Singapore part 2

Advance warning: another epic post! I got up fairly early to wash up (I ended up taking a cold water bucket-bath because other people were using the showers) and then had a lovely breakfast chatting with this British couple who are taking their two (adorable) little boys on a long holiday around Southeast Asia. They flew into Singapore, and they were planning to go around Thailand, Malaysia, and maybe Vietnam as well. To some parents, that might sound like a nightmarish trip, but the four and six-year-old boys were quite well-behaved, minus some playful snatching of Nutella-covered toast.

On our way to the Ferrer Park MRT station, we passed by this convenience store that had (not even kidding) eight cats, all happily munching on kitty kibble, climbing the shelves/postcard racks, and/or napping on top of the ice cream fridge (guess there was a warm spot there or something). Bad pun warning: Getting to play with a few of these happy felines was a purr-fect way to start day 2 in Singapore ^-^

Prrrrrow?

First stop: the Singapore Flyer, a 43-story high Ferris wheel, the largest in the world! One full rotation takes about half an hour, plenty of time to get a great view of the city (and if the day is clear, parts of Malaysia/Indonesia as well). Each capsule can hold about 20 people, and there are free audio guides (in English), so we also got to learn a bit about the history of and future plans for Singapore.

Cool collage of photos at the ride entrance

This whole eastern part is reclaimed land

The downtown/civic area - you can see the Esplanade (the "durian domes") and the seats for Singapore's floating stadium

Under construction: an "integrated resort" area, aka casinos, a second botanical garden, and other stuff

Singapore's iconic "Merlion" statue, near the Fullerton

By now we were rather hungry, so we headed down to Chinatown to find lunch. We ended up at Hong Lim Centre, which had a blindingly crimson shrine in the middle of the hawker center, as seen below:

Going to a hawker center is like going to the food carts in New Haven - when in doubt, look for the cart with the line. If people are willing to wait for the food, then it's gotta be good. This shop had a line over 10 people long, so we decided to give it a try.

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble

"Bee Hoon Mee" turned out to be rice noodles with chicken, potato, aged tofu chunks, and a few other things, all dunked in a orange-red coconut curry soup/sauce (although I actually knew that in advance because I could read all the Chinese characters...huzzah!) I wisely purchased some fresh-pressed sugarcane juice to go with my meal, which probably saved my taste buds from being completely chemically burned =P

So spicy, but so good...

After lunch, we walked around Chinatown for a while - the Hindu temple we wanted to visit was closed for renovations, but there were a lot of cute little souvenir shops and another massive hawker center in the "Chinatown cultural area" right next to it. We all ended up buying a few tourist-y things: t-shirts, magnets, etc., but we also got to try a lot more yummy food =D Again, it was cool to see how Singapore has mixed cultures even within a supposedly homogeneous area - Susan was delighted to find Vietnamese pho and we could have just as easily gotten naan and curry, Taiwanese BBQ, or more satay.

Walking through the bazaar

Two old ladies enjoying their ice kachang, a classic Singaporean dessert. I opted not to try it because the neon colors looked a little funky

What I got instead: shaved ice with mango, lychee, and tapioca beads (perfect for such a hot day)

Mari and Susan opted to get more GRBs, since Ah Balling had a stand conveniently right there. This time, there were even 綠 茶 湯 圓 (green tea GRBs), which were perfectly flavored without being too overwhelming (unlike the green tea Jelly Bellies I found in HK, which are like a punch of green tea flavor). The color was also pretty amusing - unlike the other GRBs, you could instantly tell what these were!

Yum.

This just proved you really can find anything in Chinatown...even a German sausage stand!

Around 4:00, we took the MRT up to Ang Mio Kio, where we were meeting up with Rayyan MC'09 and Alvin TD'09, both of whom are currently working in Singapore. We ended up having dinner at Uncle Leongs, which had been recommended for its crab dishes by an NY Times reader, but we ended up not getting crab because it was rather expensive (starting around $40 SGD, so about $30 USD) compared to everything else. I satisfied my savory urge with a seafood/vegetable soup instead, and it was just nice to catch up with my fellow Yalies - hopefully they can come visit me in Macau sometime!

I couldn't resist taking this photo of the wall decorations

Unfortunately, both Alvin and Rayyan had other plans after dinner, so they went home while Susan, Mari, and I headed for the Night Safari, the only zoo in the world expressly designed to showcase nocturnal animals, so it's only open from 7 PM to midnight. We had seen a poster in the Ang Mio Kio station for a free shuttle to the Night Safari, but then we found out the deal was that we had to buy the admission ticket ($22 SGD) and the safari tram ride ticket ($10) from that company in order to get the free shuttle ride. We originally had planned to just walk around instead of taking the tram, but the company charged the same prices as what I had seen on the zoo's website, so we hopped into the minivan, figuring it would be faster than the public bus.

Things got a bit sketchy about half an hour later, when we stopped at (what seemed like) a hut in the middle of the forest...for a few minutes, we thought we would be forced to buy an overpriced drink at the bar or something to make up for the free shuttle ride. It turns out that's where we had to actually get the safari/tram tickets, so it was actually a legitimate operation. We got back in the minivan and arrived safely at the safari a few minutes later, so it was all ok.

Entrance to the Night Safari

We opted to take the tram ride first, figuring it would provide us with a preview of the exhibits, then we could walk the trails later for a closer look at the animals. The safari had all sorts of creatures: flying squirrels, bats, small-clawed otters, fishing cats, rhinos, elephants, onyx, hyenas, Indian wolves, lions, Cape buffalo, crocodiles, capybaras, barking deer, lesser/greater mousedeer, porcupines, tapirs, and more, but it was nearly impossible to get even half-decent photos because the rule was no flash photography, which makes sense in terms of not disrupting the animals' night vision. Some of my better photos are below:

Flamingos!

Fruit bat, which scared the heck out of Mari

A gorgeous leopard, which unfortunately had a rather small enclosure

Serval cats, which turned out to be quite the camera-friendly posers =P

Giraffes, zebras, and an onyx (look carefully and you can see the baby giraffe in the back)

After walking all around the park, we tiredly caught a bus back to Little India and the Mitraa, quickly falling asleep because we had to get up early to catch our morning flight back to Macau. I would have liked more time to see things like the Bird Garden or explore Sentosa Island (apparently that could take a day by itself), but overall, Singapore was a great place to spend a long weekend =D