Mallopolis Singapore

M.C.Escher's 'Relativity' famously depicts a paradoxical architectural design of stairs, platforms and doorways that, despite your best efforts to escape, form an enescapable prison for the mind. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Escher%27s_Relativity.jpg

Replace the stairs with escalators, the platforms with designer stores and the people with rich sino-asian kids...and you have the Mallopolis that is Singapore - a veritable city of malls. Set in a tropical climate, one gets escalated from mall to mall, food court to food court, Gap kids to Gap kids and so on.

My first day there, fully aware of what to expect, I did a mall tour. Each block is another mall with connecting bridges. Even along a major six lane road that leads around the Colonial District, there's a sign that says "Shopping Mall" and an arrow pointing into a darkened fire exit staircase...but sure enough, it leads straight back into the wealthy, crowded stream of shoppers moving in and out of MacDonalds', Addidas stores, LV, ETC...

The Marina Bay Sands is an impressive new complex where a boat shaped platform sits 56 floors atop a three tower block hotel, from which one can see the entirety of Singapore. For the guests, it includes a rooftop restaurant and pool where, in an effort to push the limits of architecture and willing spenders' cash, the edge of the pool really is the edge of the building. The lifeguard needs a whole new set of skills, including sky diving.

The rooftop looks down on a bay where lines of balloons form the shape of Singapore and in the corner a new museum, oddly shaped like a fat fingered hand is being built. Having been rejected from the casino as I lacked my passport that day, I was alerted to the museum having been set alight by one of the welders working on the monstrous aberration of a building. A whole chunk of the building was lit up in flames, melting what looked like a plastic covering and charring the side of the building. It was hot enough to leak on and set alight the top platform of the cherry picker where the welders were working. As if watching a Sky One special called When Things Get Destroyed 3 with a commentator with a strong American accent narrating the incident, I gauked mouth wide open, fecklessly, as the two welders fearing for their lives and in panic, descended the extended beam of the cherry picker. Eventually, the fire died down naturally, after several failed attempts by the fire services to get to the site, since the only access way to the construction site...was by water. Unfortunately my camera had ran out of battery.

On the way back to the hostel, I was treated to a free performance by the Fillipino voice orchestra who, among others, performed Michael Jackson's 'Man in the Mirror' and 'Heal the World'. I couldn't help but be reminded of the famous YouTube clip of the Fillipino prison inmates forced to perform 'Thriller' for exercise (if you haven't seen it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o). And a performance of 'Santa Clause is coming to Town', which felt really odd in a tropical climate.

It was an eventful day.