Singapore- Republic of Virtue

Singapore is a remarkable place and there’s no standing still here. Land is being reclaimed from the sea for more dock facilities in several spots around the island. The oil and gas storage and production facilities are already huge. New high rise towers rise in central and peripheral Singapore. The trees and foliage are luxurious and well maintained. Orchard Road is a fabulous experience just to marvel at the dense assembly of beautiful and shiny boutiques. We visited the food level of the Takashimaya Department store in Ann Ngee Plaza. The choice and quality of the goods were a pleasure to behold. Most of the construction around the intersection of Scotts and Orchard Roads is complete and it is very crowded with shoppers. We visited Sentosa Island, which is just south of the cruise-ship terminal. It has many amusements as well as beaches, hotels and restaurants. This was a multi-year project and it looks almost complete. Access is free via the monorail from Vivo City, a big shopping center on the Singapore Island side. It looks like they are extending the city’s subway system onto the island via an under-the-harbor tunnel. It’s almost 50 years since Singapore was created when it broke away from the Malaysian Federation. Despite its multicultural roots, it is a Chinese city with the English sense of free trade, the rule of law, and little corruption. Plato would be proud of this republic. (Photos: Singapore at sunrise, ships at anchor, downtown skyline with Merlion spouting water in foreground, Sands Hotel (2), watering the plants on Orchard Road.

Way down upon the Swan River

Perth, Australia seems about as far away as one can get from Sydney. Sydney is over 1200 miles, due east, by car through the empty wilderness that is the interior of Australia. Yet Perth is a thoroughly modern metropolis situated on the banks of the Swan River. Its port, eponomously named Fremantle, is analogous to Piraeus, Greece in proximity and function. A train runs to Perth every 15 minutes or so. It’s about a 30 minute ride. There is a dock in Perth but bridges across the Swan River have made it inaccessible to large ocean-going craft. Perth is a business center for the mining and sheep-raising industries. I counted at least 8 large freighters off shore, waiting to load. We visited King’s Park, located on a high point above the river, from where one can see the high-rise office and apartment buildings of the city. It contains botanic gardens. The central focus of the park is a large stone monument to the fallen soldiers of World War I. I found another monument way off to the side, almost hidden by a large tree.

Land of Oz

Australia is a vast place, the size of the U.S. and can be viewed as a giant mine. Though it covers a big patch of latitude and longitude, the climate is not as hospitable as the U.S. climate because on the whole, it is much drier. The relatively small population of 25 million clings to the coasts and there are only a few major cities in this continental nation. The Australians are aware they have a lot of property to defend and not a whole lot of people to defend it. From the beginning there has been confusion about how to populate it and thus justify and defend their claim to this property…and legitimate fears that dilution of the basic Anglo-British stock would be ultimately overwhelmed by proximate Asian populations, converting English-speaking and Christian Australia into a nation of… what? Well, they seem to be muddling through rather successfully at this point. And as long as they can get their trading partners to pay for, rather than expropriate goods, Australia should prosper. They are a solid column in the house of the Anglophones. Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide are beautiful examples of what modern cities can be. Key to Pictures: The Obelisk in Macquarie Place, Sydney. Opera House, Sydney. Statue of Flinders-circumnavigator of Australia on the lawn of St. Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne. Looking down on Adelaide from Mt. Lofty towards the Southern Ocean. Statue of Col. Light pointing out the city he’s laid out to our traveler.

New Caledonia

New Caledonia was named by Captain Cook, who gave it the Romans’ name for Scotland. Noumea is located on the island of Grand Terre, the largest in an island group claimed by France, and west of the Fiji group. These islands are volcanic and remind me of the Virgin Islands. The entire island containing Noumea, called Grand Terre, is surrounded by an atoll so the water in the lagoons form large, tranquil bays. We arrived on schedule in Noumea but it was drizzling, windy and rainy all day. We had a 2-hour tour of greater Noumea on a tram called the Bumble Bee Train, but the rain and fog reduced visibility to almost zero. I was very disappointed. We visited the Casino grocery and department store. This island was an outpost in the defense of Australia (see the picture of a big gun placed by the Australians)and a forward staging base for the Americans in their charge up to New Guinea during World War II. Guadalcanal, in the Solomon Islands is 1000 miles north. The Americans built the airfield. As the crow flies, it is about 750 miles to the NE Australian coast and over 1000 miles to Auckland. The island is definitely French but plebiscites scheduled for this decade will decide whether the territory will be completely independent. Currently they are using a Pacific Franc which runs about 93/US dollar. Nickel is mined and smelted here. About one third of the population is European(French), about 40 % are Melanesians/Polynesians, and the rest are mixed. There is not a tremendous amount of tourism here because your money doesn’t go very far and it is remote. It is not nearly as exotic as Bali or Thailand, and it doesn’t have a lot of touristic infrastructure.

Lahaina-Endangered Species?

We awoke and saw the southwest coast of Maui through the window. We also saw many whales surface just a kilometer or two off-shore. This is winter and the whales are here, and that is the reason Lahaina was founded. It is a small town and never participated in the great hotel development that is evident further north on the Ka’anapali coast. Today it survives as a small artists’ colony and whale-watching center. We took a stroll down the road facing the beach. Some of the early missionary homes have been preserved. Baldwin House is the same family which founded Alexander & Baldwin, the parent of the huge ocean-transport firm, Matson Navigation. The locals have preserved and refurbished a courthouse (yellow stucco)which is located right on the waterfront. It dates from the mid-19th century. I presume there was plenty of distributed justice in the days of the whalers. This was a busy place. No more. Some of the bricks from a Hawaiian fort have been dumped adjacent to the courthouse. I included a picture of a brilliant African tulip tree.