We return to some places, and vist some new ones
Singapore Camera Roll
Singapore
Singapore Camera Roll – Part 2
Supertree Grove – Botanical Gardens – Orchid Garden
Singapore Day 4-6
It was explained to us that the rain doesn’t normally last very long in Singapore, but comes in a burst, leaving clouds and sun later. Not so with us. It rained in Singapore for 2 days straight. Having exhausted our museum preferences (there are a lot of museums, but we felt to only see The Gallery) we kept day 4 a very chilled-out day. We didn’t leave until later to wander around and find some chicken rice, a dish that had come highly recommended by bloggers and foodies like Anthony Bourdain (we watch his show, “Parts Unknown”, religiously!).
We found the joint Anthony had eaten at when he was in Singapore and ordered the two types of chicken: steamed and roasted.
In the windows of quite a few stalls and restaurants it is not uncommon to see the roasted bodies of chickens hanging by their necks on hooks. For the western tourist it can look quite garish, especially the steamed bodies, heads still on, their white featherless carcasses looking only partially cooked.
When the meal came we got quite a shock: the chicken was room temperature! Whoops! No one told us that was the case! The rice is hot and flavorful, there is a broth served on the side that is also nice and hot, but the slimy, cold, steamed chicken was hard to stomach. The flavors were all delicious, but I couldn’t get over the solidified fat jiggling on my fork. Ew.
For a treat, we took ourselves downtown to the Marina Bay Sands hotel to sample a cocktail on the 57th floor. We chose a Tuesday night because the bar was advertising their #flight cocktail at %50 off: score! Cocktails are EXPENSIVE in Singapore! To have a price tag of $25SGD is not unusual. We had looked into going to The Raffles Hotel bar for a Singapore Sling, but that puppy would have cost about $35SGD and the reviews online said it was pretty crap. No thanks. I’d rather fork over good money and at least get a view.
The 57th floor has a stunning view of Singapore. The cocktails were expensive, but it was well worth the trip up in order to get a chance to see the city at night.
Day 5 looked like a great day to be outside! Yay! We jumped in our clothes and made our way to the Botanic Gardens.
The Gardens are free and it took about 30 min by train to get out there from downtown. What we were after was the Orchid gardens, a $5SGD entrance.
The Orchid gardens are a must see! They are beautiful! The orchids are really top notch, exploding in color and variety and they are everywhere. Gorgeous.
The rest of the Botanic Gardens are also beautiful. They boast a rain forest section, an evolution garden, herbs and spices, and an assortment of other types of plants. It was so nice to walk around in it and it’s really big, too!
We discovered that the Super Trees in The Gardens by the Bay light up at night at 7:45 and 8:45pm. Viewing the trees is free and we figured we’d check it out. The light show was OK. The first 30 seconds were fun and then the magic wore off. They pumped “music of the far east” over the microphones and cheesy Hollywood-takes-on-China music played as pinks, blues and purples lit the trees. Meh. We stayed for 2 songs before leaving.
As we walked back toward the subway our path took us through Marina Bay Sands and the MASSIVE mall that’s inside. This mall is unbelievable! There’s a canal that runs through it and you can rent a gondola to take you through it (we didn’t). The amount of shops were never ending, too. We walked all over staring at everything. At one point, I walked into a lingerie shop and fingered a bra before looking at the price tag: $560SGD. Um. Nope.
On Day 6, we met up with Sharon, a colleague of mine, who took us to her favorite restaurant and ordered a slew of delicious dishes. It was lovely to see her and cool to go to a different part of town. I was grateful to try some other Singaporean delicacies like Chicken Curry (a little like a Thai curry, but with Indian spices- delicious!) and the Singaporean breakfast of fried chicken, rice and some crushed spices. For dessert we had Singaporean toast: thinly sliced, toasted bread with jam and butter inside. Yum.
After lunch, we strolled along the beach, goggling at the amount of ships waiting in the harbor to come to port. There were super tankers as far as the eye could see. It was unbelievable. Pictures couldn’t do the scale justice.
We prepared to leave Singapore. Sad to say goodbye to such a bustling, colorful city but excited for Sri Lanka. We weren’t sorry to say goodbye to our hostel room: it was disgusting. The whole room smelled like mildew and mold and it didn’t feel comfortable at all. We had tried to leave early but they had a no-cancellation policy. The location was great, as was the staff and WiFi, but that room was awful. I wouldn’t recommend 5footway.inn.
Singapore Camera Roll – Part 1
Gardens by the Bay – Fort Canning Park – Little India – The National Gallery – Chinatown
Singapore Day 3
We hadn’t fully anticipated how much it can rain in this city. Waking up on our third day we were confronted with a torrent of rain, thunder and lightning. Sheets of rain were peeling off buildings and as we stared stupefied at the rain our next thought was: what now?
Unlike New York, Singapore has an excellent warren of halls and holes leading through alleyways and under buildings, bringing the walker a relatively dry journey through a good portion of the downtown. The overhangs are not extensive enough to cover the walker the whole way, but does give an awesome respite from the elements and plunges the traveler into stall after stall filled with food hawkers, fabric sellers, tea houses, and massage parlors. Some of these walkways are quite beautiful: white tiles inlaid with patterns of indigo blue contrasted with large green palms that hang over the path causing you to duck. Sometimes there is the scent of incense burning or tea or Chinese five spice as you pass through like a ghost, carefully picking your way along the goods for sale spread out on the floor and ignoring the peddlers trying to invite you into their stall to look at the rugs for sale.
We did our best to avoid the worst of the rain, but still got pretty wet walking over to the National Gallery. A day indoors seemed like a grand idea and we spent a few hours wandering the almost empty halls of the National Gallery ($20SGD entrance each). I liked looking at art that was made by South East Asians and told stories of their struggles and lives. It was quite the contrast to the National Gallery in Victoria, which struck me as more similar to The Met. It was a lovely collection although the building was really hard to navigate. The art is in the old court house and there are courtrooms and holding cells sprinkled around the building, making for a somewhat confusing presentation. We even wound up walking into the special collections exhibit without knowing and only after a short while were we stopped and asked to leave (we hadn’t paid to see the special exhibit!).
The rain let up and we decided to go explore more of Chinatown. Unlike Little India, Chinatown seemed a bit tamer but with more stalls selling an unbelievable amount of what looked like utter crap. Lots of plastic, rubs, red lunar New Year signs and cheap clothing. It was overwhelming walking along the stalls for too long and we ducked into the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.
The temple is free to enter and a MUST see! It was gorgeous inside! We marveled at the detail, the thousands of small buddhas that lined the walls, the gold foil on everything and monks chanting. The silence in the front hall was often punctuated by the clink of coins hitting prayer boxes.
We got ourselves a delicious red-bean and green-bean-paste pastry and chowed down on the street, the crumbs falling off our finger tips and lips.
We ducked into Sri Mariamman Temple (also in Chinatown) for a quick look around. It was free to enter and quite a contrast to the Buddha temple. The Hindu temple was quiet, stark and somber, we didn’t stay long.
Walking over to Thian Hock Keng Temple was our last destination for the day. It was a lovely old temple boasting a traditional build process using no nails and supported entirely by stone and wood. The deities were ornate and lovely and there was a heady scent of incense. I liked walking around the complex and contemplating the heavy-lidded deities. Unlike Buddhism, these gods had a range of facial expressions from anger to serenity. I liked the concept of “Door Gods”, smaller gods to pray to to keep out intruders. Their depictions made them look somewhat fierce, and that they took their jobs very seriously.
A full day of walking! We only took the train to get home. Our feet were really feeling the concrete, but there is so much to see in this city!
Singapore Day 2
The architecture in Singapore is varied, surprising and whimsical. Walking the streets, I was confronted with a variety of strange buildings. I can’t get sick of looking at the architecture here: it’s too strange and ever-changing!
Jackson and I made our way to Fort Canning Park to walk around. The day was early and few people were there. We strolled along the 14th Century Trail which has information plaques every few feet. I thought the plaques were a bit weird: for example, they’d talk about a stone in a river somewhere and how important that stone is and how it’s now in India. What I couldn’t get my mind around was why the trivia about the stone was mentioned when there with no other context for it. We were no where near a river, a stone or the place the stone was found. It was hard to imagine and hard to care too much. I also got impatient to leave after a while because the mosquitoes found my bare legs and started attacking me. It was hard to concentrate on anything while my legs began sprouting bites.
We went to check out Little India, a bustling, chaotic community full of smells, music and people that comes on with a roar as you enter the neighborhood. It was fascinating walking around and staring. We stopped into a Hindu temple on Serangoon Street to look around. The place was PACKED. Jackson and I tried to stay as out of the way as possible, all the while gaping at the deities and worshipers who were prostrating themselves on the floor.
Making our way to the Tekka center food court, we got some Chicken Tikka and fresh naan bread that was so hot and fresh it burnt our fingers. Two men were next to us chatting away in their language and I felt transported by the sounds the surrounded us: the clang of pots, scrapes of chairs, chatter of people, hawkers advertising their food… It all felt so alive and foreign.
We walked around and into a market full of butchers, fish, vegetables, spices, and dried food. The place was full of smells! I couldn’t stop staring at the butchers hacking away at lamb and goat legs. They’d look up and smile in the hopes I might buy something. I was tempted! Everything looked so fresh and transparent. In the markets in New York City, everything is sealed and clean; packed away in tidy boxes. Here, it felt like the food was in your face! I wanted to buy all I could and find a kitchen somewhere and make food just because!
As we walked home, we passed a gorgeous looking mosque called Masjid Abdul Gafoor, a colonial, Portuguese-style building painted fabulous hues of green and yellow. I felt a pull to check it out and we were swept inside by a very friendly volunteer who led tours through the building. I had to pull on a dress (tank tops and shorts are not appropriate inside) and kick off my shoes before stepping inside.
I’ve spent very little time in a mosque. I live near one in Queens and walk past it twice a day on my way to and from work, but I know so little of Islam and mosques! The guide was really informative and sweet, telling us about the schedule of worship, explaining Islam (but not in a preachy, trying-to-get-you-to-join kind of way), talking about how similar Islam is to Judaism and Christianity. I was fascinated and a bit embarrassed at how little I knew. He seemed genuinely glad we had come to check the place out and learn about his culture.
After another nap, we stepped out to explore some more. We came across a small Chinese temple and stepped inside.
It was really quiet and there was a heady smell of incense. The gods were serenely staring at us as we entered and I felt very aware of how much I can’t speak a word of Chinese. Adam, a man wearing a large green jade tablet, greeted us and then decided we needed a full tour. He explained that one of the deities was nearly 1000 years old. Then he wanted us to learn our fortunes. I’ve never had much experience with Chinese deities, numerology or fortune telling so I was fascinated! Jackson looked a bit dubious. I pulled a long brown stick with the number 55 on it from a very old looking chest of drawers and then found my corresponding fortune hidden in a little drawer. Adam was delighted to describe what the pink cards meant. Jackson’s card was downright golden! His fortune was all sunshine and roses and mine was all like: “Far from satisfaction” and “Too early to see concrete results” …Hmmm. Adam assured me that I was young and it will all work out really well. “Just remember to breathe!” He reminded us.
I am astounded at the number of religions in this city. They’re all so different from what’s in New York, too! After touring Saint Andrew’s Cathedral (which looked really stark and white compared to the reds, yellows and greens of the Hindu temple, Mosque and Chinese Temple!) I felt like I’d done a world tour of religions in such a small space.
