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Touchdown in Singapore

Saturday 11/21/2009

We touched down in Singapore (after a brief layover in Tokyo) almost exactly at the stroke of midnight 24 hours and 2 calendar days later than when we started.  We were greeted by lush indoor foliage in the baggage claim area at the airport.  

Highlights of the cab ride to our hotel, The Scarlet, in Chinatown included passing the "Happy Bus" and a serenade of 80s music in the cab.  Singaporeans seemed to be enamored with 80s music.  Monster ballads and Old School hits greeted us at almost every turn during our visit.  This cab ride was memorable with I Need You Now belting out of the radio -- one of my favorite songs in high school but one that I haven't heard in years.

We fell into bed at The Scarlet almost as soon as we arrived.  The room was decked out in lush velvet and satin and was very hip and comfortable.

An Introduction to Hawker Food

Sunday 11/22/2009

Refreshed after a decent night's sleep, we headed across the street from the hotel to the Maxwell Food Center to try out some of Singapore's famous hawker food.  In Singapore, you can be confident that the food is good and safe.  The stalls are all government rated from A - D.  We made sure to frequent vendors with scores of B or better.  We had our first taste of kopi, coffee prepared with sweetened condensed milk, to help fuel us for the day.  Kopi is made by pouring hot water over a sort of net-like contraption that contains the coffee grinds.  It's thick, sweet, and delicious.  We noticed that a long line had formed outside a stall selling what looked like long and thin donuts.  They were the perfect accompaniment to our kopi.

We also tried the "jet lag juice" formulation offered by one of the fruit vendors along with a blue jello-like sweet.

We rounded out breakfast with some bean and peanut pancakes -- this stall became my favorite go-to breakfast treat for our entire time in Singapore.

 

Walk About

Fed and caffeinated, we took a walk around town.  We stopped by the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and then trekked up Ann Siang Hill behind our hotel and were impressed by the sheer volume of air conditioning units visible on the rear of tall buildings -- make no mistake, Singapore is on the equator and it's hot!  

We wandered into Boat Quay and into the first of a few unexpected and pleasant surprises on this trip.  There were people milling everywhere in athletic and swimming gear sitting on every square inch of available surface in UOB Plaza.  We had stumbled upon the 2009 Singapore River Regatta.  Teams competed four at a time in a race down the river.  Rowers timed their stroke to the beat hammered out on a large drum by the coxswain.  It was amazing and entertaining to watch.  Scott and I both tried to adopt various teams and cheer them on to victory as we watched along the water's edge.

After this unexpected diversion, we continued our walk.  Shopping is a major pasttime in Singapore so we decided to check out some of the local malls including the Funden IT mall and the Raffles City Center mall.

We stopped for a quick pick-me-up at BreadTalk and then made our way to the famous Raffles Hotel and then on to the Suntec Center which boasts a large convention center.

There was an Anime convention going on which meant the Suntec City Shopping Centre and associated Food Republic was completely mobbed.  We made the mistake of ordering some food (chicken and rice) before locating a place to sit.  In Singapore, locals leave a packet of tissues on the table to indicate that the table is taken.  We carried our trays and weaved in and out of the crowd for about 10 minutes before finally finding an open place to sit that wasn't earmarked by a telltale pack of tissues.

The local Duck Tour leaves from the Suntec Centre and we thought this would be a fun and easy way to see some of the City.  Perhaps we'd even experience a comforting breeze as the amphibious vehicle splashed down into the river.  The breeze never materialized but we did see some beautiful skyline, a merlion (the half lion half fish symbol of Singapore), some colonial buildings, and the famous concert hall affectionately known as the Armadillo.

After the Duck Tour, we sought out the Fountain of Wealth.  We learned that walking around the fountain's base is a symbol of good luck.  

This is where we stumbled upon another unexpected event -- A Crime Prevention Fair.  We heard the sound of a drum band playing and walked over to check it out.  There were vendors set up everywhere promoting crime prevention.  "Low Crime Does Not Equal No Crime" was the motto.

Donuts seem to be a big deal in Singapore.  On our way back to the subway, we found an awesome donut shop and decided to try a few unusual varieties to refuel before moving on.  They were colorful and very, very delicious.

Little India

We took the train to Little India which was a whole other world from where we had just been.  In contrast to the highly air conditioned, high class shops, and sanitized conditions, we popped out of the train station and found ourselves at dusk surrounded by Indian men simply loitering about.  The neighborhood was also really crowded.  I definitely felt a tad uncomfortable when I noticed that the sea of people was comprised of men, men, and more men.  Where were the Indian women?  After acclimating to the crowds and surroundings, we did enjoy shopping at some of the local venues.  Scott was able to get a belt resized just for him.  We also found some fun and cheap souvenirs in this neighborhood.  Interestingly, each clothing store had a person sitting outside behind a heavy old metal sewing machine to do alterations on the spot.

In Search of Satay

To finish out the day, we trekked from our hotel to Lau Pa Sat, another hawker center.  Lau Pa Sat is known for satay.  We didn't see any satay at first but rather a bunch of stalls very similar to the Maxwell Food Centre.  We eventually found our way out back where a number of the hawkers tried to steer us to their particular stand.  We finally settled on a satay shack.

We bought some tissues (napkins) table-side from a hawker as is the custom and then set out to tackle the 20 pieces of chicken and mutton satay set in front of us.

We washed it down with a beer -- we were inadvertently upsold from a bottle to a pitcher.  It was a bit much for two people but very refreshing after a hot day exploring the City.

Botanical Gardens and National Orchid Center

Monday 11/23/2009

We repeated breakfast at the Maxwell Food Center.  This time, we focused on pancakes with our kopi and tried one of each flavor -- green bean, red bean, peanut, and coconut.  The peanut and red bean flavors were the best.  We bought an MRT EZ Link card to make it easy to zip around on the subway and buses and then headed off to Orchard Road.

We were agog at mall after mall after mall when we exited the train.

Shopping was not the first order of business for the day though so we walked down Orchard Rd. to the Singapore Botanical Gardens.  The landscape was lush, humid, and damp.  Nestled within the Botanical Gardens was the National Orchid Center.  The specimens on display were simply spectacular.  By the time we were done, we had made our way from one end of the botanical gardens to the other.  It was about a 2.5 mile walk from the MRT station to the opposite end of the park.  Needless to say, we were famished by the time we completed our trek.

We stumbled upon a supermarket and decided to look for some unique local snacks.  We found something called "grams" which looked like mini, dry chickpeas in the nut aisle.  They were actually pretty tasty (albeit dry and powdery) and somewhat addicting.  I confirmed later that grams are actually chickpeas.

We caught a bus toward Bukit Timah.  Our next stop was a local nature reserve.  The bus let us off right in front of another set of hawker style restaurants.  This time we tried Al Ameen Eating Restaurant.

They served fantastic Indian cuisine.  This meal turned out to be our favorite of the whole trip.  We tried tandoori chicken, naan, and some other saucy/spicy dishes.  I ordered iced tea thinking they would bring over one of the cans sitting on a shelf.  Instead, they served delicious Indian style hot tea with milk over ice.  Fantastic!

Rainforest in the City

After lunch, we tried our best to walk to the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, a rainforest within the City.  One thing we noticed about Singapore and our other destinations in Southeast Asia was that they aren't particularly pedestrian friendly.  We walked up and down a number of staircases over the highway running between us and our destination.  We saw a sign for the Nature Reserve that ran underneath a bridge.  There weren't any sidewalks in that direction and we didn't want to chance it.  We ended up locating a cab to take us the rest of the way.  After a major ordeal to turn around and face the other direction on the highway, we realized that we were merely a few blocks from the reserve when we approached that bridge.  Had we known, we would have walked the rest of the way.  Oh well...live and learn.

The nature reserve was located near a high-end suburban style neighborhood.  Standing on the street corner, we were shocked to see monkeys -- monkeys everywhere!  They seemed kind of like the deer you see in the US; used to having people around.  The monkeys were entirely nonplussed by the fact that we were walking nearby.  I could have spent hours just watching them frolic.

We made our way into the rainforest park and hiked sharply uphill.  The hike was touted as "easy" but it was actually pretty challenging in the heat and humidity.  We could hear cicadas calling from all directions.    We were disappointed that we didn't see any birds but did come across a screeching squirrel and more monkeys!

This park also appeared to be a local haunt for exercisers.  We saw a number of Singaporeans stretching at the base of the hill and also passed them in route going up and down.  In fact, I swear I saw one person twice which implies that they ran up and down the hill more than once per day.  Crazy!  On of the local walkers recommended that we take a short hike to a quarry.  We were rewarded by a beautiful view.  We also saw a foot reflexology path along the way.  Very cool.

Southernmost Point

We caught a cab to the Harbourfront.  We were aiming to take the Cable Car to Sentosa Island but it was under repair/maintenance and not open.  Instead, we explored a bit and had snack of peanut butter toast and kopi at the Harbourfront malls.

We eventually took the monorail to Sentosa Island.  The island had a Downtown Disney resort-like feel.  The monorail dropped us off along the beach where we were able to watch boats and container ships passing by.  We walked on a swinging rope bring to an observation tower which had the distinction of being the southernmost point in continental Asia.  We also had the opportunity to see the granddaddy of all Merlions (several stories tall).  He put the one we saw the previous day on the Duck Tour to shame.  A series of escalators (with "I'm a Little Teapot" inexplicably blasting from the sound system) took us to a scenic overlook.

Clarke Quay

We made our way to Clarke Quay for dinner.  We had dessert first and tried mango ice cream at a Turkish ice cream stand.

We decided to try Brewerkz, a local brewery.  Despite the heat and humidity, we decided to sit outside and watch the people go by.  Interestingly, we saw a ton of joggers.  Evening seems to be the best time to beat the heat and go for a run in Singapore.  We devoured a vegetarian falafel burger and a beer (priced on a sliding scale that got more expensive the later you ordered) and then headed back to our hotel.  We were totally wiped after a jam-packed day of exploration.

Irony

Tuesday 11/24/2009

Christmas seems to be a commercial symbol in Singapore.  Even though Christians are in the minority, massive Christmas trees and displays of lights and decorations were visible everywhere.  Each shopping mall seemed to be trying to outdo the last.  We took the train to the Arab district to check out one of the local street markets.  We were a little too early and the market wasn't open yet (aside from a few fruit vendors with stinky durians stacked high).

However, it was worth the stop just for the irony of seeing a giant nautical themed Christmas tree gracing the exit to the train station.

The Battle Box

We took the MRT to a stop near Fort Canning Park and found our way uphill on winding sidewalks to the Battle Box.  The Battle Box was a bunker used during World War II as a command post prior to the fall of Singapore to the Japanese.

The interactive museum takes visitors through the final desperate days before Singapore's fall.  Crude, animatronic British generals relive the decisions they made to relinquish control of the City to the enemy in the face of water, food, and fuel shortages.  It was fascinating to experience this period of Singapore's history.