Singapore is where we will board the ship for our cruise. We chose to come here several days early so we could explore this city state which was a wise choice. Singapore is a great place to visit and dabble in Asian culture in a country that speaks English. We arrived early morning as in 6 something with a time difference of 12 - 13 hours ahead of Eastern and Central US. I had read that Changi airport was one of the nicest in the world, so we decided to explore before heading to our hotel. We discovered The Jewel, which is a large Tropical Atrium with a spectacular large waterfall.
Yes, those were pictures from an airport! After checking our bags at our hotel, we went off to explore and discovered the underground malls that connect all of the building and get some lunch. These malls have everything a town's downtown would have. Children’s art stores, hair dressers, Gyms, Dance studios in addition to retail stores and restaurants. After lunch, we returned to the hotel and found our room was ready and that we had been upgraded to a room with a view. What a view it was!
On Day two of our stay we had booked a food tour with Secret Food Tours a company we had used before in Edinburgh. The food tour was heavily based in Chinatown and was quite good. We met at an entrance to their rapid transit for Chinatown and our first restaurant was right there. We had bak kwa. It was delicous! It is pork that is razor thin and has been marinated in a sauce and then roasted over a charcoal fire.
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| Subway cars signage banned the fruit on the right because of its strong pungent smell |
Then we wandered around Chinatown a little bit and our guide explioned the architecture and the shophouses that Singapore is known for. We saw murals on buildings that arethe Singapore version of a Banksy. Many of the paintings depicted life as it used to be. Our second stop was a coffeeshop because coffee is big in this country. Being the coffee hater that I am I had tea instead - Jeff did try the coffee because it was supposed to be sweet - he said it wasn't bad which is a compliment for us on coffee. We also had kavya toast with it which is a traditional breakfast dish of toast with kava jam and cinnamon butter that is dipped in a soft boiled egg. We both liked that.
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| Singapore is a melting pot of cultures, which has created phrases consisting of several languages |
On to more wandering, we saw the Budhist temple with Budha's tooth in it and then went to the Maxwell Hawker Center which was packed since it was the week end and lunch time. After the 5 of us played the vulture game we were able to get a table and Zac our guide went off to get us some food. We had chicken and rice, sugar cane water, oyster cake and something I don't remember its name. All was good.
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oyster cake
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Then we were off exploring the area some more. Zac pointed out a building that used to be the meeting point for the rikshaws - it was a triangular building on a corner. Since there is a sizable Indian population in Singapore we then went to an Indian restuarant where in Jeff's words we had a curry flight tasting and an order of Parotta. The curry dish came out with Thou Say a large paper thin bread (think pancake) that you tore and dipped into the different currys of varying levels of spice. Parotta is a lot like nan only fluffier. Zac explained that nan is northern India food whereas most Indians in Singapore had come from southern India.
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| Rik Shaw terminal |
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| Thou Say |
We then went to our last stop which was not far away - the Chinese Cultural Center - he taught us the name and its meaning in English. It was something about water boats - sorry. The chinese cultural center is a 3 story building with a basement that is a wet market - we peaked down at it then a main floor where vendors sold a variety of meats and vegetables and then the top was another hawker market which is where we headed. One of the dishes we had was chen dol which is kind of a frozen coconut sundae. I really enjoyed it although I would skip the red beans on one side. In fact I am going to try and find a place in Penang Malaysisa that Zac recommended. I think this is where we had a dish with a gelatinous rice base and kind of a dried pork on top. It tasted pretty good but the texture of the rice kind of turned me off. Then our tour was over and we were stuffed!
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| Chen Dol |
After the tour we explored the budhist temple some more and then hopped on the MRT (underground rail transit) to Orhcard Park where I had read there was good shopping for normal people. Oh I should mention here I have seen more Prada, Channel, etc shops here in the last few days then I have seen in my entire life combined before! And yes people are buying things. We wandered around another upscale residential area and then found some shops. We also saw the botanical gardens were there but we were getting hot and tired fast. I should add that the weather is like St Louis in July upper 80s and humid.
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| Buddhist Temple |
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| local community center |
Sunday our 3rd day in town we went to Gardens by the Bay which was close to our hotel. Quite cool! They have 2 of the largest greenhouses in the world. This is also where the supertrees exist. The gardens are free and nice with all sorts of local plants that are interesting to us to see. The Supertrees were quite interesting and much more than we expected. From our hotel, we could see a couple of nightly light shows one from these trees and one in the water in front of Marina Bay Sands. These "trees" are metallic structures that are quite tall and have plants like bromeliads growing up their sides. There is an observation deck in the tallest one and there are suspended walkways connecting some of the other trees. The trees have solar panels and ways to collect water and to aide in cooling the large greenhouses.
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| Flower Dome and Cloud Forrest |
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| Super Tree |
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| Note the suspended walkway |
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| Giant Dragon Flys |
We wandered in one of the greenhouses - The Flower Dome which unlike any other greenhouse I have been in is designed to be cooler so they can grow cooler weather plants. While we were there, they were having "Tulipmaina" so we saw all sorts of tulips on display plus some gorgeous azaleas - incredible how full of flowers they were. (Turkish Airlines was the sponsor, as Tulips are originally from Turkey.) The permanent exhibits included areas like California, and Australia intermixed were all sorts of plants I would have grown in my summer garden like zinnias and geraniums.
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| Inside Flower Dome |
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| One of many wood sculptures |
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| Tulips |
From the gardens, we walked along the bay some. We tried to go to a couple of famous hotels, but the Fullerton's atrium was blocked off for a wedding and we got lost trying to find Raffles which is supposed to be quite nice and where the drink the singapore sling was invented. We did see the Merlion which is the symbol of Singapore and is a large statute in the bay. I did try a Singapore Sling - at our hotel bar The Republic which happens to be a highly ranked bar in Asia.
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| Merlion has a historic story and the symbol of Singapore |
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| Merlion in front of Fullerton’s Hotel |
Monday we decided to hike part of the Southern Ridges Trail which is a gorgeous urban hike. We could not hike all that we wanted because there had been a landslide and they were still repairing it. We did get to walk along the waves bridge which is quite unique. From there we decided to take a cable car over to Sentosa Island.
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| Waves Bridge |
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| Top half of buildings appearing from behind ridge |
Sentosa Island is a former British Naval base that they have converted to a resort area with a Unviersal Studios Park, some water parks and lots of beach resorts - some beaches are better than others we noticed. After having hiked in the heat and humidity we were happy to sit at a beach front bar and share a lunch and some beer. We explored the island some more on the free beach tram and then took the cable car back to the main island and MRT station. Sentosa is nice but it was empty when we were there not sure if it is the time of year or if it is only popular on the weekends.
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| Notice the cargo container the Troll has in its grasp |
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| Ships offshore as far as you can see |
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| Lunch stop |
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| Pokémon was the Cable Car sponsor |
Tuesday was our last full day in Singapore. We went to the National Gallery Singapore which is housed in the old City Hall and Supreme Court Buildings. We mainly did an exhibit that followed asian art from pre colonial times to the current and described how the western influences had affected the art. It also pointed out how political times affected the art in the late 1900s. Seeing the buildings was fascinating too. The buildings were built by the Bristish so very colonial with beautiful wood ceilings and floors. The Singapores have come up with many inventive ways to deal with the constant heat here. For instance there was an atrium that connected the 2 buildings with a glass roof for sunlight. We realized that the roof had water flowing over all of it and asssumed it was a way to cool the roof and thus the atrium.
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| Old dome covered by modern atrium |
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| Atrium supports look like a giant tree |
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| Old City Hall was site of Japanese surrender to British, today it is a attractive but empty room |
From there we headed off to the riverboat tour. Singapore has the Singapore River which they have dammed at the entrance to the bay and use it as a fresh water reservoir - the lake I mentioned with the Marina Bay Sands. The boat tour lasted about an hour and pointed out different archetecture along the way and discussed the history like “oh that is a former infamous spots for smugglers” or this area is where the importers used to bring in their small boats for the merchants. It was nice.
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| Queen Victoria Hall |
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| A few of the many attractive Sky Scrappers |
Singapore fun facts:
- England’s East India Trading company founded Singapore in early 19th century and brought in people from China and India for its construction
- English is the official language
- Member of the Commonwealth
- We almost felt like we were in the UK from phrases like “mind the gap”, crosswalks with yellow lights on polls and of course driving on the left
- Dispute being offshore of Malaysia, Malays are only 13.2% of the population, Indian 9.3 and Chinese at 74.2%
- Possession of Chewing gum carries a fine of $500-$1,000 on the first offense. The same fine as littering.
- Not clearing your table at a Hawker Center also carries a fine. Fines are a thing
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| Amazing carving from a single log |
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| Amazing wood carving |
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| It’s back has baby Crocs sculpted across it |
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| Large lizard that could flatten its body |
