We navigate our way between the towering housing estates and finally arrive in front of the right high-rise building: Here, in the Edgedale Plains in the north of the island, we are expected by Yong and ShinQ Leei. The two are our Warmshower hosts for the next few days and live on the 14th floor of one of the typical Singapore HDB housing estates. The government has these “social housing” built on a large scale outside the city center to create affordable housing. As a Singaporean citizen, you have the option to buy such an apartment from the government for a period of 99 years. About 80% of the population lives in an HDB residential tower. The apartment is new, modern and pleasantly cool. ShinQ Leei and Yong take touching care of us and we immediately feel at home. While ShinQ Leei pursues a demanding Apple job in the home office, Yong prepares delicious meals for all of us. His employer is in Germany, so he arranges around the European time zone.
We use our three days in Singapore for all sorts of things. Bike boxes need to be found and the bikes carefully stowed. We weigh our luggage down to the last gram and are pleased to find out that we can squeeze all our equipment (including wedding dresses, some too warm dresses and other extravagances) into our flight luggage. The 74 kg we are allowed to take on the plane, we exhaust up to the last 200g.
By MRT we whiz comfortably into the center and marvel at the architecture, the swank, the dimensions, the infrastructure, the cleanliness, the discipline, the perfection, the vegetation, the consumption possibilities… and meet Yannick. Yannick is Swiss, has been living in Singapore for some time and once studied with Simone`s brother in Winterthur. Through him we get a little insight into the pleasant world of expats here. His apartment is located in a fully glazed residential high-rise of the “condo” type. These apartments are usually located in or near the city center and offer besides elegant living space with mostly breathtaking views large swimming pools, fitness clubs, communal balconies, clubhouses and security service. Yannick`s mother is visiting and so the five of us tour the absurd glittering world of Marina Bay, attend a Mongolian mini-concert (for free?!) at the Esplanada cultural center and enjoy a fantastic dinner at a more upscale hawker center (thanks for the invitation Yannick and Kim!).
Here luxury and all the amenities can be enjoyed almost without a guilty conscience, but for us this world full of boutiques, casinos, designer clothes, cocktail bars, nice restaurants and beauty stores seems a bit strange. The realities of the rest of the world are too present for us and seem somehow… realistic?
We also spend some time with Yong and ShinQ Leei. We enjoy the Koranic everyday cuisine, improvise spaetzli and talk at length about the cultural peculiarities and differences in Malaysia, Korea, New Zealand, Nepal, Japan and Switzerland. It is highly exciting to hear the views of the two. Through their own Asian roots, their travels and respective mother tongues, they have yet another completely different approach to these foreign cultures.
ShinQ Leei grew up as a Chinese Malaysian in Malaysia and confirms our impression of the last weeks: Malaysians and ethic Chinese live much more side by side than with each other. The peculiarities of the school system give an idea of the sometimes grudging coexistence: In the public elementary school, teaching is generally in Malay. In parallel, however, there are also Chinese-language elementary school, which are also subsidized by the government. All subjects are taught in Mandarin, even Malay and English. After the first six years of school, however, government support for the Chinese-speaking population comes to an end, and the subsequent level is taught exclusively in Malay. Those who do not speak Malay must quickly master this language or change to an expensive, Chinese-speaking private school. At the university level, the language of instruction is usually English.
After the three days in Singapore, we are perfectly prepared for our flight to New Zealand: The bikes and all equipment are neatly packed, the cab is ordered and all paperwork for the entry is filled out, visa applications have long been sent. Nothing should go wrong this time. We say goodbye to Yong and ShinQ Leei and hope to see them again sometime.
At the airport, we line up with our mountain of luggage once again in the check-in loop and wait. And wait and wait and wait. A suddenly hectic person in charge lets us suspect that something is not quite going according to plan here. Soon we learn more: Our poor pilot had a stroke (fortunately for him and us here in Singapore and not in the air) and for once not we are in crisis mode, but the employees of Fiji Airlines. Hours later we are driven along with our luggage to a lavish hotel in the center of town, put in sumptuous, soulless rooms for the night and told to be ready at the front desk at 8am. After enjoying the biggest morning buffet we’ve ever seen, we head back to the airport, back to check-in, and after just a little argument with the “chef-de-check-in,” he lets us check in our boxes without the threatened $400 extra fee. Huff! Our flight to Fiji follows, where we arrive in the middle of the night and are again put into a hotel. It’s just enough for two hours of sleep. Not quite what we were hoping for from our layover in Fiji. Our plan was to go snorkeling again in the nearly 20 h stay, sleep in the hammocks once more, and then board the final flight to Auckland. Oh well. At least we catch our original flight thanks to the long stay. We can also avoid another unexpected problem: Contrary to expectations, our bulky luggage was not checked through in Singapore and snorkeling or hitchhiking with two big bike boxes and all the rest in tow would not have been without complications…
New Zealand lets me despite pregnancy into the country and soon we fall Kathy – Louies mother – in the arms, which waits already longest for us. We are in New Zealand and a cool, strong wind whistles around our ears. Cool air! We have almost forgotten how it feels and breathes. Wonderful! Refreshing! Crisp and light!
Bye bye Asia. Bye sultry heat and hot humid nights. We have beamed ourselves into oceanic early spring!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)