Strolling In Seoul And Singapore Slinging

Seoul, South Korea

I’ve had such a strange path this last month: gritty, sweaty Cambodia to modern, cold Australia, the bright-lights-big-city atmosphere of Korea to the mosaic of culture that is Singapore. I’ve only been here for a day and a half now but already I can see what a mix of its surrounding nations it is; walking around Little India I could swear I really was in India (albeit a much cleaner one), with its multitude of curry restaurants, shops selling bindis, bangles, and kohl, and women draped in colourful saris. And yet last night, in the Singapore Flyer overlooking the city, I could swear I was in a city like Hong Kong, with its brightly lit waterfront, slick buildings, and wide highways. Tonight, I will head to Chinatown, for a dose of yet another of Singapore’s many faces, and after that, I will head to Raffles Hotel, the birthplace of the Singapore Sling. Perhaps a more responsible backpacker than myself would consider forking out S$25 to be a complete waste of money for a common drink, but it’s one of those things, you know, one of those things you talk about years down the line when someone orders a Singapore Sling in a little bar in Canada or Thailand or Brazil or wherever and you say, “You know, once I had a Singapore Sling at Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the drink’s birthplace.”

I love those things. I live for those things.