Well, reading posts, and sometimes the random comments again, makes me feel like it's time to update. Nothing really exciting has happened since my last post, although I did what most Singaporeans won't do.. travel by ship to China via Korea.
With airfares that are not as expensive as before, why did I choose to do that then? Well, simply because it's an experience. If you are from Singapore, the only boat/ traveling by sea are the boats to the nearby islands and perhaps a cruise to Malaysia, which is also not that far away. So staying at the hostel, I have heard of people who traveled from Russia to China to Korea on sea and I find that fascinating.
So when I had to leave Korea again in September, I did exactly that. I took a ship from Incheon to Qingdao. It's 16 hours but most of it was at night. It was a fascinating experience, though it was a lonesome one. I wrote a lot then, my fan fictions mostly. There was even fireworks on board the ship! And for a 9-day trip, all I planned was when I left Korea and when I would arrive back in Korea. Everything in between was a question mark! It was insane yet exhilarating! You can only travel like that if you are alone, or with someone who would go with your flow. Or if you are insane like me.
I went to Beijing. I went to the Forbidden City and I climbed the Great Wall of China. And being in a country where the food and language is familiar is GREAT!! Osaka was beautiful, but not knowing any Japanese made the experience really bland. But I'm going again in December with Victoria and this time, we have a guide! I got in touch with one of the guests I met at the hostel and asked him to be our guide. He agreed and even offered to put us up! :) So we just have to worry about getting there and back and letting him know when. Nice!
Back to my China trip, my biggest realization was if Singapore were to just depend on tourism, we will be dead. Or we would have to import culture like we import everything else. I went to the Ming Tombs and the first thing I thought to myself was, "When Mr. Lee Kuan Yew passed away, how would Singapore remember this man? Would we build a memorial?" Then the cynic/comedian in me kicked in "Nah, there's no land in Singapore. If we build him a memorial, we would probably have to dig it up in 10 years to make way for progress."
So China has all these fascinating historical sites, it got me thinking about Korea. To be honest, I was more of a tourist in China than Korea. So while I did go to some of the touristy places, I wasn't really impressed. And if you have been to Forbidden City before Gyeongbok Gung, then seriously, it pales in comparison. But interestingly, Korea has created another cultural hotspot for themselves: K-pop.
To Koreans, it fascinates them whenever they asked foreigners why they came to Korea and the reply is "K-pop". I got the same "you must be crazy look" when I said the reason why I came to Korea was to watch 2AM's concert. But they have to realize that K-pop has become a real push in their tourism business. It has become a commodity that every other country outside of Korea wants to import and won't mind spending money on. Even Singapore. We are forever importing, never really creating. Sigh. What are we going to do?
What am I, a Singaporean who's abroad worrying about the future of Singapore? Pfft.
