Why walk when you can shuffle?

Singapore. I love this place. The food's awesome and cheap, the lifestyle's great, it's clean, it's ordered, things work and it doesn't have that patina of dirt and open-sewer smell that I recall so fondly of my years in KL.

However there is one thing that drives me absolutely around the bend, and that's trying to walk from point A to point B in this place. It's not that there's a lack of pathways or dangerous drops through missing concrete slabs into deep drains (How ya doin', KL?) the problem with being a pedestrian in Singapore is well...the pedestrians.

I can handle the glacial pace, I can handle the throngs, I can handle the aimless shuffling, but what I can't handle is the Singaporean innate ability to randomly veer, merge into your trajectory, sideways block and cover as much of the footpath as possible with zero regard for other pedestrians either approaching from behind or walking toward them in plain sight.

Side Note: The shuffling gait may not be exhibited by all locals, but it's very prevalent. So much so that it's been dubbed the Singapore Shuffle, while a friend calls it the I-have-a-mate-who-runs-a-shoe-factory walk

Although Singapore is one of the most densely packed cities on the planet, please remember that at whatever moment you are walking, wherever it happens to be, you are the only pedestrian.

Here is a quick list of tips to ensure that you can be the most Pedestrian Pedestrian that you can be:

• Have a goal in sight, but give yourself at least thirty minutes to shuffle the 100m there
• Meander from side to side
• Randomly stop, but take a half-step left or right when you do so. This is a brilliant manoeuvre that confounds all
• Should you be walking in a group, please ensure that you spread out into a line that covers the entire footpath. Do not move when other pedestrians approach
• Should we come face to face, whatever you do please do not move to your left when I move to mine, nor should you move to your right when I move to mine. In fact, the best course of action is to stop. Let me navigate about you
• Should you require the assistance of an escalator when you tire from the intensive shuffling, please, please, please ensure that you stand on the right hand side -- effectively blocking all traffic from moving past
• By all means stop at the top or bottom of an escalator while you ruminate on world politics, wonder what colour to paint your lounge room, or contemplate the mysteries of where you are and how you came to be there. As a bonus, please do get huffy and annoyed when the 6'2" guy bumps into you when the escalator spits him out directly into your immobile back

Side Note 2: Another friend has a theory about the Singaporean jag, turn, sudden stop and other blocking manoeuvres. He posits that it’s the little man’s way of fighting the government’s ordered uniformity. It’s a damning protest that shoots a bullet directly into the heart of the government machine.

That’s right Singapore -- don’t walk the way They want you to walk!

Side Note 3: I took some shots of the pre-national day fireworks last night, and then faced the ordeal of ‘walking’ amongst hundreds of shufflers on the way to MRT station. Oddly, the people had congealed into a single shambling brainless bio-mass -- one that took up the entire width of the twenty meter wide concourse between Suntec and Raffle’s Place.

Normally they form nearly unnavigable algal rafts where you do your best to plot a course between, but last night must have seen some extra nitrogen or phosphates introduced to the water because the populace had flourished, congregated and then congealed into this single homogenous mass.

And if this bio-mass had not been glacially undulating in the direction I was headed I may well have totally, irrevocably, lost my shit.

As it was, a ten minute walk turned into a 30 minute ordeal.

Eldorado: The rumoured pedestrian-free escalators of Singapore. Myth or reality?