Is Singapore Boring?

Having too much time on my hands and nothing to do, I've decided to convert my spare time and energy into doing what people do in the holidays. Since travel out of the country is out of the question at this point in time, I shall travel within the country.

Now, there is one burning question I have to answer in this holidays. Is Singapore really boring? Hence, I shall visit what are supposed to be the most interesting places in Singapore. I went to the Uniquely Singapore website and chose five of the more famous tourist locations. They will be namely Sentosa, the Zoological Gardens, Jurong Birdpark, Clarke Quay, and Orchard Road.

These well known tourist destinations will be put to the test, and judged (by me of course) on 3 criteria, namely appeal, staff friendliness, and cost.

Here's what goes into the criteria.

Appeal - The scenery in general, and how fun the attractions are. The presence of eye candy hot babes will be an intangible bonus, because after all I'm a guy.

Staff friendliness - Staff at these venues will be subject to the usual tourist questions, as well as some random questions. Of course, the fun comes in the random questions.

Cost - I'm going to these places with only 30 dollars each, on the pretext that I'm an Indonesian millionaire tourist who has 1 million rupiah. I'm really interested to see how far one can get being an Indonesian millionaire tourist. For your information, 1 million rupiah is about 150 dollars. Don't laugh.

Overall interesting-ness - After I've had my fun with admiring the scenery, enjoying the attracitons and asking stupid questions, I guess I would have to evaluate whether the place is interesting or not. So the total from the other 3 categories will probably end up here.

Destination number one: Sentosa

Pathos, ethos, logos.

Those of you who have taken 201 will know that the title represents 3 words standing for the 3 different approaches to persuading people, the appeal to emotions, the appeal to the speaker's credibility and the appeal to logic.

Last night, while ruminating about the world in general which is what I do when I watch shows that make me think, like a certain hospital drama featuring whiny interns that are now residents that I shall not name, I realised there was something missing in the style of governing used in Singapore. I know, I think about weird things. And I am putting a disclaimer here because I know there is some little facility somewhere meant for people like me who enjoy talking about the men in white from an armchair.

I heard that the facility is in the mouth of the Merlion on Sentosa. When you talk rubbish they load you up in the lift at the base of the Merlion and then the Merlion pukes you out into the sea. Its their way of saying good riddance to bad rubbish. Or Merry Christmas. Whatever. Not to mention that it makes a good spectacle for tourists. "Hey we feed our lions good here! Even freaky looking ones that are gender confused!" Oh don't tell me the Merlion ain't gender confused. Would you call that thing a he or she? With a mermaid's tail, but a male lion's mane, that is a hard call. Not to mention it looks kinda weird.

Anyway, here's the disclaimer.
"Everything written on this blog is bullshit. If you are allergic to bullshit, kindly stop reading because I don't have money to pay for bullshit medication. I also think that most clinics don't stock bullshit medications. If they do you should stop visiting the clinic. Why is my disclaimer becoming good medical advice?"

Now here is what is essentially wrong. There are appeals to logic, with statistics being drawn up to show how policies are beneficial in the long run, and appeals to credibility, like how the party has been infallible since independence, a shining beacon of truth and all that is good in this world, until it was found to have supported the farming of golden peanuts. The party protects the world from devastation. The party unites all peoples within our nation. Okay I shouldn't really be comparing the party to Team Rocket.

Back to my topic however, there is little appeal to the emotions and hearts of the people. And that is the problem. Your average uncle and auntie in the street has no love for statistics. The only statistics they probably read on a regular basis are PUB bills, their children's handphone bills and report books, or their household accounts. Why would they want to read more statistics? Apart from the New Paper soccer punting odds.

Appeals to credibility don't work too when you promise people you won't raise taxes and proceed to do so in the following year. For me, as long as gaping holes don't appear in my neighbourhood footpath and the walls of flats don't crumble, I assume my MP is doing his job. However, if I'm in a restaurant with my friends and I see that my bill now has 7% GST on top of the 10% service charge, no prizes for guessing who I'll be cursing at. What, the government? Don't mind-read me. I love the government.

Its probably kinda hard to do an appeal to the emotions, but at least now the government is trying. They are trying very hard nowadays to appeal to the young for example. Has anyone seen the rap video the MDA put out?

If you don't die laughing, you'll probably just die cringing. It takes attitude to do the "yo" thing with your hands, but its another thing altogether when you do it with a constipated look on your face. Not to mention that there are some really bad lines in there. "We'll be consolidating data and building... A service oriented architecture" What the hell??? Who raps about stuff like this?

And there is that really irritating "yes yes y'all" chorus that repeats again and again. One segment even has a guy trying to do a VR man. He is wearing red undies. They must pay him a lot, or they promised him a promotion. Because I have no idea why anybody would want to wear red briefs outside. This ain't the 1950s anymore. Superman is so passe.

I can't fault them for trying. I hope they do better though. For starters they could take that rap video down. And here's my disclaimer again. Remember, all that you have just read is bullshit. Don't send me up the Merlion.

What should I do now that its the holidays?

In Singapore, there is little to do in the holidays. Well, you could for one go out with your friends, but for me I don't have that many friends to go out with because most are still struggling with exams in NUS and SMU and reminding them that you have finished exams as an NTU student is not the way to go if you want to be an emphatic friend. Emphatic friends are good because when you are short on cash and there is no ATM in sight, they become your ATMs.

You could get some extra sleep. But this is the thing about sleep. You only want more of it every morning when you wake up. You never want it at night when you should be sleeping. Why is that so? I have no idea. The way the human body works is retarded.

You could go overseas. Unfortunately, everyone in Singapore is rich this year and all the travel agencies are booked out. Unless you are richer than the average already rich Singaporean and can afford to pay double to go to the same places, or you had booked your holiday months in advance, you can't get a ticket to go just about anywhere now. Except to perhaps Malaysia, but do you really want to go there?

You could go shopping. But as usual, there is the cashflow problem. The only way to solve that problem is to work. Do you want to work? Here's the problem with working. When you work, you got money but no time to spend. When you go shopping, you got time but no money to spend. How to have money and time to spend? Find a rich (and preferably stupid) boyfriend/girlfriend.

You could catch up on all the television, dramas and entertainment that you have neglected during school term. That is what I have been doing, only that in reality its unhealthy to watch shows for the whole day. Not to mention that at the rate I am going I will soon run out of good shows to watch. Now that its the holidays, I suddenly have a lot of time.

You could go back to NTU for CCAs and practice. The horror! Ok enough said about that.

And finally, you could do what I did today, which was to watch a movie. Only problem? Where are all the good movies? I actually nearly fell asleep in a cinema today, which I have never done in my life. The movie was that bad. When it is full of gunfire and you still find yourself falling asleep, maybe you shouldn't bother to watch movies until better ones come out. Not to mention that it is expensive to watch movies nowadays. Its cheaper to just watch junk on pirated VCDs. I'm all for paying to watch good movies, but if the movie is junk, go ahead and buy the pirated VCDs. That way you make sure that the directors never get a budget to make such crap again, because they are still busy paying off the debts from the junk they last made.

But one thing is for sure. The hols may be overrated but school life in NTU still sucks worse.