Under the Gaze of the Mer-lion – Singapore 03/13/2011

I’m sure that everyone is expecting me to have some sort of wonderful cultural insight into Singapore, something in my traditional vein of poetic analysis that’s somewhat come to be my trademark in write-ups about ports of call. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I didn’t do anything remotely cultural in Singapore. I didn’t go to any markets,  I didn’t take any river cruises, I didn’t visit any historical landmarks. Instead,  well… I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Singapore Day 1, was one of my few actual days off.  Due to the IPM schedule, I’ve been charged with closing the office every single overnight so far, and so I welcomed the chance to open this time instead – therefore freeing me from having to run back to the ship at 6pm just to close a few grates. Sherra was leaving the ship that evening, and we were looking for something to do that could occupy a few hours without requiring too much commitment. Since it transpired that neither one of us felt like shopping (which was the original plan), I convinced her to take the cable car over to the resort island (“low chance of success, almost certain risk of death ? I’m in” ). The view from the cable car is fantastic, you actually do fly right overtop of the ship, which was oddly surreal as you rarely see your floating home from above.

Setting foot on the island is like setting foot on a different world. There are fountains everywhere, giant paper cranes and huge statues of flowers that make you realize how Alice felt when she was shrunk and lost in the garden of wonderland.  Butterflies of colours I’ve never seen before almost land on you! And the whole thing is dominated by the stare of the Mer-lion, which is apparently a symbol of Singapore, something I had no idea of. At night his eyes light up and it seems almost as if they follow you as you make your way around. After you make your way down about 6 escalators (and it does continue getting warmer with each one, despite the fact that logically you know heat rises) – you arrive at the main forum level and the huge Lake Of Dreams which serves as an extremely good landmark for finding your way around, because this is where things start getting a bit difficult to navigate (Sherra and I turned the map sideways eventually).

In the sheer default of trying to find your away around, you will find everything you can think of on the island, from restaurants and coffee bars, to Candyland (no, I’m not kidding) – there’s even a Hershy’s chocolate world store for those of you who have chocoholic tendencies , where they offer to take your picture so you can have your face on a chocolate bar wrapper. Supposedly they make great Christmas gifts, but the personalization was a bit too pricey for my tastes.

Across the way from Candylicious (which has one of the best outside displays I’ve ever seen, honestly, it would put Willy Wonka to shame). Is the Hard Rock Café, where I finally managed to have lunch (it’s been on my list for a while now), and, while the food is only so-so, the drinks were amazing. “Crushed Velvet” is basically pomegranate lemonade, I warn that it’s not for people without a sweet tooth, but me – being a complete sucker for anything sweet and girly that comes in a pretty glass, (a glass I got to keep no less), was quite fond of it.

And then I  let my inner 8-year-old lose, and, dragging poor Sherra with me, threw myself into the world of Universal Studios Singapore.

It has been years since I set foot in a theme park. The last time I went anywhere similar was when I ventured over (or rather under) the channel to Disneyland Paris during my long-haul audition trip to the UK  in 2007 – I had almost, almost forgotten how much I love stepping into another world. Theme parks are either your thing or they’re not, but for me, Universal represents something, not as much as Disneyland does, but something none the less. Whenever we managed to get to California when I was a child, we followed the same routine, 3 days in Disneyland, 1 day for Universal. It’s always been the slightly shadowed younger cousin to the Magic Kingdom, but it was a massive part of my childhood. Part of my own personal Oz “A place where there isn’t any trouble”.

From the moment we walked through the gates and my ears were assaulted with Can You Read My Mind, I was hard pressed to wipe the grin off my face. I honestly think it was only because I was in the presence of someone I respected, who I wasn’t quite sure  would understand, that I didn’t burst into tears. Though Sherra did look at me at one point and grinned, and said, in her lovely welsh accent “Will you look at you, you’re like a bloody child!”

Yes, and your point is?

Universal here is smaller than the one in LA, but that’s to be expected. LA Universal is a working studio, that’s why they have the backlot tram tour (“it’s the only bridge in the world that can reconstruct itself”) – the Studios over the rest of the world are a little less functioning and a little more built for the publicity, but it’s the same general layout, and the same general feel.

With Sherra having to get back to the ship to catch her cab to the airport at 6, we weren’t left with a lot of time, and the line ups are insanely long at the height of the day. Mostly we took a lot of photographs (including several which feature an actual live python). We only went on one ride together, (The Far Far Away experience, which was a slice of fun in 4-D, and no that isn’t a typo), before having to jet her back to the ship, which gave me just enough time to say goodbye, drop off my Hard Rock Café glass, my souvenirs and put my leftovers in the fridge, and head back out.

Singapore is a notoriously safe city, so I never once had any qualms about heading over to the island alone. No one harasses you, no one even looks at you twice, and the people are extremely friendly. The only thing I found myself remotely nervous about was getting back to the cable car in time to catch the last flight back home.

There is a special kind of magic to theme parks at night, when all the lights come on and the whole place just glows. The people gradually disappear and eventually there comes a time when it’s just you walking in this whole other world, all by yourself.  I’ve always thought that night falls differently inside the walls of a park, it seems to happen more gradually , at sunset everything is suffused with a shimmer of gold and pink and red, and all the buildings and attractions become gradually silhouetted in black.

As is almost always the case, the line-ups die after the sun goes down. With the park nearly empty, attractions that had a wait time of 80+ minutes during the day become walk ons, with a 20 minute wait at the very latest, usually less than 10. For some one like me, who makes it her pride and joy to go on every single attraction at least once, nighttime, is primetime.

Of course, with Universal, this presents one small problem: I am in possession of a very vivid imagination, and Universal is a park that makes its bread and butter by providing rides that are based on movies with high special effects levels. Attractions that are designed to put you in the film. One, in particular being the most famous for the worst “you will scream” moment in the park, but it was boiling hot,  even at night, and said ride is the only water ride in the park and therefore the best possible way to cool down for a bit, and I wasn’t a child anymore, I could handle it. I was sure I could handle it.

None-the-less, I stood for several long minutes outside the line up looking up at the gates. They put a lot of effort into making the entrance way into the “Jurassic” section of the park rather intimidating, and as life-like as they can manage. There are a lot of rides in there, the Dino-flyer being my personal favourite as it really does feel like you’re flying. But only one that takes guts, only one that made me wish that Sherra hadn’t had to go back to the ship quite so early, because the utter coward in me would have very much liked to have someone to hold on to.

But, I was determined to be brave, so I swallowed my sheer unreasonable terror, and slid into the lineup. It was only a 10 minute wait, which is nearly unheard of for what must be one of the most popular rides in the park. There are warning signs all over the walls of the entry way reading: “Warning, any articles you wish to keep dry should be secured in a locker or left with a non-rider. YOU WILL GET WET, YOU MAY GET SOAKED.”

The pre-ride is extremely detailed; you walk through a switchback line that’s set up inside an entry way made to look exactly as if you really are going into a theme park within the theme park. About three quarters of the way through, you’re presented with the chance to purchase “Survival Gear”, in the form of a Universal Studio’s throw-away rain poncho, and trust me, you don’t want to go on this ride without one, even if they do overcharge for them.

Oh, and don’t be unnerved by the warning signs on the bottom of the poncho-stall, I didn’t see a single Dilophosaurus along the way. When you get to the boarding area, there’s all this swat-team gear hanging up in cages on the far side of the boarding conveyor “Dinosaur Control Unit” etc etc.

When you first board the raft, it starts out extremely calm – apparently just like the movie, which I have never seen, nor will I ever see – the water is smooth, and there’s a nice lulling voice, speaking in RP, telling you to observe the new baby Stegosaurus as she grazes with her mother along side the shore. If you’re foolish, or you know nothing about what you’ve gotten into, it’s very easy to be lulled into a false sense of security by this. “This isn’t so bad”, but in the back of your mind, you know what’s coming, and you’re not really all that startled when your raft crashes into the rapids, the narrative voice shorts out and is replaced with “warning, we have a flood breach in the area of Outpost B, avoid area at all costs, repeat, warning – all guests remain in your boats, do not make contact with the electric fences, help is on the way. Warning. Warning.

And you go whipping around the corner into the ruined science station, there are sparks everywhere, the raft is spinning nearly out of control (and no, the rafts aren’t on tracks, you really are at the mercy of the water), and despite the logical voice in the back of your mind going “it’s all audio-animatronics, it can’t hurt you, it can’t hurt you.” Your heart starts racing.

Then, you see it looming in front of you, a HUGE gaping black hole, leading into the darkened Hydraulics center. And I do mean pitch dark, I clamped my eyes shut immediately upon entering, but even for the few brief sections that I did open them it was still pitch dark.

You know what is coming at the end of the Jurassic Park Water Rapids, you know it the moment you step on the boat, in fact, you know it well before that if you have any sense. I mean, what else could it be? But I was conditioned for the one in California, where the “class one dangerous animal” leaps out of the foliage at you before the huge drop at the end. At least it happens in daylight – at least, that’s how I remember it being advertised, I never worked up the guts to go on the ride in LA.  Here, they through you into the dark and you are totally disoriented. This was something I was not prepared for. Not even remotely.

Even with your eyes closed, you can hear the growling all around you, it echoes off the cement walls and you can’t place where its’ coming from, and all the while there is this overly-polite robotic voice informing you that you are “warning, you are within range of a class 1 dangerous creature, please turn back” , which of course you have no choice but to listen to but you of course can’t turn back, and then over top of that, you start hearing the “park rangers” talking to each other over the radios:

“Get the damn SWAT team!”

“We don’t have time for the SWAT team! Get them out of there! Get them out of there NOW!!! ”

And because you’re supposed to be in a hydraulics plant, there’s water (at least, you really hope it’s water) dripping from the ceiling, and with all the sound effects going on, when a droplet hits your shoulder, you are convinced that it’s saliva, and no matter what the logical voice in the back of your brain is telling you, your fight or flight syndrome is screaming “it’s a big bloody dinosaur and its GOING TO EAT ME!”

And then there are all these flashing red lights and a huge roar (and yes, I know there was something jumping out to go with the roar, but as I said, I had my eyes closed), and you go over the waterfall and come out the other side completely and utterly drenched, and make your way back out into the slightly more stable present-day reality.

By the time I exited the water rapids, it was nearly full dark, and there were characters wandering around. The most interesting of which were the ones for the Egypt section, they were all stiltwalkers, the ones that were pharohs had footed stilts so that they could stand still and pose, but the guys who were jackals were on spring stilts- running stilts – and they could run. They were so in character, that they managed to make everything slightly sinuous, slightly intimidating, and they never once cracked a smile, I saw them chase one poor girl (who was actually taking great obvious delight in being scared to death), a good 10 feet before she ended up cowering behind a pillar. They were most disappointed that they couldn’t scare me, and every time I passed them they’d growl at me.

After Jurassic Park I was not nearly brave enough to attempt “Return Of the Mummy”, so I can’t say I went on every ride, maybe next time, I did however go on the battlestar glatitica Roller Coaster, which is probably the first real oh-my-god-we’re-upside-down rollercoaster I’ve been on outside of Space Mountain (which I will insist doesn’t count, because you can’t SEE that you’re upside down in Space Moutain), and I’ve discovered that –aside from the constant fear of losing my glasses – I actually like roller coasters.

The last thing I saw was the Movie Magic experience, which is the closest they have in this particular version to the backlot tram-ride in LA. It’s a working soundstage, set to a scene involving a hurricane tearing through new york. So there’s fire, and wind and a boat crashing right through the wall, then at the end of course, everything resets itself, which I’ve always thought is the most fascinating part. It reminded me that if I ever make it to LA again, I really do need to brave the Backdraft Experience (if it is in fact still there) and see if I manage to not black out this time around.

There weren’t any fireworks that night, so when the attractions shut down at 9, I wandered back across the island, and made my way back to the cable car station. I found out after the fact that a lot of my crew mates stayed the night on the island, but I managed to not run into any of them.

So…that, was my day in Singapore.

All hail appeasing your inner child once in a while.