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Friday, July 25, 2008

Singapore of Surabaya

by Charles Roring
Surabaya is the second largest city of Indonesia. It is located in the East of Java island. For years, the city has become the trading hub of all businesses in Indonesia beside Jakarta. People who are looking for cheaper Indonesian agricultural commodities can choose Surabaya as the export point.
But in this article, I am not going to talk about doing business in this city. I am talking about travelling around the city. Surabaya has a lot of malls where tourists can shop various kinds of products ranging from electronics to clothes.
While I was in Surabaya, I visited Singapore of Surabaya. It is not located in a strategic place where public transportations pass by. Instead, this little Singapore is located in Citraland in the western region of the city. The nearest mall is Pakuwon Trade Centre.
Singapore of Surabaya looks like little Singapore. It has statues that are similar but smaller than the original ones in Singapore.
At night, city dwellers like to visit this area for eating out and socialising with their friends. Cars are parked along the middle part of the streets and there are no parking attendants like what we see in most big cities of Indonesia. The restaurants offer delicious Asian foods in affordable prices. It also has wide pedestrian foot path with rows of trees along the streets making the area look green and cool.
Despite all the similarities that we can compare between the real Singapore city and the Singapore of Surabaya, there is one thing that I think different. It is the language the people use. If we are in Singapore we will easily communicate in Singlish - the mixture of English with little Mandarin, and Malay dialects.
Here, people speak Indonesian or Javanese.
When I ordered some food, I asked for spicy fried rice which looked attractive. It was very hot and I had to drink more water to cool down my mouth.
After all, Singapore of Surabaya is a great place to visit at night, it offers you romantic scene which is suitable for couples who are in love. But it is also suitable for any single person who wants to look for somebody there for a romantic dating between the statues of Raffles and Lion of this little Singapore.

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