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

Halloween in Singapore

I crammed all my midterm grading and student meetings into the past week so I could properly enjoy my first international Asian trip (HK doesn't count) this weekend. Destination: Singapore!

(An advance warning: this is going to be a LONG post, with lots of photos. If you don’t mind, keep reading =D) Along with Susan and Mari, I caught a late-night flight on Friday, arriving in Singapore around 1 AM local time. Tiger Airways was rather annoying in that they charged fees for as many things as they could think of (e.g. drinks on the plane), but the tickets were super-cheap (less than $200 USD round-trip) so I guess they have to make their profits from somewhere. Other than that, the flight was fairly smooth, so I managed to catch some shut-eye with my trusty (magenta) travel pillow.

The plane that would take us to Singapore

We had booked three beds at the Mitraa, a hostel in Little India, which was small but clean and welcoming. Even at 2 AM, the receptionist was quite cheerful, providing cups of water, showing us up to our rooms (third-floor walk-up) and running back downstairs to get blankets. Best of all, in the morning they provided breakfast: fruit, tea/coffee, and toast with your choice of butter, peanut butter, and/or Nutella!

Breakfast of champions?

Even though we were in the middle of Little India, we passed several Chinese shops and temples walking from the Mitraa to the Farrer Park MRT station. This was just one of the many indications of how well Singapore deals with its multi-cultural population compared to many other large cities: historically, there were different districts for different groups, but by now many of them have mixed together so it's completely natural for Chinese temples to be next to Hindu ones, or to see English/Chinese/Malay/Tamil on every public sign. Some photos of the temples near the Mitraa:

A Chinese temple...

And a Hindu one!

Our first stop was Orchard to get MRT tourist passes (yay for unlimited rides), but we were quite surprised when we finally came above ground:


Yeah, you're not seeing things. They were putting up Christmas decorations even before Halloween! I know some stores in the US are bad about skipping holidays too, but at least they usually wait until Thanksgiving to start putting up the snowmen and trees.

Our first bus ride was to the Singapore Botanical Gardens, where we especially wanted to check out the National Orchid Garden. To get to the orchids, though, we first had to get past the swan pond (not large enough to be called Swan Lake), people picnicking on the carefully-manicured grass, a few jungle-like areas, and the intriguing “Ginger Garden.”

The gate of the botanical garden

Swan lake, er, pond

One of the three resident swans

Entering the jungle…

In the Ginger Garden…

The National Orchid garden has thousands of species and hybrids, all carefully arranged for maximum visual impact. It was definitely the best possible way to spend $1 SGD (yay for a student discount!), and I wish we had a couple more hours to really go through the whole area and appreciate each uniquely beautiful bloom instead of rushing through. Of course, since Singapore is in a nice tropical climate, they thrive almost without needing care, so in many cases they probably need to be pruned more than fertilized. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves =)

Fountain at the entrance

A “black lily,” although it doesn’t quite live up to its name

Some of the many flower arches in the garden

The garden also had the only squirrel we’ve seen so far!

By 1:00 PM our stomachs were starting to growl, so we headed back toward downtown to look for a hawker center, having resolved to try as much local fare as possible. We eventually ended up by the Arab Quarter at Golden Mile Food Centre, which was visited (and praised) by Anthony Bourdain, so we figured it had to be pretty good. On the menu: fresh-pressed sugarcane juice, chicken/beef satay, and char kway teow, a classic Singaporean dish of rice noodles cooked with dark soy sauce, various meats, and other spices.

Squeezing sugarcane juice

Char kway teow

For dessert, we found a famous place for 湯 圓, aka glutinous rice balls (GRBs, as Susan calls them) with various fillings. Ah Balling definitely lived up to the positive press, as the GRBs were perfectly gooey without being too chewy, and the fillings (we tried red bean, peanut, and black sesame) were quite flavorful. Mari got quite excited about this new food, as you can see:

After such a filling meal, we walked around the Arab quarter, which included the largest mosque in Singapore, a whole street of gorgeous textiles, and also lots of Chinese curiosity shops, where there were interesting pieces like this soldier-themed chess set and dragon-shaped…candleholder?


We then walked back to the Raffles Hotel for a few photos, intending to catch the bus to the East Asian Civilizations museum, but we ended up taking an impromptu bus tour of Singapore because we didn’t want to get off in the monsoon-like rain.

Yeah, it was that bad.

Eventually, we made it to the museum, which had a lot of special events going on for Halloween, such as a witch making balloon animals, a costume contest, and this performance by the Red Queen Dance Project.

In general, the Asian Civilizations Museum has quite an impressive collection of art and cultural items that you probably won’t see anywhere else, especially many of the items from Southeast Asia that are too delicate to be moved elsewhere. As another Halloween special, admission to all the galleries was free, so I got to see things like these shadow puppets and this ceremonial shirt made of (believe it or not) pineapple leaf fibers!

The museum, all lit up for Halloween

Since lunch was late, we weren’t that hungry for dinner, so we just decided to sample some pratas at the Tekka Food Centre in Little India. I guess you could say they’re like the Indian version of crepes, but there are savory options as well as sweet. The egg and onion version was satisfying without being too heavy, especially with the yummy curry dipping sauce =D

There’s an appetizer at Bentara similar to this…

We hopped back to the hostel to don costumes: Susan dressed up as a butterfly in a garden, Mari as a vampiress, and myself as an angel, complete with fluffy/sparkly halo heh. All costume pieces found at the Macau Tower Toys 'r Us =P
We headed out to Clarke's Quay, a riverside bar/club area where they had a live band playing most of the night, plenty of Halloween-themed parties, and therefore lots of costumed revelers. We ended up not going into any of the clubs because they were already super-crowded by 11 PM, so we just got dessert/drinks at a bar and people-watched for a few hours, which turned out to be equally entertaining. There were all sorts of creative/non-PC costumes, including the old man/boy scout from Up, matching bumblebees, a six-foot-plus white guy in black shorts and fishnet stockings, and a bunch of "Mexicans" in ponchos and sombreros. Btw, my apologies to my friends from Singapore, but the Singapore Sling is one of the ickiest drinks I've ever had, and I'm not just being picky...it was like bubble gum gone wrong -_-

Clarke's Quay

The live concert (also note all the decorations)

We didn't want to stay out too late because we had plenty of plans for Sunday sightseeing, so we hopped a cab back to the hostel, spent some time scrubbing off costume makeup, and went to sleep. Next post - Singapore day 2!