their clothes on bamboo or aluminum sticks.  And the newest flats that don’t have the holders, have a built in line to be able to hang the clothes in a hallway in the house, or a swinging mechanism that goes outside as well.  And in the kitchen, on the ceiling are little hooks to hang the poles on when they aren’t outside.  I know many Americans still hang their clothes out on the line, but I have yet to see them hanging them on sticks stuck in the wall!

This system is all over the place, whether it an old block of flats or one of the newest skyscraper blocks, you’ll see the poles with clothes attached all up and down the buildings.  It’s great!  Most are right out the kitchen window, which is usually where the washer is.  But that creates some little complications.  

One of them is falling food or water.  Many times the cook of the house will throw out little bits of left over soup or curry out the window, and, yes, has the possibility of landing on your nice clean clothes!  So, most folks cut open a little plastic grocery bag and clip it over their clothes so that any dripping water, or falling curry sauce doesn’t tarnish that beautiful new shirt you just bought yesterday.  And as a comical side note, don’t walk under the kitchen windows of the blocks either, as you might end up with a little bit of curry down your shirt!

Another little complication, what if you’re like me and tend to be a little clumsy dropping things.  Well, sometimes, no matter how hard you try to clip things before you get them out the window, things fall.  Never fear, as they many times get caught on someone else’ pole on the flat downstairs.  So then you use your little pole and do your best to retrieve the item.  It’s funny to watch and embarrassing to experience!  If you can’t get it with your pole, you get the great opportunity of asking the neighbor for that piece of dropped underwear!  But, if you’re unlucky enough to see your clothes make it all they way to the ground without getting caught somewhere, you best run like crazy for the ground, because clothes usually get picked up by a maintenance person or passing neighbor rather quickly.

The last complication is weather.  Many times, you can get caught with a surpise little rainstorm.  And when that happens you can see everyone diving for their kitchen windows to yank those poles in the window as fast as they can.  Because many times when it rains in Singapore, it really pours!  The light little sprinkle turns very quickly.  So you want to work quickly.  It really brings the neighborhood together, as they tend to laugh and joke with each other, since it can be pretty humorous.

All in all, it works great.  And they have the weather that can make it really effective.  Clearly here in the north country, it’s only effective about 2-3 months out of the year.  But in Singapore, it’s just the way the world turns.