Picto Diary - 24 December 2023 - Christmas Eve in Singapore

Above: Marina Bay Sands Hotel and ArtsScience Museum. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

Good morning. View of Marina Bay Sands Hotel and ArtsScience Museum from 17th floor elevator area of our hotel, Ritz Carleton, Millenia. Christmas atmosphere pervasive in Singapore. Decorations and lighting everywhere, Christmas music on PAs and cab FM radios, people greet with "Merry Christmas."

Above: MARS EXHIBITION. ArtsScience Museum. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

1. Giant Mars globe. 2. Ptolemy's geocentric universe, believed from 200 to 1600 CE. 3. Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo heliocentric universe, believed from 1600 to 1800. Somewhat disappointing about this otherwise fabulous presentation was that almost all of the pictures of achievers, from Copernicus to Musk, in the Mars adventure were of white males. Clearly something needs to be done to make the exhibit more inclusive. Perhaps hire a DEI officer? Where are Claudine Gay and Allisa Heinersheid when you need them?

Above: Arts/Science Museum. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

Future World. "Where Art meets Science." ArtScience Museum.

Above: Marina Bay Sands Mall. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

TIMDT stands in front of Frette and Christophle. Reminds of time in 2003 when alone, riding a motorcycle in Tuscany, I met up with TIMDT and three of her lady friends in Florence. I joined the girls at breakfast the next AM. "What are we going to see today?" I asked. Our friend Pat said, "Steve, you go see The David. We're going to Frette, Christophle, and Tods."

Above: Ode to Art Exhibit. Raffles City Mall. Singapore. 24 December 2023.
Lee Kwan Yew. Acrylic. Mixed medium.

Above: Ode to Art Exhibit. Raffles City Mall. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

Strangely, as if pulled by a tractor beam, The Bishop is always drawn to view self-resembling art.

Singapore reeks of safety, comfort and hospitality.

Singaporeans are so helpful to helpless looking gweilo geezers. It is nigh on to impossible to flag down a taxi to get back to our hotel. There are four car/taxi/sharing economy services to get a car, but you need to have the app and know the system. Finished with our art viewing and shopping excursion, we walked over to the Raffles Hotel hoping that the concierge could find us a taxi. As we were looking helpless, a young man, a Raffles Hotel employee, walked over and asked if he could help us. "We need to get a car back to the Ritz Carlton Millenia," said TIMDT. TIMDT added apologetically, "We are not guests at your hotel." "No matter," said the young man, I'll get you a car." He promptly pulled out his phone, made the transaction and said: "Your car, a blue Toyota, with tag number XXXX will be right here in five minutes. He then showed us the location of the car on his phone's map.

Yesterday, we took a car from our hotel to the Botanical Gardens. At the hotel, the concierge does the same thing that the Raffles young man did. She calls up a car on her phone. One of the services, the one commandeered for us, pays in cash, so the car can be ordered without charging a credit card. On arrival at the Botanical Garden, a sixty-something woman, wearing Botanical Garden ID shirt, walks over to us and asked if she could help us. We got the whole skinny from her. "Don't come back here," she said. "After you visit the Orchid Garden, it's just a short walk to another service depot like this one. My counterpart there can then order you a car." She pointed out her instructions on a paper map. She said, "look, we ask people to use the maps on their phones these days, but you look like nice people (read helpless gweilo geezers). I'm going to give you one of the old paper maps we used to use."

Above: Summer Pavilion Restaurant. Ritz Carleton Millenia Hotel. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

One rosette Michelin restaurant. Chinese. Christmas Eve Dinner. Carolers were timely and amazing. Silent Night, Oh Come All Ye Faithful, and Feliz Navidad. All sung acapella with appropriate mood in four-part harmony.

You can't ignore the incongruousness of a robust, high quality, cheerful Christmas spirit in a country where only a smattering of its citizens is Christian. This phenomenon is similar to India, where, as I mentioned early in this Picto-diary, all religious holidays are celebrated and enjoyed by all, whatever their religion. This respect of others' traditions in multicultural milieus seems less acceptable in the US.

Above: Colony Restaurant. Ritz Carleton Millenia Hotel. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

Baked goodies. We found one of the green cookie trees in our hotel room when we returned there after dinner.

Above: Marina Bay Sands Hotel and ArtsScience Museum. Singapore. 24 December 2023.

Christmas Eve view from our 17th floor window in Ritz Carlton Millenia Hotel.

Above: Koessler Family. Salt Lake City, UT. 24 December 2023.

Addendum:

Our first visit [Singapore] was in 1970 and I don’t even remember any tall buildings just the black-and-white houses left from the Dutch which were beautiful and how unbelievably clean the city was. You were heavily fined if you left a little bit of water in a puddle in your garden, or for chewing gum, and the steps of the public buildings were so clean that when my daughter sat on them, her white pants were still clean to my mother’s disbelief. We stayed at the old Raffles hotel, which was renovated beautifully. An amazing story.

Comic Mom,
Park City, UT

Singapore was one of [Bond's] cities he had with Citi and I agree it is well run unlike most American cities.

Bridge,
Palm Beach, FL

Steve

I spent Christmas Day in Sarasota with Christopher and my wife and her children.

The Pope,
Sarasota, FL

Here’s hoping you had a Merry Christmas and enjoyed a great New year on your cruise. Looked like you were having fun.
As usual, a quiet (read WORKING) Christmas here but a gathering of 17 for the traditional New Year’s Day lunch.
All well here. Grand- and great- grandkids growing like weeds while Grandad/great-grandad gets shorter with each 6 monthly medical!
Bad start to 2024 with terrible earthquake on the west coast and then crash at Haneda airport yesterday. If I had been on that flight I would be buying lottery tickets today! Should have been a massive disaster but luckily fire was slow to start and initially confined to rear so all got out.
Still messing around in the workshop with bikes and sidecars and spending 3-4 months in NZ each year where I seem to be doing the same thing - messing about with bikes, cars and boats.
Love to all.
The Tokyo Mob
Forgive the extraneous content on the screen shots!

Pic: From left Great Grandkids Emma and Lui (hiding), granddaughter Marin, Meg, Shaun, nephew and partner, Yuya and partner with the twins.

Malcolm,
Tokyo, Japan

Malcolm, So good to hear from you. I have two bikes at our home in St. George. Come do a five to seven day ride with me in the US southwest... good riding conditions in winter. Serious! Revert. SDT