Where the White People Are

Yesterday, to cure my boredom, I made a trip down to Holland Village. I've heard lots things about this place including that a lot of expatriates (foreigners of Singapore) hang out there. That, in itself, was exciting to me because I hadn't seen large amounts of non-military white or black people in a long time. This is also the place where Toni & Guy Salon is, a salon that Singaporeans recommend "westerners" go to get their hair done. (and after seeing the kind of haircuts that Asians get, I'll definitely be going to the "white people place".) Holland Village just sounded like a non-Asian paradise on all the sites that I looked at. In my head, I imagined a little piece of Europe hidden in the middle of Singapore. I should have known, I always tend to imagine things a little greater and better than the actual version is.

There's a whole description of the place HERE on wikipedia.com.


So here is the view from the MRT platform in Sembawang. I tripped up the escalator, briefly lost my shoe and missed my train. So here I wait for the next one. Enjoy the picture...at my pride's expense.
It was about an hour's worth of travelling to get to Holland Village which including switching lines and getting a cab to complete the journey. Once I got there, I was pretty surprised to find that Holland Village was a measly street and not even a whole one at that. The two "shopping malls" there had about 20 stores in them combined...and all were Asian and Indian merchandise.

So I found a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and sat and people watched to kill time. Here's the view from my outdoor table.
Here's the view in the other direction.
This is the only thing that convinced me why they call it "Holland Village". Slap a dang dutch windmill on anything and is looks like a dutch town. Well done, Singapore.

So I was a little disappointed and to rub a little salt in the wound, on the way home, one cab driver overcharged me and another got lost and took me the wrong way home which ended up costing me double of what it was supposed to. I'm a little angry at Singaporean cab drivers right now.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention. White people in Holland Village? Yeah, about 15 of them. If you can pick them out of the 100's of Asians.

On a happier note, Aaron and I are playing Bingo tonight through the base's television station. If we get a Bingo, we're supposed to call in and receive a gift certificate to somewhere. Let's just hope it's not to Holland Village. Wish us luck!