Tom’s Blog

A couple of weeks ago I was in Sydney, and found myself in the delightful suburb of Manly.  I’d had an ice-cream, sat on the beach for a while, and fancied a challenge, so I set off on the ‘10k’ (little did I know that Australian signage was rarely to be believed) Manly Scenic Walk. 

Now, being a foolish pom - I failed to take any water or supplies with me, thinking I could probably knock-off the 10k (which was actually about 12k) in maybe 3 hours tops.  And that would probably have been quite easy, had the terrain not consisted mostly of cliffs, sand, jungle and spiders. 

I got about half-way, before the 35 deg sun really started to kick in, and I started contemplating the (relatively few) merits of trying to drink sea-water.  I was pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but just on the horizon I could make out a couple of houses at the top of a cliff - so decided to deviate from the trail and commence my ascent.  I got on to a road which had some rather large houses on it, and started staggering around looking for a shop of some kind.  There was none.  I did however see a chap outside in his garden tending to some roses - and decided to ask him for directions.  He immediately saw my situation and invited me into his house for a drink of water as I was rather hoping he would. 

Anyway, we got chatting and over a cup of tea and some left-over cakes from ‘Australia Day’, I discovered that he had previously worked in the UK financial services sector.  Delving deeper, it turned out that the person who’s sofa I was sweating profusely into, was no-less than one of the founders of First Direct (a member of the HSBC group alongside M&S Money).

At first, I couldn’t help thinking what an incredibly small world we must live in, for me to have stumbled upon this exact house at this exact time - to have ended up meeting someone who had worked for the same company as myself.  But later on that day as I was sitting trying to justify my stupidity to a bunch of Australians in a bar - it hit me that the more accurate explanation of what occurred, was not due to the fact that we live in a very small world…but rather the fact that I just work for a bloody big company…

I’m currently on my annual pilgrimage to the other side of the world to visit one half of my family in Adelaide, Australia - and on the way, I always make a point of stopping over in Singapore.  Now, I’m one of the unlucky few for whom sleep on a plane is simply never going to be a reality, so first and foremost the stop over allows me to get some much needed shut-eye on the way over.  But aside from that, I always look forward to the Singapore leg of my journey - and I thought I’d share here the main reasons why in the form of a ‘top 5 countdown’ - so here goes….

Reason No. 5: The Public Transport
Ok, so public transportation in itself is hardly a reason to travel half-way around the world - but the Singapore MRT really does epitomise the place itself - clean, efficient, fast and reliable - if at times a little soulless.  It’s also a shining example of what can be achieved with the right planning and proper funding of public services - an investment which I’m sure has paid back a million times over.  Oh and of course the best thing of all about it - is that I tend to actually be one of the taller people on the trains…well, sort of.

Reason No. 4: The City
Singapore as a country has many flaws and ordinarily it probably wouldn’t feature on the list of countries that I would like to live in.  As a city on the other-hand, it really is second to none.  There are very few places in the world that I’ve visited where you can ‘pay less, but get more’ - the old ‘you get what you pay for’ quote usually pans out fairly true in the end.  But Singapore is a genuine exception - the standard of living (and crucially I don’t just mean for foreigners) is extremely high, with things such as poverty (in the true sense) as close to extinct as is probably possible.  It just feels like a place of success - and that atmosphere holds true pretty much anywhere you go on the island - compare this to somewhere like Dubai where a step off the beaten track reveals poverty and hardships quite extreme in nature, and again I really believe this is something quite unique to Singapore.

Reason No. 3: The Food
Singapore prides itself on being the gourmet capital of the world - where culinary cultures have meshed and combined to provide a staggering array of dishes and gastronomic opportunity.  All this is undoubtedly true - but personally when I go to Singapore, all I really want is some good, cheap Chinese food.  I lived in the country for over a year, and even then didn’t manage to work my through half the dishes on offer - but I did settle on a couple of favourites, namely ‘Chicken Rice’ (tastes as simple as sounds, but my god does it taste) and ‘Wonton Noodle Soup’ (a classic if ever there was one).  The meal pictured cost me around SG$4 - that’s about £1.50 in real money - so in other words, less than the cost of a 30 second ride on a London bus.  And best of all, you don’t even have to put up with being coughed on, sworn at, or missing your stop because some old woman with her Tesco shopping is taking up most of the aisle (does she follow me around??).

Reason No. 2: The Taxis
Have you seen that Carlsberg advert where they harp on about how ‘if they did nightclubs, they would be the best in the world etc’ (there didn’t seem to be any Wham playing in the club featured on the advert so I hardly see how it can think so highly of itself, but anyway…)  Well the end of the advert shows a long line of empty taxis waiting to take the punters home - and that’s certainly a sight which pretty much every club goer longs to see at the end of night on the tiles.  The unfortunate reality is that only long lines you’ll witness in most UK towns is the line for the kebab shop.  But not in Singapore!  Here, the dream is a reality - and actually, the only cars you’re likely to see on the roads in Singapore after midnight are taxis - cheap, safe, licensed and air-conditioned taxis. 

Reason No. 1: Home
We all need a place to call home - and luckily for me, I have several - one of which is most certainly Singapore.  I may not exactly be a native - but I know my way around pretty damn well - from the finest Chicken Rice vendor, to the coldest Tiger Beer stall (yes, I navigate through food and beer).  I’ve no idea what the future will hold in terms of home - right now I’m rather enjoying the Chester life - but I’ve just got this sneaking suspicion that one day in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be calling this place home once more.

Welcome to my blog - I’ve no idea how many people will ever actually reach this page, but thought it was about time I tried this whole blogging thing that everyone seems to be talking about…

Actually, this isn’t quite my first attempt at blogging I guess - when I travelled round the world (2000) and again when living in Singapore (2003), I kept an online ‘travel diary’ - and was amazing by how many people did infact take the time to read and comment on my posts - often people I’d never even met.

I suppose that leads me nicely to my first thought (and question) - what is the difference between a ‘blog’ and a ‘diary’ - isn’t a blog just a slightly more voyeuristic way of keeping a diary?  From Anne Frank through to Bridget Jones(!), I suspect that many of the most famous diaries ever written were infact done so with the intention that others should read them.  So I suppose you could say that these were actually some of the very first blogs ever written - the only difference being that the technology available at the time required something of a ‘time delay’ between them being written and being read!