The evening of my second day in S’pore, was spent wandering around Tanjong Pagar and Chinatown. I quite liked this area in this city, it reminded me of the Soho area in London. Only, in my opinion, not as happening as Soho — specially on a Saturday night.
I was wondering what and where to eat for dinner. Though I had a few places on my list, I wanted to try something typically Singaporean. That’s when I found a Hawker Centre near me - Maxwell Food Centre.
More than the food, I found the pun signage in this hawker centre a lot more interesting. For example…
Why not buy some bread at Bread Pitt or some soy drink at Mr. Bean? They really love their puns… expect more in future posts.
Apart from the puns… I found this menu quite interesting…
Frog Congee anyone, for S$8? Maybe if I was with someone, I would have been inclined to try it. But because I was alone, and had never tried Frogs Legs Soup ever… I decided to skip this one… for now. The other stalls didn’t offer much, which I hadn’t already tried — typically Asian food. Had I come here straight from Europe deprived of the stuff… it would have been a different story. However, I did find something that tickled my taste buds…
Pandan Coconut Balls. I bought two pieces (self-control put to a test here!), and enjoyed every bit of it! Unfortunately, that was all the food experience I did in that place, that night.
I walked up the streets of Chinatown with my map and uncomfortable shoes. Trying to get my bearings and trying to find the places I wanted to check out in this area. I went a whole round trying to find the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, only to find out that if I walked straight out of my hotel for a few minutes, I would have seen it instantly.
It’s an extraordinary sight/site, and I am glad I got to see it at night all lit up. If I may digress, I also liked the fact it was along Sago St. (Tapioca Pearls in Tagalog, and used in a lot of local drinks) tee-hee. This temple is a Buddhist temple in the middle of Chinatown, designed in the traditional Tang Dynasty. I didn’t manage to go inside this temple (or any other temples in my trip as a matter of fact), however, the main attraction of this temple is a tooth relic of Buddha. It is placed in a two meter high stupa made of pure gold. In China, The Tang Dynasty is seen as the ‘golden ages’ of Buddhist art. Why is it called “Buddha Tooth Relic Temple though? Well, I read somewhere that Buddhist texts reveal that Buddha left behind four wisdom tooths and 40 tooth relics for the succeeding generations. Due to the religious significance of temples with relics they played an important role in spreading Buddhist beliefs.
A few meters away is yet another temple. The Sri Mariamman Temple — it’s the oldest (dating back to 1843) and first Hindu temple in Singapore, surprisingly enough, located in Chinatown. A sight to see both day AND night. The craftsmanship and maintenance of this building is remarkable. The temple is built in Dravidian style of architecture. Meaning, typically a pyramid shaped structure, which has intricately carved stones of deities, warriors and kings. The temple is dedicated to the goddess Mariamman, known for curing illnesses and diseases.
After feeding my sense of sight… it was now time to feed my sense of taste, for I was starving. Still not knowing what I really wanted… I wandered into back streets hoping to find something that would appeal to me. But then I got side track with two cool shops on Ann Siang Road. One of them I knew I wanted to check out, it was called Style Nordic. Everything Scandinavian (except the people working in it). The second shop was (surprise, surprise) — a bookshop.
My hunger had to wait, I had to check out this independent-retro, soho-like bookshop. I absolutely love that fact that they didn’t even have a sign for the shop. Just a scribble on the glass door with some black marker. The place was extremely cozy, surrounding me with books — better yet… my sort of books! I find books in Singapore quite expensive. So I had to sigh, and leave and then realize I was still starving.
I ended up walking to Club Street. I could hear a bar with what I think were drunken tourists, singing shouting to Mr. Brightside of The Killers on karaoke… “Jealousy, turning saints into the sea…swimming through sick lullabies…choking on your aaaaaalibis…” and I though — eerrr, no. So I found myself a quite place to dine (a little tooo quite)… I was the only one in the restaurant and this was a Saturday night!
At Eden Cafe, ironically enough their slogan is “where it all begins”, sadly enough for me is where it ended, having Saffron Salmon with Mushroom. The place, which again was recommended by the Singaporean blogger, which again, I must have ordered the wrong thing. Or was everything just tasting bitter because I was having to dine alone?
My feet were killing me and I decided that I wasn’t going to walk up and down this hilly area back to my hotel. I hailed a cab, and asked how much it was back to the hotel. Thinking it would be S$2.30 max, as it was very near (by taxi, not by painful shoes). But the driver replied S$8, and I said no thank you, and got out the taxi. It was S$8 from Orchard Road to my hotel. So I walked it. Slowly, but painfully.
Admittedly, this was a low end (only time in this trip) to the evening (not even going to disclose how pathetic the rest of the evening went).
I have to interrupt my holiday blog posts, and blog about this item I read on the Guardian.
The excerpt below particularly caught my attention…
Visa problems
Goa’s British residents also feel that getting or renewing an Indian visa has become much more difficult since the UK government reversed its visa policy towards highly skilled migrants from India two years ago. New Delhi, they believe, is playing tit for tat. “They’ve got us like a puppet on a string,” said Tracy. “My whole life depends on my visa. But if you have a British passport, at best you get a one-year visa. And to get it renewed you’ve to keep flying back to London, and beg on bended knees. Even then they make you feel you’ve done something wrong.”
They don’t know shhhh about Visa problems! No idea what the rest of the world has to go through!
So day two of my trip started with me waking up to a room smelling like I had a smoker for a roommate. I wasn’t happy about that specially because I specified that I wanted a double bed, which I didn’t get (let that slide) and I specified a non-smoking room/floor, didn’t get that either. I was determined not to let things get to me and just enjoy what I could.
I went to have my first swim. At 7 am it was deserted. I was quite happy that I had the place to myself, only there were no life guards, no hotel staff in the area — nothing! It kind of freaked me out (28 Days Later-esque). I wandered around the area, looking where I could change and get a towel. I found the changing rooms eventually, but still no towels. I manage to spot some towels in the gym (that too was deserted), but when I unfolded the towel it was slightly bigger than a hand towel. I guess that’ll do, better than nothing, I thought. After a few laps (widthwise and not lengthwise — the pool beautiful as it may be, freaked me out), I towelled myself off and rested on the lounge chairs. I then saw a fellow guest pull out a proper sized towels in a glassed cabinet at the pool-side bar. I eventually got up, took my stuff and my bruised ego back to my room and got ready for breakfast.
After having a great breakfast, on my way up to my room, the concierge greeted me and asked me how everything was. I said everything was going great (and it was) but told him about the problem regarding the smell of the room. He asked me if I would like to be moved. I told him I would be very pleased if he could manage it. He returns to me to me and says “I can give you a new room Madame, how long will you need to pack?”. Fantastic! Within 15 minutes I was packed and moved to a new room. With no stench of smoke, a better view, but still — twin beds.
I decided that for day two I would go back to Orchard Road and spend the morning shopping. Only, I got out of the Orchard Rd Station, walked a few blocks and then it started to piss down with rain.
It went from this:
To this within minutes!
Not a good day to be wearing a skirt and sandals, the puddles of water make it hard for me to walk! Anyhoo, I managed to back track and seek shelter first in Massimo Dutti. I wanted to check it out anyway. I eventually had to leave that store because I was dripping all over the place! The only next place for me to seek shelter was a bleeding Starbucks! I was stuck in there for about an hour, waiting for the rain to calm down. I sat in there thinking, off all the bloody places to be stuck on a holiday! When the heavy rain turned into drizzles, I went back to Wheelock Place (from the day before). I wanted to have a better look at what shops were there and found that they had quite a few unique shops. Roaming the very cool conical building I went up the escalator, which was going up in a curving fashion. Way cool! I saw this shop called Snails, I was very tempted to get my nails done. It was different from going to your usual salon. Everything about it yelled - PAMPER! But my wallet yelled back - 75 SG DOLLARS?!?!!! Maybe next time…
The rain had stopped so I moved on to the next mall — Wisma Atria. Shops and more shops! Most of them were shops from London, enough to make you go insane! But I wasn’t winning in the shopping front, and I realized that it was time for lunch. I had heard about Food Republic, again from blogs. It’s basically a food court, only much nicer in my opinion. I couldn’t decide where to eat and what to eat. The queues were rather long, so I ended up having Unagi Maki… Not a Singaporean meal… but when you are tired and hungry, anything will do.
After a going in and out a few shopping centers, I ended up at Paragon. This became my favorite place in SG to shop and but mostly window shop. Most of the brands are high-end, but you do have a few non high-end brands. The best part is that it has one of my favorite shops in London — MUJI!!
Exploring Paragon, I ended up at the basement food court, which is where I was re-united with my childhood. There used to be a stall called Orange Julius in one of the supermarkets. And they had the best orange juice shake and hotdogs in town. There would always be queues. I decided to give it ago, wondering if it tasted like it did when I was a child. I hate to say it, but it did!
I left Paragon, and wondered off to another mall which I later found out was called The Heeren. There was a crowd gathered around a stage. I am not one to check these things out, but I saw this ‘woman‘ dancing to Madonna’s music. I realized that she was a guy. This sight made me laugh and amused for reasons I don’t know why. But I left and went into HMV, but then was drawn back out and realized it was a dance off.
There was something about the vibe of this event, that didn’t make me roll my eyes it like normally would. It was making everyone smile, it made me smile that’s for sure. Check out this young Indian guy’s feet! He dances like Michael Jackson!
I had left the Heeren and decided that today, apart from a few Muji purchases, was not a shopping day. Shopping for clothes in SG was hard, unless you are skeletal, clothes just don’t fit right. I had to throw in the towel (yes the one from this morning’s swim), and slowly call it a day. I was tired. But a happy tired. There was something about the vibe that afternoon that was just so lively but relaxed. I literally had a smile plastered on my face. Walking like a mad woman smiling for no reason. While walking, something else that I saw was was making me laugh.
There was a media crew walking a few paces ahead of me trying to get men to take off their shirts. For what reason or what they were promoting, I don’t have a clue. A few young men were quite willing to do so, and some walked away in embarrassment. But there was a middle age Turkish man who was approach and was only but willing to take his shirt off! It is only in London that I used to see this crazy and funny things on the street. I didn’t bother to wait to see him take his shirt off and I wasn’t planning to photograph it as well! So I entered one of the funkiest buildings on Orchard Rd…
It’s a place dedicated for tourist who wants any information about tourism in Singapore. What to do in the evenings, how to plan your holiday, booking for things, wall to wall of brochures and maps in different languages! Really smart.
I was really tired at this point, my feet were really killing me and I decided that I would take the taxi home. A new experience. I got a taxi within minutes. There is a part in Orchard Rd where taxi’s queue up to take passengers. I got in and told the driver where I was staying. I got a really nice taxi driver, he asked me if I was on holiday and asked me if I had been on the Singapore Flyer. I said, no but that I was planning to. And he replied by saying “What’s wrong with you! You are a very slow tourist!” hahahaha!!!! I responded by saying that I was a woman and that I did the shopping bit first. He gave me the most brilliant tip about going on the Singapore Flyer. He said, “Go at around 7 - 7:15 in the evening. It will still be daylight but by the time you reach the top you will have the reached the night view, so you get to see both day and night views”. That was really smart! He then whipped out his mobile phone and handed it to me and said “Here watch…” and it was a clip of when he was on the flyer!
While he drove he was gave me a bit of background about the area I was staying in, and I decided, that the rest of the evening, I would go around Tanjong Pagar and the Chinatown area. He dropped me off at the hotel, and earnestly wished me a great holiday.
I have been back for over a week now, and the holiday ‘hangover’ is sadly over. Gone are my mornings, waking up and having a dip in the pool, eating buffet breakfasts, and the concierge helping me plan my day and constantly being referring to as - Madame. Such decadence is so easy to get used to! This is why, I think I must begin blogging about my trip. Apart from sharing my experience, it will be a good way for me to relive the experiences all over again… sigh. Cue in daydream music.
Before I start reminiscing about my trip. I can’t stress enough how fantastic this holiday was. Thinking about it now, I wondered if I made it all up in my head or was it really that great? I don’t know if it was my granddad looking out for me or what… but everyday was perfect and nothing ever went wrong. I seriously wasn’t used to it. Even the weather was on my side! I seriously think it was Daddy. Ok now you can cue in daydream music.
The plane ride to Singapore was really annoying I must say. I got duped by these Fil women with regards to my seat. I sat through the first hour of the plane ride utterly crossed and had visions of beating the woman beside me with my book. But I managed to calm down and thought, yes Karma will take care of this — and Karma did instantly. My name is Monica. Thankfully, arriving in S’pore changed whatever bad taste I had at the start of my journey.
I arrive at Changi Airport and it feels like a cross between Hong Kong airport and Heathrow. Only, not as chaotic and crowded. You can’t help but feel really welcome in their country. There are information desks for you turn to, there are maps, and a ton of brochure for you to pick up to help you find your way around the city as well as what you can do in their city. Queueing at immigration, which is what I hate most about airports because they always make you feel like you are a criminal even if you aren’t one and then you start thinking of excuses of the imaginary crime you didn’t commit. However in this case, it wasn’t that way at all. It was extremely relaxed and no aggro, obviously they were firm but more on being professional rather than — “I know you have spent over a thousand dollars and have travelled 18 hours, but why should I let you in to my country!”. In this case, they even have a small bowl of mint for you at the immigration officer’s booth, should you need to freshen you breath when meeting the person waiting for you. Have I died and gone to heaven? Sensibility and Logic, is that you?! Civilization I have arrived!
After 5 minutes, I had collected my luggage and spotted the duty free perfume shop. My plane landed early, so I decided to have a look around. When I looked at a few items, the sales assistant approached me and asked me if I needed any help. I said that I was fine, and that I was just trying to compute how much it costs back home. She instantly whipped out a calculator which was connected to her somehow along with a kind smile. It was my first interaction with a Singaporean and already I was loving the place. After I had made my purchases (which was such a steal!), I asked her where the money changers were and where the MRT was located. She happily pointed it out to me and told me to enjoy my stay in Singapore.
There were only two money changer banks in the airport and they are side by side, just like my family friend advised me. I had a peep and both rates, and couldn’t suss out which was a better deal. I went with the one which had the most people. They changed my money and then I asked them, where I could buy a pre-paid mobile sim card (the hi card). They said that they sold them as well. So the next thing I know, I am handing over my phone to her, so that she can pop the sim in and she did all the activating for me. On top of all that, I got a very tasteful present from Singtel for loading my phone with them.
I walk out the airport and immediately I hear my friend call out my name. I didn’t expect her to be there, but it was kind of her to make the effort. First thing I did was get myself an EZ link card. It is pretty much like an Oyster card, only you don’t buy it weekly or monthly. You just load it with however much you want. And at the end of your trip, should you wish to give up your EZ link card, you get reimbursed SG$3 for it. We got on the MRT and it was over-ground for the first 15 mins of it. And I could see how different everything was from when I last there (many many years ago).
Tanjong Pagar Station, I have arrived! Coming out of the station it was a 5 min walk to my hotel. Check-in was straight forward. The hotel was what I had hoped for. The only disappointment was that, I really had hoped for a double bed instead of a twin. Bloody twin beds will be the bane of my life!! After I had settled down, it was time to go to Toa Payoh to get my laptop repaired. Getting to Toa Payoh by MRT was not a problem, however, getting to the shop was another story. We had to buy a bus guide because we didn’t know which bus stop to get off at. Even with a bus guide, it wasn’t easy. So we told the bus driver if he could please stop where we needed to be. Unfortunately, the bus driver completely forgot that he had to stop for us, and he had passed the bus station. He was laughing but said we should have reminded him! haha! What a silly goose! Anyway, we got off and walked back one bus stop and asked for directions. The place wasn’t scary, although it was at the back of beyond! They took in my laptop and it was time to get lunch or dinner.
We headed to Orchard Rd. It was nothing like I remembered it to be. Not really knowing where I wanted to go, I was really just taking everything in. We were both wilting from hunger and needing something to keep us going. So we stopped and had some ice cream. Only, it was not what I expected. It wasn’t on a cone, or a cup. But you could either have it in between white bread or in between wafers. Needless to say, I picked the latter one, and was adventurous enough to go with Durian flavour. It was my first taste of S’pore. Deee-lish!
Fantastic thing about Orchard Rd, is that along the whole stretch there are benches for you to sit on. So you can always rest in between mad shopping sprees. Or in my case, enjoy an ice cream.
Before leaving for S’pore, I had read pretty much the whole guide book, geekily studied the map of the city and had it pre-mapped in my head, made a list (sadly on excel) of the places I wanted to see and things I wanted to do and shops I wanted to go to. So I was pretty much oriented where things were. While walking we passed malls/shops that were on my list, I knew I’d have to go back on my own. I also knew we were close to Wheelock Place. I had wanted to check Borders and eat at the restaurant called Cedele. I had heard of Cedele from a Singaporean blogger.
I had a Lentil Spinach Burger with Chutney sauce. What I had was good, but not to die for. I perhaps didn’t order the right thing. At any rate, it was very interesting and perhaps I will go back soon and try something else.
After the whole adventure of the day, going around shops and having a lovely meal with my friend. It was time to call it a night (Btw, it was only starting to go dark at 7pm over there). It wasn’t too late, but I was starting to feel tired and I wanted to be rested for the next day.
On that note, I end this post. Until the next day, that I SIN…
