Day 6: Red Light District & Satay

Slow morning today. At 9:30am, we have to queue in a long line for the breakfast buffet of our hotel. After a scrumptious meal of rice porridge, dim sum, salad, noodle soup, roti prata, vegetable samosas, & muffins, we walk around the Millenia Walk Mall adjacent to the hotel & come back to our room to rest. Atticus is very tired & a bit fussy, so we think it best to let him sleep in his crib.

After a nap, we head to Geylang to meet a few of Robby's colleagues. Geylang is Singapore's red light district. The temperature outside is unbearably hot & oppressive, & we walk towards Geylang from the MRT station in searing heat. Poor Atticus. He is drenched in his own sweat. We find Patrick & Scott in the middle of Geylang District, which appears to be pretty quiet and unassuming in the afternoon. The night walkers & johns don't emerge until 7pm, we're informed. We do pass a few massage parlors with women standing outside. They look into the stroller as we pass, & both Robby & I notice the melancholy expression on their face as they see Atticus. We guess what they might be thinking. Even though it is not time for the prostitutes to come out, the street is filled with mostly men, loitering men who sit at open-air restaurants. Everyone looks curiously at us, a couple who has brought their baby to the seediest & most licentious place in Singapore. We see a few prostitutes waiting on the side of the street. They are dressed up, teetering in heels & modestly covered with make-up. We also walk by a brothel, a large house set back from the street with beaded curtains in front of all the doors and windows and women sitting on plastic chairs inside.

Although Singapore is famous for its strict adherence to moral laws, the government seems to leave the Geylang District alone. It is hardly immaculate with its littered streets. There isn't a family or a child in sight. It doesn't have the touristy feeling of Amsterdam's red light district or the glitzy lights of Tokyo's red light district. Here, people are allows to indulge in the usual vices. This place depresses me, & I can't imagine the lives of the women who work & live here.

(We've been told that prostitution is legal here.)

For dinner, we meet up with Joe at Lau Pa Sat, a hawker food court near Raffles Plaza & the business district of Singapore. A few blocks are closed to cars & tables are set out for patrons. We are here for the satay. With smoke billowing from the food stalls, the hawkers aggressively usher us to empty tables & follow us as we wander to look for Joe. When we finally sit down, we order over 70 skewers of chicken, lamb, beef, & shrimp. Each skewer has two small pieces of meat, so we each eat around 20 skewers. The satay sauce is delicious & a little spicy. Different than the satay sauce we get at Thai restaurants in the U.S. But Robby & I wish that we had come to Lau Pa Sat earlier this week. It's an incredible experience.

We return to Los Angeles tomorrow on a 9:30am flight. It's another 16-hour flight...23 hours of travel time, from waiting at airports to layovers to picking up luggage...

Goodbye, Singapore! Goodbye, Pan-Pacific Hotel, the most extravagant hotel we've stayed in! Goodbye, Chinatown, Little India, & Kampong Glam (Arab District). Goodbye, Doby Ghaut, Orchard Road, City Hall, Esplanade, & Raffles Plaza! Goodbye, Sun-Tec Convention Centre & Food Republic! Goodbye, dim sum, soy milk, paratha/prata/roti prata, congee (rice porridge), satay, black pepper crab, bee hoon noodles!