More of St. Petersburg: Random Sights, More Museums, and Peterhofby Randi / June 23, 2017
I honestly still don’t know how I feel about Moscow. We spent four days there, and saw all the things we wanted to see in four days, and I just feel like I don’t have a handle on the city. There’s a lot going on and every area feels like a different city or even country. The center is really fancy, with every high fashion design house and jewelry company represented on polished streets. But 10 minutes outside the center, and by the train stations, it looks like how we’d imagine Russia at the collapse of the Soviet Union. It’s all very incongruous, and not being able to grasp the correct mood of the city made me feel uneasy. Although, it could just be because of the P.O.S. hostel we stayed at!
We left St. Petersburg Wednesday night at 11:55pm on the famous Red Arrow sleeper train, Train #001, for Moscow. This was our first real leg of the Trans Siberian (or Trans Mongolian…or Trans Manchurian…we’re going to Mongolia & China so it’s like both/all/I don’t know). Oh we met some older tourists earlier that day or the day before who were Russian but lived in Miami. They asked what we were doing in Russia and we said “We’re doing the Trans Siberian Railway!” and the Russian Miami lady said “Oh is that a Jewish thing?” Like first of all what. Second of all what Russian person doesn’t know about their train system? Thirdly who says anything like that to 3 strangers who are combined only 1/6 Jewish? Was so weird! Who doesn’t know what the Trans Siberian is when you are IN Russia? So now every time we are faced with any sort of new thing we go “Oh is that a Jewish thing?” Amazing. So anyway, on our St. Petey-Moscow sleeper, we were in second class but it was the fanciest darn train I’ve ever seen. (What on earth is first class like!) I boarded with my teeth already brushed, my face already washed. I hurried to the bathroom in the train-provided slippers to take out my contacts and put on my pajamas, and then I was ready to snuggle into my clean white-sheeted bottom bunk when…our stranger cabinmate arrived! Second class means cabins of four beds, and we were three people, so we had a STRANGER! His name was Ivan and he was a Russian man, mid-30s I’d say. He was super nice and friendly and spoke enough English to get by with us, but that meant he was up for chatting AND he had a friend in the next cabin who came in and sat with us! On our beds ughhhh. It was after midnight and I wanted to sleep and I was so tired from all we’ve been doing and these two Russian guys were drinking and chatting for hours with the two American boys while I did the head-conk sleepy thing I used to do in Statistics. I mean trying to stay awake so strangers can drink and talk in your room after midnight when one of them isn’t even supposed to be there and in the best case you can only get like 6 hours of sleep and you have a HUGE day of sightseeing to do the next day isn’t exactly my idea of fun. But I’m weird like that.
Still, it was a beautiful train and a great experience – one which really spoiled me for the subsequent train journeys this trip, but we’ll get to that later. On this fancy train, they gave slippers and toothbrushes and little water bottles and breakfast cookies (not for me but still). Even though we didn’t get enough sleep, we were excited enough by our arrival in Moscow to charge through a whole day of stuff. We arrived at the train station which is in one of the not-nice areas and I was like oh hot damn, we’re not in Kansas anymore. We made our way to our hostel, which was luckily centrally located in the nice part of the city, so its location was 100% responsible for its high online rating. 7 minute walk from the Bolshoi Ballet, 15-20 from Red Square. The location was responsible for all its internet points, because it was a p.o.s. The teenagers ‘working’ there, and I use that word loosely, barely did anything at all. It was an ordeal to get them to do their job, like put toilet paper in the shared bathrooms. One of the guys working a few night shifts I think was just hanging around because he was the boyfriend of one of the actual employees. It was all very ridiculous and unprofessional. Speaking of those shared bathrooms, one for each sex, they each had one communal hand towel by the sinks. Those towels were not changed more than once in our four day stay. Husband said the men’s remained on the floor in a puddle the whole time. Worst of all, they didn’t have a water cooler or purifier like the last hostel did. We aren’t supposed to drink the tap water so we had to buy sooo much plastic. Ugh. All of this doesn’t even compare to how rude the other guests were. Loud talking all night, music, hell one guy was playing his ukulele at all hours and even though I really like the ukulele I think he put me off the ukulele for the near future. What a shame. But the winner was the guy who was skyping for three hours one night, seated at the small desk right outside our door. He had the loudest voice I’ve ever heard in my life and was a ridiculous person, talking about his views on Ukraine and how he wanted to protest something while in Russia and I was like omg you really are an idiot. When it got past midnight and we were still clearly hearing every painful word of his through our closed door, I went out and was like ARE YOU F-ING KIDDING ME? He moved to a standing wander outside the men’s dorm which I think went over with them equally well. I’m so glad to be done with that place (although I’m writing this from a tiny tiny train cabin shared with two strangers and what I would give for that private room right now.
The first thing on our agenda was to see Red Square, but Husband missed being away from work for so long apparently because the first thing we actually did in Moscow was meet his colleague at the Moscow office of his firm for coffee lololol. Really nice guy! I had two bottles of law firm water for free!
Red Square
GUUUUM
After dropping our bags, we immediately set out for Red Square. That’s the big f-ing thing to see, right? We wanted to see it straight away! (Look how British!) But the politzia had other things in mind. The entire area surrounding the Red Square was barricaded off and black sedans did what seemed like speed tests back and forth in front of the Four Seasons. People who spoke a little English said it was because that day marked an important day in Russian history, but I don’t know how the fake car chases help to celebrate it. With the entire central region cordoned off, it meant we could not get to the Red Square, St. Basils Tomb, the State History Museum, the Kremlin, Lenin’s Tomb, GUM (the department store that was the subject of literally every practice sentence in our first semester of Russian – “Where are you going?” “I’m going to GUM!” “Where can I buy souvenirs?” “You can buy souvenirs at GUM!” – so it was what we were most excited about in all of Moscow, I think. Pro tip, you can’t actually get souvenirs at GUM; it’s a super swanky mall now with every expensive designer you can think of represented, plus endless ice cream carts. We’ve never seen so many people constantly eating ice cream as we have in Russia). Our entire Moscow list was suddenly unavailable to us! So we decided to use that unfortunate turn to go out to the burbs to pick up the rest of our train tickets from the company we used to book them. (You can book them yourself, but we are on such a specific schedule, and it’s summertime so the routes fill up, so we didn’t want to risk it. Also, so far all our trains have been full, so it was worth it.)So at least we got that over with, but we still hadn’t seen really any of the city yet!
State HIstory Museum
Later that afternoon, we decided to try again, but nope, barricades everywhere you turn. Luckily, one of the guards at the barricades (you at the barricades listen to THIS! no one is coming to help you to fiiiiiight you’re on your oooown you have no frieeeends <– literally the meanest lyric in all of musical theatre) was able to communicate to us that Red Square itself was now open, but the gates remained all around – except for in one roundabout area which we directed us to. A little more walking (we’re walking like 10 miles a day erma my po po feet)and we finally made it to what we came for.
Mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
The Red Square is impressive, mostly because of St. Basil’s Cathedral, the famous onion domes you know. It’s a lot smaller than we expected, but super gorgeous. We went inside immediately, and it’s surprisingly not a big hall like most other churches but is made up of tiny chapels and little staircases and alleys connecting all these disparate parts. I didn’t care much for the inside, especially after being blown away by the inside of the Church on Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg, but it’s still St. Basil’s and so famous and important so go if you want. The outside is where it’s at though.
One entire side of the square is GUM, one is the State History Museum (which Husband went to when I needed a morning off from museuming which was the best decision maybe I ever made), one is Basil’s, and one is the walled off border of the Kremlin, plus Lenin’s Tomb. We wanted to go to Lenin’s Tomb right after Basilypuddy but for some reason it was closed off. The guard said just ‘closed today’ and open tomorrow. The Tomb has very specific, short hours – just 10-1pm – so we were upset that we would have to fit it in another day. Guess what. It took four days of trying before it was actually open. “Historical days”, “Graduation”, more “Graduation” – guards over the next three days had all kinds of excuses ready for us as to why it was closed when it wasn’t supposed to be. So frustrating. When we finally got in, on our very last day, it was an hour and a half wait! 90 minutes in line just to see an embalmed body?
Not Lenin’s tomb but at Lenin’s tomb
Weird stuff inside guys
Oh that’s right, Lenin is literally displayed in a glass case (of emotion) like it’s an open casket at a funeral. He looks like he just died. They are embalming the crap out of him. It’s sooo weird. I knew he was like mummified somehow but I didn’t expect it to just be like ‘here, it’s a body like normal, except dead for decades’. I made several emoji faces during our hurried walk around the glass case (the many guards usher you along quickly (also no pictures allowed of course, would be too weird)) and I think the guards were laughing at me. It was so weird. I wonder if this was Lenin’s wish or if it was decided after he died. I hope his ghost isn’t like freaking out over being a tourist attraction. So weird.
Guarding Moscow’s Eternal Flame outside the Kremlin. Strangely this is a popular place for newlyweds to take photos – and indeed we saw some doing just that!
Inside the Kremlin – Cathedral Square
Another day was dedicated entirely to the Kremlin. Okay guys, if you are planning to go to Moscow soon and visit the Kremlin – which you should if you are there – know that it is an absolute shitshow to get in. Well, first of all, we had to change our designated day for visiting that due to “Graduation” a few times too! Moscow was entirely a city of barricades and police activity, always unexplained to the populace. I think it’s just the goings on of a police state, like they are constantly reminding the citizenry that they don’t have free reign, that the police are the ones with power and have the control here. It really seemed that way to me. Everywhere we went, we encountered barricades and had to replan. It was really annoying and one of the top reasons I wouldn’t want to live in this city. It was a constant onslaught of police activity and being told you can’t do certain things.
Senate building (maybe)
Garden in Kremlin
So, when we finally got to go to the Kremlin – it requires a whole afternoon – we were relieved, before we realized what it took to get in. First, you wait in the longest line for the ticket hall. Guess what, the main tickets are sold at separate windows from extras like the Diamond Fund (the crown jewels, which you want to see), so once you go through the entire line, you have to get in another line to get the extra bit tickets. This happens a lot. Luckily, I went to scope out the inside situation when we were still a good 45 minutes away from being inside the ticket hall (who knows how long from a cashier) and I noticed almost-empty ticket machines in the corner. We of course used those for the main tickets and we saved a good hour. Why was no one using the machines! Crayballs. And someone said you could buy Diamond Fund tickets at the actual building inside, so we hoped they were right. Like most big attractions so far in Russia, once you wait in the line to buy your tickets, you have to wait in another line to get in the attraction. This one was even worse than the ticket line, not because of length but because of tour groups pushing and shoving. It was another absolute shitshow. Russian queues make British people turn to dust. They just push and crowd and have no regard for anyone who may have been there first. So we forgot everything we learned in London and pushed right back. We made it to the severely backed up metal detectors and noticed that most of them were going unused as people just went through the central ones, causing most of the backup. Peeeeopleeeee.
CANNONBALLLLL
Luckily, once you’re in, it’s fine, as long as you stick to the specified walking paths – the guards mean BUSINESS. Anyone who stepped off the path or crossed streets not at a designated crossing had loud whistles blown at them until they got back on the straight and narrow. There were constant whistles.
now that’s a cracked bell
Kremlin just means fortress, not government building, but Moscow’s famous government fortress has made the word stand for it as well. It’s a huge expanse of land behind those walls, with various Senate buildings, Congress halls, monuments of tanks and cannons…and like 8 cathedrals. It’s different to have most of your government grounds be cathedrals! But that’s what we’re here to see! Endless cathedrals! They were the things you can really go inside (of course you can’t go in like the Senate) so hooray for them.
We also were indeed able to buy tickets inside the actual Diamond Fund. These were some crown jewels, man. So beautiful. Of course no pictures allowed here either, but I distinctly remember my favorite thing besides the super giant diamonds. They had this brooch that was a bunch of flowers, made of diamonds and gold and jewels, that was so pretty. But the audioguide told us what made it even better – it was hollowed out inside so it could be filled with water and fresh flowers could be placed inside! I was cracking up. Can you imagine Catherine the Great wearing a flower brooch pinned to her dress that actually had water and fresh flowers inside?! I like to imagine that she bent over to pick something up and the water spilled out and some court man slipped on it.
Because you’ll be spending a lot of time here, it’s important to bring snacks. They have a few carts of various Russian foods like pireshok, I think, and I was able to grab a trail mix bag. But you can find better snacks on the outside. And bring plenty of water! It was a hot day. Actually every day so far has had moments of heat interspersed between mostly freezing temperatures and then incredibly strong rain storms. What is this weather.
outside Kremlin
Even though I’m already museumed out, it’s literally like the #3 thing we will be doing this trip besides seeing cathedrals and taking trains so I geared up for the Tretyakov gallery. They have a main building and a new annex that I thought sounded like it would be small but it was literally the biggest single exhibit I’ve ever seen. It was 20th century Russian art, charting every new movement that happened, and it took 3 hours to go through. When we were finally done, it let us out to a stairwell that led us into…another exhibit. JFC I was about to scream. It was worse than Caesar’s Palace for keeping you in and not letting you leave! I was in a Bunuel movie and I was NOT AMUSED. It was a decent gallery but come on that’s a lot of museuming.
On our walk to the gallery ahhh
On the way to it though, we found this huge fake ship statue of Peter the Great. This memorial is kind of hilarious and awesome. It’s so big! Its champion was the former disgraced mayor of Moscow so there are rumors that it will be removed but come on, you can’t get rid of this. It’s so fun.
One of the funniest things we did in Moscow was go to the Museum of Soviet Arcade Games! It’s a very happening hipster joint with tons of old arcade games from Soviet times. They are so sad you want to cry but it’s really adorable. They gave us English instructions and a bag of tokens and we tried to play them. Most were super glitchy and frustrating but it was so cool to try them out!
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Moscow also has some gorgeous metro stations. We walked mostly everywhere but Husband made a point to find the most beautiful ones. Our Russian teacher told us about them when she went between semesters. They were pretty cool!
The best part of Moscow was the Bolshoi Ballet, which I’ll write about in another post (theatre reviews! never stopping!) and a mostly vegan restaurant called Fresh that I’m obsessed with (food in another post too). Looking back, we did do a lot of fun things in Moscow, but it was all in this overwhelming sense of unease. It’s a city in a time of change, for sure, and it’s unclear what direction would be best for it (you don’t want that fancy center part to take over and price all the citizens out, but you also want it to grow financially). I definitely felt this unease and it prevented me from enjoying Moscow as much as I thought I would. Maybe it was all the police and barricades, maybe it was the city itself, maybe the hostel, maybe because I was surrounded by people eating ice cream and I couldn’t have any and it was so sad. I think some places you gel with and some you don’t, and that’s fine. Onto the next!
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Singapore Some Sugar on Me because I LOVE IT HERE
Recently* we took a gigantic trip to Australia, which is hella far away, and we faced the exciting decision of where to plan the layover between all the super long flights. To help with the expected debilitating jet-lag that comes with flying around the world all the way to the far end, we planned to spend a few days in our layover destination, so we wanted somewhere new and exciting (sorry Qatar) and somewhere we could easily enjoy with only 2-3 days without wanting to bag Aussieland and stay there forever (sorry Bangkok (we wuv u)). Out of all the options, Singapore easily won. All the interesting history, all the super rich people, all that amazing food, all that CLEANLINESS? Easiest decision ever! We were ready to be:
Singapore is a unique lil babe, known for its strict rules, diverse population, and incredible food. It can seem a little daunting if you only know it for headlines like “CHILD EXECUTED FOR SPITTING”, but as a tourist, it seems pretty nice. Yes the government needs to CHILL on a lot of things, and it’s not exactly a prime example of democracy, but that’s an issue for a different conversation (also I wanna go back so shhh). Its populace is a mix of mainly Chinese, Malay, and Indians, plus expats and workers from all over the world, making it culturally and gastronomically fascinating. Because of this diverse population, there are four official languages: Malaysian, Mandarin Chinese (which I took an intro class in last week and the Chinese professor said I had a knack for it and thought maybe I studied it before which readers and I surely find HILARIOUS considering my history with trying to speak in China), Tamil, and English.
Obviously we are happy for that last one given our mmm not so successful history with the Chinese yazik, but it’s the result of colonialism. Singapore was founded in 1819 as a British trading post by Sir Stamford Raffles. Then this poor lil bab was treated like a ping pong ball once the British East India Company collapsed: it was ceded to the British Raj (the British rule in India) and then occupied by Japan and then became part of Malaysia and then said peace to Malaysia and only became sovereign in 1965! I bet you have jeans you haven’t washed for longer than Singapore has been independent and that’s gross. Despite its age, Singapore has become a global economic leader (and a tax haven), as well as a leader in education, technology, innovation, safety, lack of gum, and throwing lavish parties for super rich people and hiring synchronized swimming teams to perform in rooftop pools even though literally no one is watching.
But first, let’s get there. To get over as much of the jet-lag as we could before continuing onto Oz (does anyone actually call it that, is this okay), we planned a solid three days in Singapore, which is both the country name and the city name, it’s a lil baby city-state, like rull small but it makes up for its size in per capita wealth (gross) and amazing food (amazing). Our flights from London took us through Dubai, which has the WORST airport for a fast transfer because you cannot find water or regular snacks, like sure there are luxury cars and jewelry for sale but what normal traveler actually needs that when you are going from one long flight to another in less than an hour? More like Du BYE BOY. Also, I find it super hilarious that the flight to Dubai is about 7 hours and then the flight to Singapore is another 7 hours! Shit’s far!
At first, I thought the coolest thing about this itinerary was that we’d have to fly Emirates, which I’d never flown but always wanted to because Bryan Safi always raved about how fancy it was on the “Throwing Shade” podcast and I guess because of JAniston’s commercials for them (though they always made me a little mad, like why is she doing airplane commercials (and ads for Aveeno and water?) after making a million $ per episode?? did she blow all her dough on pilates (it IS expensive but dayum Jen)). Suffice it to say, nothing has ever been as disappointing as Emirates was. Okay maybe not nothing but everything about it was a letdown except the bathrooms, which were normal. The service (atrosh), the comfort, the everything, all totally meh or worse. Yes we were in the economy trough and I am sure the first class extravagance is what makes it famous, but for regular people, Emirates is some overblown b.s.
When we finally got to Singapore, the smallest, coolest dot at the tip of Malaysia, the airport was so adorable it almost cured all my travel woes. Like most of Singapore, the airport was decked out for the Chinese New Year – and it was going to be the Year of the Dog. Can you imagine how happy I was after so much plane time to see these giant babies upon landing?
Because we are Serious Travelers, we took the time in our exhausted stupor to figure out the metro system to get into the city. It was frustrating – we had to go up and down many flights of stairs to get to the right ticket booth (it was early, things were closed) and then back up and down to go to the platform, but we did it. It was fine. People were looking at us, but we’re used to that. It was about a 15 minute walk from the metro station to our hotel, and once we came up from underground in the city we were greeted with some real heat. Coming from London in winter, the Singapore heat was perfection (almost making up for the inability to bring into the country what Chandler and I also consider perfection: gum (though of course I snuck a few pieces into my toiletries because I like to live dangerously) (but truth is officials don’t care as long as it’s a small amount for personal use)). We stayed at the Park Regis Hotel because it was nice, had a pool, and we could pay entirely with otherwise-worthless-for-Londoners Avios points. Unfortunately, we arrived at 9am and the room wasn’t ready until 3pm (!!), but we had access to the pool and the pool showers (and the wifi while we planned our day). Not a bad deal. It was a small pool, and it was so early that it was kind of chilly and windy by the water (and in the shade), but still, I can’t really complain about outdoor swimming in February (although yes I did just try to).
Once we were ready, we had a lot to see. As I said, we had just about three days to see Singapore, and for the cursory overview we were doing, it was the perfect amount of time. It’s a great place for a short trip as well as for multiple visits; I for one cannot wait to go back – but that’s mostly for the food, which will be a separate post (there’s a whole lot to cover).
A great introduction to Singapore is to do the river walk (the river is called the Singapore River, which is easy I guess but boring), winding through the various quays and into the well-known sights of Marina Bay. We began our meandering tour at Clarke Quay, which was close to our hotel and, more importantly, full of great food. It’s always nice to walk along the water and gaze upon the fancy hotels (so many), the grand museums (which, strangely, never came up in any of the Singapore recommendations we researched, leading us to uncharacteristically just skip museums), and the perfect blue skies.
The River Walk will bring you to Raffles Place, which good old Stammy Rafs established in the 1820s as the main mercantile district, called Commercial Square originally but renamed for Stams in 1858. Raffles Place became a popular shopping district as well as a commercial and financial center for the region. For at least a century, this was also where migrants established themselves. Many South Indian traders and bankers set up shop in this area. It was also home to Singapore’s only underground mosque, established in the 1950s so the many Muslims working in the area could pray, and now still underground in the basement of the UOB Plaza.
You’d think Raffles Place would be near the Raffles Hotel, or at least I thought that, but the famous hotel is north of the river in not the most convenient location. We visited the famous Raffles Hotel because that’s where you are supposed to get the Singapore Sling, the gin-based drink that the Raffles Hotel bartender invented there in 1915. It’s just the thing to do, to get one from where it was first made. Hilariously, it’s said that the bartender, Ngiam Tong Boon, created the drink so that all the fancy ladies could drink alcohol in public, so I guess it was like the early cosmo? appletini? only far garls! Unfortunately, we were greeted with this:
Raffles Hotel was closed! And FYI, it is still undergoing this extensive refurbishment and is not due to open until August! The original Long Bar was closed, with only a gift shop open where you could buy a book about the hotel and a kit for making your own? I mean not that I actually wanted the Sling anyway but it was a downer for the husbo to not get to do the done thing. Fie, Raffles.
Oh well, back to the water, which I will always prefer over alcohol. The river walk takes you past the iconic (their word but true) Fullerton Hotel (which seems like it should be extraordinarily expensive considering the location and the name recognish but I just checked and it’s like a decidedly decent value for how nice it is given the average hotel price in Singapore?? next time babies), which once upon a time was the General Post Office Building (noice) and was built literally just for centennial celebrations? (extra noice), and past all the banks’ skyscrapers and down into what you’ve been waiting to see – the Marina Bay, home of, well all the famous things but especially that iconic (my/everyone’s word) triumvirate of Singapore’s skyline, the Marina Bay Sands.
Oh let’s zoom out a little and let y’all see what it really looks like.
So many people! It’s just like China (but so much cleaner!). Even though this is a hotel (and a casino now), the Marina Bay Sands to me really is the quintessential image for Singapore. I mean that’s where Race Across the World had its big finish; you can’t argue with that! And you definitely can’t argue with the greatest movie ever made, Crazy Rich Asians, which also features the MBS prominently and has the aforementioned RIDONK synchronized swimming performance on that incredible/terrifying roof. SO FUN.
While I think of this as the unofficial symbol of Singapore (I mean given the financial sitch there it kind of makes sense that the symbol would be a super fance hotel), the official symbol – I’m sorry, ‘mascot’ – of Singapore is even better. It’s a MERLION. Perched right on the east side of the bay at the Downtown Core bit of the city, the merlion statue is a mythical creature (duh) with the head of a lion and the body of a fish. It’s used to represent Singapore and Singaporeans in tourism, branding, sporting events, everything. And it’s awesome, because hello, the national thang is a merlion? Only Scotland and its unicorn tops that!
Of course, continuing the trend that the Raffles Hotel started, the Merlion was UNDER CONSTRUCTION during our visit. This is like how people coming this year to London feel when they see Big Ben all covered up, except 1000x worse because Big Ben is just a dumb clock and this is a MERLION.
The city set up a smaller copy nearby so that tourists could still get their picture with the merlion, but it’s small and fake so it’s nice but also kind of a kick in the pants.
So, disappointing, but it’s hard to stay mad when you’re in this fabo city. I mean, look at how great the sign behind Faker Merlion is:
I also really enjoyed this sign on Cavenagh Bridge, even though I don’t really enjoy the feeling that a ‘u’ is missing from that name:
Behind the Marina Bay Sands is one of my favorite things about Singapore, the Gardens by the Bay. I love an immaculate man-made super weird yet pretty garden-park, what can I say. The GbtB is 101 hectares of land right smack in the middle of the city, with beautiful flower gardens and interesting conservatories. Kind of like a Kew Gardens if the creators of it had their Pimms before instead of after. It’s free to walk through a lot of it, and costs $28 (Singapore dollars) to go into the conservatories, like the Flower Dome and the Cloud Forest.
I love it!
Another day, we went into the Little India neighborhood, called Tekka in the Singapore Indian community. Contrasted with our experience of the downtown areas, the Indian neighborhood felt much more like a real city with real people living there, and not just working/visiting. Under the original Raffles plan for Singapore, ethnic Indians had to live in the Chulia Kampong region because Brits loved them some ethnic segregation/racism/being shit. That area became too crowded, and many Indians brought the overflow to what’s now this vibrant area. It may have developed around a former settlement for Indian convicts, but now it’s home to all kinds of people and businesses, as well as places of worship for several different religions.
It was hard to take pictures amid all the traffic but it was a really nice area to see. You don’t want to just stay in the shiny downtown.
When in Singapore, you’ll inevitably spend a lot of time in Chinatown, a hub of activity at all times but even moreso during Chinese New Year! We were fortunate to be there at this time of year (and it was the Year of the Cute Wittle Doggo Such a Good Boy) and Chinatown was CELEBRATING! It was so fun to see all the excitement and the random dance parties and all the decoration.
Chinatown is home to the Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. Early in Singapore’s history, the temple gave refuge to Indian immigrants, and the temple had the only priests with the authority to perform Hindu marriages. If you won’t be in town for Chinese New Year, try to come in the fall, when the temple holds its super famous fire-walking ceremonies, where devotees walk on hot coals as a test of their devotion/skin burning point.
I didn’t get a great picture of the temple because of ALL OF THE PEOPLE but you can sort of make out how crazy cool the decor is, with the facade pretty much covered in statues and figures of gods and stuff.
Running through the heart of Chinatown is Smith Street, which we learned a forking harrowing lesson about thanks to some helpful/horrifying street signs. I love street signs giving information but dayum. So Smith Street, at the turn of the 20th century, was lined with brothels, like lots of them. The number of male immigrants far exceeded the number of female so brothels did a booming trade, but the prostitutes were subjected to a horrible life (#legalize) with no legal recourse when clients would almost certainly beat them, stiff them, and/or murder them. This unassuming street sign told us how men would usually just murder the women (prostitute and/or brothel owner) instead of paying. Since this was a living hell, many prostitutes killed themselves by jumping off buildings or overdosing on opium. COOL FACTS GUYS. now we all know.
Alright to cleanse the palate from that I’m going to share one food-ish picture, of my favorite thing, to remind us all that Singapore is full of wonderful things, not least of which is bubble tea!
Some of you know how I feel about bubble tea, and Singapore did not let me down. It was, rightly so, everywhere.
Funnily enough, even though we really enjoyed Singapore, the most memorable experience was waking up super early one morning to go to an Australian bar to watch the Super Bowl. I know, you’re like…wat? But the Philadelphia Eagles were playing (hence the * in the opening sentence when I said ‘recently’ but hey time is relative life moves at you fast &c) and that’s MY JAWN, B! This was the first time I watched the entire thing all the way through, and it was well rewarded with the Eagles winning! We made lots of friends that morning, with the bar entirely filled with American expats and tourists, just a hilarious experience.
It was pretty special to share such a random experience in SINGAPORE with a bunch of people from Pennsylvania (and a bunch of New Englanders too who got shown what’s what). I don’t really care about football and the NFL is MONSTERS but I’m still allowed to celebrate Philly mmker? Here’s a picture of my dog celebrating the Eagles’ win AND the Year of the Dog so you can’t complain.
We really enjoyed Singapore, even though we didn’t live it up like the craziest and richest of Asians but more like the normallest of travelers. There’s so much great stuff left to talk about next time – the food.
Trump Hates It? It Must be Awesome! We Return to Baltimore!
Are you curious about what ‘living in hell’ is like? It’s pretty nice (and vegan-friendly)!
Recently, Cheeto Mussolini talked smack on one of America’s great cities, and it was embarrassing. For him, of course, because he was wrong (he did open his mouth). Since I have the best readers (‘I use the best words’), I know you agree that if the screaming carrot demon hates something, it’s probably awesome, and this is definitely true for Baltimore, Maryland. Sure it has problems – as most big cities do – but unlike the assclown who has the power (all the power in the world) to fix them, we aren’t going to complain about them and not talk about all the great things Baltimore has going on right now.
benches don’t lie mufucka
Balmore, as they say, is a vibrant, dynamic city with so much more to offer than crime and homelessness and a drug problem (helloo did I say every city because that’s every city). The diverse (in both senses of the word) areas of the city are full of young hipsters living in cool neighborhoods, tourists coming to see one of the first colonies, students attending one of the great schools, and established locals who will defend their city to any orange buffoon who dares, dares, disparage it. Recently, we were members of the second group visiting members of the first and third (and, by default, fourth) groups. We found a Baltimore more progressive and even more fun than our last visit 3 years ago. It was a short trip, but we managed to see and do (and eat) enough to recommend a visit to anyone, except assclowns.
Shall we start with food or activities?? Food or activities. I’m going to flip a coin aaaaaand it’s activities.
Great decision making!
DO
We’ll save my favorite new Baltimore/anywhere activity for last because it’s AMAZING and there’s no way silly museums could compete with it if I share that first. You know I complain about museums a lot (we go to so many museums! they take so long!) but I’m mostly just joking since they are a must-see pretty much everywhere. This trip, we returned to The Walters Art Museum, a free (!) museum in the Mount Vernon-Belvedere neighborhood, housing mid-19th century collections amassed by the Walters family. William Thompson Walters began collecting art when he moved to Paris to flee the beginning American Civil War because he was a Confederate sympathizer and I guess he was at least smart enough to know he should get his ass out of there but also fork that guy. His son later refined his jackwagon father’s collection and made the plans for establishing a way to publicly house it; no word on whether he also was an ignorant racist.
It’s a great museum with lots to see and learn, but that’s for you to discover on your own because as usual, my job here is to share the pictures of hilariously weird things, and dogs. Here are all the dogs in the museum.
This is honestly one of my favorite museum activites. Half the pictures on my phone are paintings with dogs in them from museums all over the world. Anyway now we move on to another favorite activity: sharing all the hilarious and weird shit.
Okay that’s probably enough of that. The Walters is definitely worth a visit when you are next in Baltimore and not just for the dog paintings.
The museum is on the very hip very cool N. Charles Street, about a ten minute walk from husbo’s favorite pub, The Brewer’s Art. Last time we were in Baltimore, we could only have their incredible rosemary fries, but when we stopped in this time, we discovered they had Beyond Meat burgers AND sausages on the menu! I mean! What! (This doesn’t count as prematurely talking about food because we didn’t actually eat there.) So definitely check it out after the museum. The museum is also only a five minute walk from husbo’s favorite restaurant in Baltimore, The Helmand, an Afghani restaurant that is excellent, so that’s also an option. Do one before and one after!
I’m not a huge fan of cemeteries, but your next activity is a quick lil trip to one. Honestly, it doesn’t even really count as a cemetery, just a little tiny garden-looking jawn with some graves. Okay it’s a small cemetery. But it’s a special one!
It’s Edgar Allan Poe’s! Okay it’s not all exclamatey I mean he did die at 40 (in Baltimore, where he spent a good portion of his life). Poe’s grave site is on Fayette Street, at the Westminster Hall and Burying Ground, not too far from the Edgar Allan Poe House and Museum, which makes a lot of sense. If you are a Poefiend you should check all of that out but we were in the game for just a quick stroll by the grave. It’s in a very blink-and-you’ll-walk-right-by-it quiet little secluded corner of green, gated but open to the public.
In true Poe fashion, he was originally buried in an unmarked grave. Eventually a man named George Spence added a sandstone block on the site but still, no name and lots of weeds. Reports of this odd grave for such an important figure circulated and eventually reached Poe’s mother-in-law, who wrote some harsh but polite words (probably) to the cousin in charge of fixing this whole situation. Neilson Poe, the two-last-names cuz, ordered a legit marble headstone, but then in true Poe fashion, a train ran off its tracks and destroyed the headstone. After a few years, various benefactors, friends, and students raised enough money for another headstone. The monument was dedicated in 1875, 26 years after Poe’s death. Cremation is a lot easier, I’m just saying.
There are other people buried here, including members of his family and notable historical figures.
Our next activity is a jaunt to Fort McHenry, which I didn’t actually visit but husbo did (I was busy). He’s here to tell you all about it:
Ha I’m just joking it’s still me. Fort McHenry is an important American, well, fort. Or ‘coastal bastion’ as the wikipeeds says. Located in the Locust Point neighborhood, the fort was important during the War of 1812 (not to be confused with the Great Comet of that same year, wow what a year am I right), when it successfully defended Balmore from those DAMNED BRITISH whose navy was attacking from the Chesapeake Bay. It was also used during both World Wars. During the War of 1812, when the larger garrison flag was flown over the Fort, it signaled that the Americans had won the Battle of Baltimore. The sight of the flag waving here inspired Francis Scott Key to write the song that only 7% of performers at sporting events have sung well.
Husbo really enjoyed his visit to the Fort, save for the true ‘mercans wearing t-shirts that literally said AMERICA FUCK YEAH but you know you’re going to see them at military places. Admission is $15.
Our last activity recommendation this go-round is the best one. Like true gentrifying hipsters, we tried the latest and funniest hipster activity that has country folk saying, um, what?
We went axe throwing! IT WAS AMAZING.
Urban Axes on North Haven Street is the shiiiit. Sure there’s a bar with craft beer and wines, which doesn’t seem like the smaaartest match-up. But the axe-throwing is fun enough to keep people engaged and away from the bar for too long. You generally have to book in advance (they can allow walk-ins if it’s not too busy, but don’t risk it) and you get 6 people per ‘arena’ (two targets) and per coach. We were told that since we had 4 people, 2 strangers (stranger danger!) could potentially be put in our lane, but that didn’t happen. (It was a weeknight.)
So you get a coach, an ‘axepert’, who stays with you the entire hour-long session and teaches you how to throw a g-d axe. Our coach was really great. She was so helpful in figuring out our best stances, whether we should go one-handed or two, and giving little tips to improve. I went in thinking it would be fun but that I would be terrible, but even as a first-timer I got a few bullseyes! We all did! IT WAS AWESOME!
It’s literally just a giant warehouse sort of room with plywood targets up. We said to each other, omg we should open one of these in London – the costs are SO low! You just need a bunch of axes and some boards! And then we took a beat and realized how much the liability insurance would be.
You can wear whatever you want, you just have to wear closed-toed shoes. It seems a little scary in theory, but we were reassured that people rarely get injured if they are following the rules. The most common injury people get is splinters from putting one hand against the board while they pull the axe out with the other. Silly people, don’t do that!
Man alive this was so much fun. Urban Axes has locations all over, including in Philly and Austin, so definitely check them out! It’s $38 per participant so it’s a little steep, but for a special occasion it’s pretty great.
EAT
Baltimore’s vegan scene, like that of so many big cities, is popping. We found such great finds over a few days. I mentioned The Helmand and The Brewer’s Art above and you should definitely have them on your list. Newbies this go round included Red Emma’s, Stall 11 at the very hip very popular R House market, and my new fave restaurant L’eau de Vie, which I wrote about already.
Before we get to those, let’s talk about a more famous Baltimore tourist destination in case you end up there. One night, the omnivores I was with wanted crabs, which, if you know your musical theatre, Baltimore is famous for (remember Velma Von Tussle was Miss Baltimore Crabs in her youth) (I just realized I haven’t been singing “Good Morning Baltimore” this entire time; am I okay?). We paid a visit to the harborside crab institution Bo Brooks, and if you likewise end up there as a vegan, there are a few options for you!
It’s nothing special, but sometimes all I want is a regular green salad and a regular bowl of bean soup, and Bo Brooks had both for me. In fact, there’s a whole ‘plant-based’ section, and while I hate the phrase, I loved the contents. My soup was a ‘Tuscan white bean’ soup and it was fine! Then I had Nelly’s Salad which was actually quite big and had avocado and avocado dressing. That’s all I really ask for! Bo Brooks also has the Beyond Burger so you should definitely get one of those if you aren’t looking to recreate your own little Olive Garden sitch (saltines were my breadsticks).
Okay, next up is one of our favorite places in Baltimore – Red Emma’s. Yes, it sounds a bit Commie, and yes, it’s for a reason. It’s a radical infoshop, bookstore, and vegan cafe run by a worker-owner collective and yes of course it’s named after anarchist Emma Goldman (which of course should make you think of not one but TWO MUSICALS! EG was important in both Assassins and Ragtime). Given the state of the world right now, we should all be a little (lot) more socialist! You’re not surprised, right, with all the time we spent in the former USSR? You had to expect it to rub off a little. (Or you know by being aware in this society.)
In addition to being like so woke, Red Emma’s has wonderful food. It was one of the hardest menus to order from because everything sounded incredible (and was vegan, as far as I could tell). We decided on the banh mi and the Reuben, with a side kale salad, totally on brand for us.
The Reuben might not look like much, but it was one of the best we’ve ever had. Husbo, an omnivore, sang its praises to such an extent that he actually said it was better than the Reuben at Rudy’s Dirty Vegan Diner in London, which is a huge thing since that one gets so much acclaim (but part of that is because it’s the only legit vegan Reuben in London (except the ones I make at home, obvs the best)). The banh mi was on the wrong bread (too big and too hard!) and needed more of a mayo-y sauce but it was still pretty good. The rest of the menu sounded so amazing, Red Emma’s will definitely be on our to-do list next time.
We also ventured downstairs to the bookshop, which is where we bought Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race. Highly recommended!! (And definitely try to buy it from a shop that is not Amazon! Fuck Bezos! Billionaires are inherently immoral!)
Up next is my faaaavorite place and another that’s definitely on my list for a return visit. Man I really need to make a return visit. That’s Stall 11 in the food-vendor market space called R House, which bills itself as an “industrial chic food hall”. Directly south of the Johns Hopkins campus, R House is SO trendy and cool, and Stall 11’s existence in there proves the point. Carving out its own adorable space in the market hall, Stall 11 looks like what By Chloe wanted to be. And the food achieves the same goal. It’s incredible (and better).
We had the loaded mac and cheese OF COURSE, which was fantastic, with a house-made vegan cheeze sauce, nut parm, and crispy cauliflower which was AMAZING.
We also tried the avocado BLT which was great, if completely falling apart on that too-small bread! And it came with great sweet potato fries.
Of course we also tried a salad, the Harvest salad with added tempeh. Everything was so delicious! Here’s a better picture of the salad so you can see all the goodies inside, like chickpeas and quinoa and sweet potatoes.
I love Stall 11 food so much. It’s like my perfect menu – huge loaded salads, great sandwiches, mac and cheeze. All my faves! To top it off, R House had self-serve water stations. I could cry! That’s all I ask for!
Well there’s one more thing I always ask for: ice cream. R House also has an outpost of Little Baby’s ice cream, which I know from Philly. The best thing about Little Baby’s, besides reliably having several vegan flavors, is that they sell ‘Baby’ scoops, one step below regular single scoops, for when you want to have just a little but are really full, like we were!
STAY
You’ll notice we don’t have hotel recommendations this time around because they’re all rat-infested we stayed with friends who are LIVING IN HELL no they absolutely love it. We were in the Canton neighborhood which is quite lovely and close enough to all the attractions by bus (we downloaded the CharmPass bus app, on which you buy tickets and then show your code to the driver, so easy!). The buses were fairly straightforward, although sometimes there was a really long wait. Tourists might want to stay in the thick of things by Harbor East or in Fells Point, which is the most happening for night life. We walked through Fells Point one busy Saturday night and felt very cool and then we kept on walking towards home where we played Settlers of Catan (I’m like a very cool person).
So it was a quick trip to Baltimore, but even with a few days we could see that it is far from the hellscape that assclown would tell you it is. Yeah we walked through some sketchy neighborhoods and you should be careful where you walk at night, and yes there are issues that need to be addressed. But that’s the same for Philly, for London, for really anywhere. Writing off an entire city because it has problems, instead of talking about how to address them, is some ignorant bullshirt. Visiting such a city and contributing to its economy may be a helpful move for us regular people, who don’t have the power to fix everything and yet fix nothing, to make. If you have the chance to visit Baltimore, you really should. And please tell me all the delicious (vegan) things you eat! And sing all the musical theatre songs that relate to your visit! (More about that on my instagram stories! Link at the top of the page.)
Don’t forget to read about L’Eau de Vie!
Want more Balmore? Read about our 2016 visit! (enjoy even worse pictures!)
