Not only do I fly business class in my 70s, I also have a financial advisor. Isn’t that cool? Why do I feel slightly guilty about this? Well, there is a very good reason. In fact, there are several. The most important is the wealth gap. I like calling it that. I never thought of myself as being on the wealthy side of the wealth gap, but good fortune has shoved me in that direction. Go figure. And while you’re figuring, be extremely grateful. And, in addition, be effective. And that requires putting aside one’s habitual worries over money in favor of cold-eyed sobriety. So. while our advisor is going on about stashing money in charitable trusts, just look out the window. There is a lot of need out there. And charity? It’s what we all must do to keep San Francisco San Francisco.

Which brings me to Singapore. United Airlines actually brought me to Singapore, but let’s not be pedantic. The most salient Singaporean fact that comes to mind is the recent hanging of some poor man who had some dealings in, I think, cannabis. What a horrible place. And yet it isn’t. And embracing these contradictions, well, it’s essential.

From a wheelchair perspective, the city-state verges on the look of big cities everywhere while revealing certain things slightly askew. What are the latter? Well, for example, the curbs. Watch out for curbs, which one has to watch out for anyway, but watch carefully in Singapore. The curbs are a good twice as high as normal. Maybe three times. It is not hard to understand why. The day we arrived, or maybe it was the second, the skies broke in a 40-days-and-40-nights precursor. Just an atmospheric deluge for oh, maybe 20 or 30 minutes. These cloudbursts come at certain intervals, apparently known to the locals. For me, once was enough.

And there is this other rather subtle thing. Heat. Simply looking at a thermometer doesn’t do it justice. Humidity doesn’t do it justice either. Somehow, the heat was always just below the crisis point. But being in it for prolonged periods, well, it crept up on you. On our first day, just off the 18-hour flight, Jane and I set off on a little adventure. As I recall, we were headed for a museum. The distance wasn’t far, but whatever the distance, it kept increasing. Blame it on the heat. Actually, I think we had two objectives. Museum and lunch. It seemed a modest itinerary for our first hours in the city.

Google maps was in firm control. Turn here, go there. But the blocks seemed longer than expected. And even small irregularities felt menacing. By the time we found the museum, either the place was shut or it didn’t matter. We were ready to go back. And, let me be very frank, the question “back to where” was half formed in my mind. Back to air-conditioning, that was clear. Still, here we were on the other side of the equator, and on the other side of the international date line. So, what the hell. I spotted a pagoda a couple of blocks away. I mean, you don’t see these things every day of your life, right? This was Asia, after all. And pagodas are to be expected in Asia aren’t they? So I pushed us. We just had to check this out, this apparent Buddhist temple.

So on we went, and on and on, even though it wasn’t that far. And when we got there? Damned if we weren’t in Chinatown.

Although my brother and sister-in-law who had arrived a day early and were poised to meet us at our hotel in a couple of hours quickly pointed out that, no, Chinatown was somewhere else. And that’s the thing about Singapore. The population is more than 80% ethnic Chinese. And we had simply wandered into a Chinese neighborhood. And, yes, there was a temple. And there was an outdoor market of astonishing variety and proportions. Unfortunately, heat was sapping me. I enjoyed seeing the Chinese cooking ingredients on display. Yes, chicken feet. Endless odd vegetables. Beyond, stall after stall of cooked food. Chinese takeout that had already been taken out. If you know what I mean.

Not that it mattered, because at that point the only thing that mattered was getting back to the air-conditioned hotel. Which we tried to do. And, honestly, it wasn’t that far or that difficult. But people have reached the summit of Mount Everest and decided exactly the same thing. It’s all downhill from here. I don’t know if we made a wrong turn or a right turn. And I’m not sure if when we saw our hotel we actually recognized it.

It’s not a characteristic thing to do, being fairly well traveled, to return to ones hotel for lunch. That’s what cities are for. But I was all for having a rather strange lunch in a restaurant built into our hotel building. Not a captive part of the place. May be a sort of tenant. And there was a strange aspect to the whole experience, which involved entering through the kitchen. One approach to access.

The next day we met a tour guide arranged by my brother. And the four of us assembled at one of the Singapore subway stops. Then we set out to see the Islamic quarter of the city. I remember two things about this particular tour expedition. First, on the way we got a good look at public housing. And in Singapore you can get a lot of looks at public housing, because the latter is well integrated into the city. There are no homeless people in Singapore. Should I repeat that? Everyone in this country/city is obliged to put some money into a fund that ultimately supports housing. That funding can also support education, and a few other things. But at the end of the day, and certainly the end of anyone’s working life, there will be housing. And you, the Singaporean, will pay for at least part of it.

I noticed that each of the public housing blocks had a ground floor with a recognizable pattern of shops. There was always an outdoor fruit/vegetable store. A small grocer. And then every three or four buildings there was a drug store or a hardware store. 

The second thing I remember is that we got separated. The guide and I were suddenly on our own. And Jane, my brother and sister-in-law were somewhere else. I wasn’t terribly worried about this. But by the time we got together, Jane was. A tense hour ensued. And then, we were back at the hotel. And this time, not going out for dinner in the usual sense, but going down. 

Singapore is full of underground malls. Hard to call them anything else. Our hotel was just the top floor of what was actually three or four levels of shops, restaurants, and so on. We had a very noisy dinner in a Singaporean underground shopping mall sort of Malay bistro. Whatever. When we headed for the port on the last day, I was glad. Ships are air-conditioned.