SINGAPORE -- It has been said many times that any Olympic experience is in part a travelogue. Here, then, some impressions of this city-state nearly halfway through the 2010 Youth Olympic Games: - The sidewalks are spotless, just as advertised.
- A taxi driver the other day gave us an incredibly vivid description of how it is that prisoners are delivered a caning. Much of what the genial driver said is really not suitable for publication. But there's this: Let's say the prisoner is meted out a sentence of 24 lashes. After six, the prisoner's posterior is so, um, unsuitable for further lashes that he is sent to the prison infirmary to recuperate for some period of weeks or months; when he is again able to take the lash, out it comes again, for as many more strokes as he can take. And so on. Huge elements of this story may bear only a faint resemblance to reality. Doesn't matter. If, anecdotally speaking, that's the way caning is perceived -- it's no wonder the walkways here are so clean.
- I was here five years ago, for the historic International Olympic Committee session at which London was awarded the 2012 Summer Games. The change in the city skyline from then until now is staggering, in particular the Marina Bay complex, which has to be seen from the high-up club floors of one of Singapore's many swanky hotels to fully appreciate.
- A focus of the complex is a new casino. The main press center for the 2010 Youth Olympic Games is in the same building, a couple of floors above the casino. The building isn't quite fully built out yet and the food court -- for reporters as ever on per diem -- is a far cry from the collection of luxury stores now opening up in the mall. There's a juice shop, a Chinese noodle place, a Malay stand and one Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf café. Here's a quirk: When you order from these stalls, they don't give you a napkin. Not sure whether that means you're supposed to buy the packs of Kleenex they offer for sale for 30 cents, if you know that they have them (which many tourists don't), or you're just supposed to use the back of your hand. At any rate -- again, perhaps this is yet another why there's no litter on the streets.
- A scene on a bus from the press center out to the Olympic village: Driver Jason Koh, 35, is a fan of collectibles. Around the front windshield and on a platform above his head sit or dangle four glass dolphins, two plush dolphins, a pair of fuzzy dice, five snow globes, two geisha-girl dolls, a popsicle-stick Hansel-and-Gretel house replete with a windmill, Sesame Street's Bert (but not Ernie) as a figurine, a heart-shaped wreath made out of blue flowers, a scale version of London Bridge, two bells, a tiny wooden water wheel and a champagne glass filled with lavender wax. "It's my hobby," Jason said.
- Because of land reclamation projects, Singapore, which in the 1960s was about 225 square miles, is now about 270. Chicago is about 234. Besides winter (Chicago), the big difference in Singapore is that once you get out of the central business district it's astonishing how much jungle-style greenery there still is here.
- The red-and-white Singapore national flag hangs everywhere. Every day here is like the Singapore version of Fourth of July.
- The other city under consideration for these 2010 Youth Games was Moscow. Imagine if 3,500 kids from around the world were there now, coping with the worst heat and choking air in Moscow in a very long time.
- Ten minutes outside in Singapore and the sweat runs down your back.
- The air conditioning inside virtually every building I've been in here is fierce. It's so hot outside it's stupid and then you go inside and you need a sweatshirt.
- There's an army of volunteers at every YOG stop and venue, all of them in their purple shirts with orange trim, pretty much everyone gosh-darn friendly. At the BMX venue Thursday afternoon, two of the Young Reporters with whom I'm working managed to snag seats on a bus taking them back to their dorms; the other four in the group were left without a ride; the transit manager summoned a cab, produced a voucher and said, here, this will take care of it.
- A Singapore Sling at the Long Bar at the Raffles is hideously expensive. But the peanuts in the shell there are really good.
- There's a stand in the mall next to the IOC hotel that presses sugar cane into juice. Totally simple, really excellent.
- Singapore has cool money. The notes are polymer, they're brightly colored and they have those see-through security windows cut into them.
- They drive here on the left-hand side of the road. No matter how many times you get into the left front seat of a car and there's no wheel there -- it's weird.
- Traffic is bad. But the cars are good. Apparently everyone is hugely motivated because of taxes and fees to take care of their cars. Have yet to see one beater.
- Immediately outside the athletes' village there is both a McDonald's and a Subway. Consistently, the long line is at McDonald's.
- The many, many drugstores around town sell row upon row of Omega-3 fish-oil pills.
- Cellular phone service is excellent. You'd be jealous in New York and San Francisco to have service like this.
- There are lots of 7-Elevens in Singapore. Who knew?