FHM's Zoo Next Door
Under strict instructions from Jane’s mother I welcome you to a long overdue update to the life of these particular Singaporean expats.
I’d apologise for not writing sooner but last weekend we did nothing in particular of note aside from a visit to the Botanical garden to share a KFC ‘picnic’ with Smita, Jo and Jane’s chum from their Accenture days in Bangalore. I figured a detailed analysis of the Singapore version of the Colonel’s special recipie probably wasn’t of interest.
This weekend we headed to Singapore Zoo, not expecting a great deal. However the it seems that the zoo is one of the finest on the planet. The animals are not caged but clever use of moats and other environmental features keep (most of) the animals from disappearing into the rest of Singapore!
The stars of the zoo are the primates, and particularly the orangutans, as you’ll be able to see from the photos. Jo’s photographic toy appears to be able to capture the most amazing images simply by pointing it at stuff. Don’t think the telephoto lens can hurt though! These photos are well worth looking at, even if normally you can’t be bothered!
We, slightly knackered, made our exit from the Zoo all declaring that if there was some way we could build a house inside the grounds, we would. If you’re coming to Singapore, or planning to visit us at any stage, the zoo is well worth a day of your time.
We were not yet done. Off to Sentosa, the Disneyland of Singapore. What was once a tiny, marshy jungle island on the south cost of Singapore, now has two golf courses, a luge to the beach and a giant 5 story Merlion (the mythical half-lion, half-fish creature that gave birth to Singapore).
It also has a Cafe Del Mar, a little slice of beach bar Ibiza in Asia. So after riding the cable car from Mount Faber park on the mainland, we decamped to Singapore’s manmade beach paradise. Although the ‘bang bang’ music didn’t exactly ring Jane’s musical bells (“It’s not exactly Enrique, is it.”) after a couple of beers she seemed to mind less.
It’s a slightly bizarre location on Sentosa, having got the cable car over the docks you arrive at the beach to look out onto two tiny constructed palm fringed islands, backed by a vast number of container vessels and oil tankers moared out at sea. This somewhat knocks the paradise image on its head; although if you look exactly at the right angle all you can see is island, so for a moment you can escape the reality!
What we hadn’t bargained on was the ‘event’ for the evening: FHM Singapore Girl Next Door 2007. In what seems to have become a regular occurencein this area of publishing, it basically boils down to getting ‘normal girls’ into a mens magazine driven beauty pagent – resulting in increased magazine circulation, cheap photoshoots, bonus publicity and me worrying about the future of the human race. Assuming it might produce a giggle or two we stuck around until the ‘show’ started.
The event was hosted by the stars of local breakfast radio, the Muttons. According to their website they wonder if anyone is listening – me too, the show was a debacle.
When your two presenters don’t even find each other funny and their material largely involves reading out a list of a 40-odd sponsors and chatting with the clearly uncomfortable vice-president of marketing for Lonsdale Asia you’re going to struggle for laughs. That is, of course, assuming you were funny to start with.
I’d say maybe it was because of the Asian-UK humour gap that perhaps I didn’t get it, but even the more local crowd were hardly whipped into a frenzy – even with the presence of ten girls not wearing much. We didn’t stick around to find out the winner, but as she’ll be staring glassy-eyed and airbrushed on Singapore’s news-stands next month I’m sure I can contain myself until then.
Andy 26 March 2007
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