We decided to tour independently today. We walked to the MRT station near the port and took a train into the center of town. It is always exhilarating to be able to get from Point A to Point B on an unfamiliar transportation system!
Our plan was to arrive at City Hall in time for a tour with The Original Singapore Walks. It is one of those tours where you don't pre-book; you just show up. It wasn't a free tour, however, although many free tours use this format.
The Original SIngapore Walks include a different tour for every day of the week. The tour for Monday was The Time of Empire. It was described as a tour of the Colonial DIstrict of downtown SIngapore. To be honest, this sounded like the least interesting of their tours, but it was Monday and that was the tour.
Singapore was established as a British colony in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles. The British influence is evident everywhere - in the language, in the legal system, in the architecture, and so on. Now a proud independent country, SIngapore was shaped in major and many ways by its Colonial period.
Singapore is clean, modern, and affluent. It has many interesting buildings and an awesome skyline.
I want to say at the outset that our guide, Helena, was knowledgable and pleasant. However, I thought the tour was boring and way too much time was spent talking about churches. It was not the SIngapore I was hoping to see. I was disappointed, and after talking to people who took ship's tours, I was even more disappointed. Apparently the Botanic Gardens were fantastic, and the zoo and Chinatown were also good places to go.
Our first (very long) stop was St. Andrew's Cathedral, an Anglican Church established in the 1820's.
We continued to the National Gallery. We did not go in, but heard a little about the Japanese occupation during WWII.
The Supreme Court was next and we went inside to see three things:
A jail
An exhibit about the history of the legal system in SIngapore
The UFO
The jail was the former holding cell for the courts. It didn't have any great historical significance, but people always like photos of jails, so we stopped to see it.
The legal system in SIngapore is based on the British system. Their court system seems to be similar in structure to our court system in Alaska. Two things are different. First, the jury system was abolished by a former Chief Justice who used to be a criminal defense attorney. Having been successful at obtaining acquittals, he felt that jury's could be manipulated too easily and he worked to change to judge-tried cases exclusively.
The UFO was a very nice observation deck on the 9th floor of the court building. Unfortunately, photos were not allowed. SIngapore has some arresting architecture, particularly the Marina Bay Sands, which appears to have a boat on top.
The court building was large and beautiful, but rather empty. We did see some groups of young people who appeared to be attorneys. They all had briefcases on wheels or arm loads of files. They all wore black suits. The women wore skirted suits and 4-inch heels.
We continued to the Armenian (Christian) Church. It was founded by a small group of Armenian immigrants. That group has dwindled so that now the church serves fewer than 100 people. It was not all that interesting.
The next stop was CHIJmes. Pronounced like "chimes": Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus. It used to be the chapel of a Catholic girls' school. The school has been relocated, and the chapel is now used for lifestyle events such as wedding receptions. 
Finally we walked around the property of the famous Raffles Hotel where the "Singapore Sling" was invented over 100 years ago. You can go to the Long Bar and buy one for SGD $28 if you are so inclined. We weren't.
We went across the street to Raffles City Centre for lunch. It is a fancy shopping mall with a fancy food court. We had hoped to go to the Maxwell Road Hawker Centre in Chinatown for lunch, but there just wasn't time because we had to be back to the ship by 3. There is a place there called Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice that beat Grodon Ramsey in a cook-off. Really wanted to try it.
The number of ships in and around the harbor here is remarkable. We were told that over 1,000 ships a day come in and out. It made for an interesting Sailaway.
Once again, we shared a table at dinner with some Australians. On this entire trip, Australians have always outnumbered everyone else, so it is almost impossible to avoid them at dinner time. Many of the Australians we have met over the years have no compunction about openly expressing their racism towards Aborigines and Asians and Maoris. They seem to want to talk about it, like they talk about sports. I am really tired of this. I have tried to ignore their racist comments, and I always feel badly when I don't speak up. I don't want to start a fight, but I don't want to act like it's ok to talk this way. Tonight I was asked a direct question about whether we had "problems" in Alaska with the indigenous people. I gave an answer they probably didn't want to hear. I think two of the couples got what I was saying, but the third couple didn't. The woman said some really arrogant things such as "We gave them Uluru and now they want to charge us to drive through the area." She had already been obnoxious before this, so I wasn't particularly surprised.
Then we went to see the comedian, Steve Allison, who was . . . Australian. He was not funny, in my American opinion.
Tonight I learned that Sydelle, my dear friend from law school, has died after 6 years of living with pancreatic cancer. I am so sad.
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