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Travel Stripe - March 2008

According to the statistics, most travelers jet into Singapore, stay two days and then jet out again. It’s easy to understand why nobody would want to pass this lovely island by. It’s also easy to understand how, given its size, anyone might imagine that they could whiz through everything it has to offer in a couple of days. However, there’s so much to Singapore, that to really see it, feel it, breathe it, taste it and drink it all in takes time and a leisurely pace. This is a place that merits much more than a lightning tour and a quick look on a two day stopover.

The Singapore Merlion
The Singapore Merlion with the city and Marina Bay in the background



To begin with, if you’re lucky enough to be staying in one of Singapore’s sumptuous multi-starred hotels you’ll need to set aside a sizeable chunk of time to fully enjoy its many luxuries. There are constellations of these stately pleasure domes all over town, from the dress-circle down on the waterfront, the river and the quays, to the gallery up on Tanglin Road. They range from massive, sleek modern plinths, like the Pan Pacific on Marina Bay, through grand, rambling colonial mansions, like Raffles, near the old city centre, to the traditional Singapore shophouse/concrete, steel and glass tower blend of the Intercontinental which overlooks the colourful Bugis Street Bazaar.

Raffles Hotel, Singapore
Raffles Hotel



Offering multiple, international, Michelin star-studded restaurants, heavenly spas, serious but sans-smell-of-sweat gyms, palm-fringed pools, state of the art technology, exquisite décor where gorgeously ornate east meets tastefully understated west, beds like fat fluffy clouds, cool, rarified air, exclusive in-house shopping (Raffles) or skywalks linking to fabulous malls (Pan Pacific) and service which thoughtfully anticipates and graciously panders to every possible whim, they could keep any hedonist content and confined for weeks.

Shophouses Singapore
Shophouses at Bugis Junction


Enjoy, but don’t let your hotel swallow your holiday, there’s a whole, wonderful new city outside. Discover more in Travelstripe's next post.

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The totally amazing Tate Modern

March 20th 2008 00:34
The vista from the windows of the Tate Modern is so spectacular it’s easy to get distracted from its galleries full of awe-inspiring art.

The Tate Modern Art Gallery, London
The Tate Modern


Originally the home to the Bankside Power Station, the building was converted by the Swiss architects Herzog and de Meuron and opened in 2000 as the Tate Modern Art Gallery. Set back from the Thames, behind a wide piazza and a plantation of skinny trees, the massive, powerful brick structure, with its towering “lighthouse” chimney, dominates the riverbank and the skyline. The Millenium Bridge leads away from the piazza across the river and links it to the other side. Long windows, spaced along the building’s upper levels give real life, stunning pictures of Bankside, the Thames, St Pauls and the glass towers of the city.

The Tate Modern’s collection is organised under three headings – Material Gestures, Poetry and Dream, Idea and Object and States of Flux - very useful for the layperson in tackling the enigma of modern art. It covers such movements as Abstractionism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Constructivism, Cubism, Futurism and Pop Art. It includes the work of artists like Monet, Rothko, Carl Andie, Dan Flavin, Jenny Holzer, Picasso and Andy Warhol. The Tate is also famed for its cutting edge and often controversial exhibitons, like the giant Louise Bourgois spider which crouched menacingly in the courtyard at the end of last year and Doris Salcedo’s sculpture, Shobboleth 2007, a giant crack which at present snakes threateningly across the floor of the cavernous basement Turbine Gallery, ready to swallow the unwitting and the unwary.

Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth, Tate Modern Gallery
Doris Salcedo's Shibboleth


It’s worth taking time at the Tate, just to drink it all in; the brilliant views, the incredible collections and the amazing architecture itself. There are also two great bookshops to browse in and a very nice café for coffee breaks. Entry to most exhibitions at the Tate is free.
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The good old London pub

March 18th 2008 01:08
Quaint, cosy and colourful, the traditional English pub is high on the list of London’s visitor attractions.

The Devereux, Temple, London
The Devereux, at Temple


Many of London's pubs are little bolt-holes, tucked between buildings or sunk below street level, with bow windows of glass as thick as old bottles, low-beamed ceilings, smoke stained walls and tiny bars with cramped nooks and corners. Others are grand old establishments, with curtained alcoves, cushioned snugs, panneled walls hung with trophies or portraits of eminent figures from history and cavernous fireplaces with crackling fires. There’s usually a certain aroma, peculiar to British pubs, not found in cafes or even in bars - of beer and comfort food; roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and gravy. There’s usually a comfortable, homely ambience too. Many young travelers find a home away from home in a London pub, living upstairs and working in the bar or the kitchen. For many locals the pub is the lounge-room.


Every pub has its history and its story, often found in its name, like the dark, subterranean Coal Hole on The Strand, Ye Olde Cheddar Cheese and Ye Olde Cocke in Fleet Street, the many Queen’s and Kings Arms and Heads all over the city, named for the reigning monarch at the time of construction and then, of course there are those named for their area or for some local landmark, like St Stephen’s tavern, in Westminster, named for St Stephen’s Tower at Westminster Palace.

The Sherlock Holmes pub, London
The Sherlock Holmes


The Sherlock Holmes on Northumberland Street at Craven passage is a classic and a personal favourite. It has an ornate Victorian exterior and a dark-timbered, stained-glassed 19th century interior. It is redolent of fine old British fare. Formerly named the Northumberland Arms, it is thought to have been the Northumberland Hotel of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Now, of course it is named for its theme. The downstairs bar is hung with Holmes pictures, pipes and sticks. Upstairs is a replica of Holmes and Watson’s 221 Baker Street sitting room, including period furniture, shelves stacked with potions, bottles and books, a violin and a Holmes mannequin. Yet, although this pub is many ways a Sherlock shrine which has its fair share of Holmes pilgrims and tourists, it still has that familiar, comfy, British pub feeling. It has its tables of locals and its completely “at home” handful of young Anzac accented bar staff.

There’s great, old English pub on every London block, often more. There’s one for almost every preference and anyone who stays for any length of time will surely find a favourite



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Fleet Street - a news story

March 14th 2008 04:52
London’s Fleet Street is to the U.K. press as New York’s Wall Street is to the USA stock market. Just as the very name Wall Street conjures up images of TV screens flickering above a throng of wildly gesticulating and loudly shouting suits, so does the mere mention of Fleet Street prompt pictures of buzzing newsrooms and reams of papers rolling off the printer.

Fleet Street, London
Old newspaper offices in Fleet Street

[ Click here to read more ]
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The Tower of Big Ben, at the north-eastern edge of the British Houses of Parliament, on the bank of the Thames at Westminster Bridge, is a dominant point in the London skyline. Magnificent at night, majestic by day, against grey skies or blue, It has become a symbol of the city and of all things British.

Big Ben, London
Big Ben against the winter sky

[ Click here to read more ]
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The Savoy Story

March 8th 2008 07:51
Like so many of the streets, landmarks and buildings that dot that rise of land stretching from
Waterloo Bridge down to Charing Cross Station on the northern bank of the Thames, the Savoy Hotel takes its name from Savoy Palace.

[ Click here to read more ]
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The British Museum

March 6th 2008 11:02
It’s one of London’s landmark buildings, home to some of the world’s most precious treasures, birthplace of many great works of history and literature, the inspiration of poets and an eternal source of interest and wonder to countless visitors from all over the world.

The British Museum, London
The British Museum

[ Click here to read more ]
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The secrets of Victoria Embankment

March 4th 2008 02:37
Victoria Embankment Gardens, London
Blossom in Embankment Gardens


Sitting on a bench, overlooking the tamed and ordered paths and gardens of Victoria Embankment, it’s hard to imagine that little more than a century and a half ago, the turbulent waters of the Thames rushed right through here. Just as difficult to believe is that, deep in the bowels of the earth, below these crocus-dotted lawns, blossom-cloaked trees and majestic monuments, underground trains thunder by, gas and electricity pipes hiss and whirr and tonnes of London sewage gurgle away, through a colossal pipe, to safely distant disposal


[ Click here to read more ]
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