(more details and photos to come)
Well, the 3rd full day, i.e. Saturday, ignoring the 3 days/2 nights in Penang:
- Went back to Mustafa dept store to look for a specific gift and discovered their grocery store upstairs so I bought some funky food items and ate a slice of Indian pizza
- Checked out the Sim Lim Square electronics mall (just off the edge of Little India), to see if I could get my phone fixed (I’d rather reformat it when I get home than have a stranger do it – there wasn’t a quick fix) and to peek at new phones (like the HTC One X but it doesn’t come with an NFC chip here)
I did end up buying a little mobile phone recharger (S$20/US$16; it has a micro USB plug to stick into your phone – this would have been super handy on this trip, at least before my phone died) and a USB cigarette lighter adapter (S$/6/U$5). - Enjoyed a Cuttlefish Hang Kong Bee Hoon (S$3/US$2.40) at the Bugis St Hawker Center
- Walked through the crowded Bugis St Market, where I enjoyed a large cup of wheatgrass juice for S$1/US$0.80 (other fruit juices available, mostly at that price, some at a premium)
- Walked around Kampong Glam (kampong = village, glam = a particular tree), including Arab St and Haji Lane (better seen at night when it’s busy, esp the shisha places), and the cafe-and-Turkish-resto-lined pedestrian road leading to the Sultan Mosque (which of course had just closed to visitors for the day).
- Stopped in Chinatown to search for something I saw the other day but of course couldn’t find it
- Took the MRT to Pasir Panjang to do the 4km Southern Ridges 10km trail walk back to Mt Faber. I ended up eating some cockles (S$5/US$4 for a small plate which was too much food for one person) at the hawker market next to the MRT (pretty much every neighbourhood has a hawker market, usually close to the MRT station).
- By this time it was getting towards sunset, so I decided to hop one MRT station closer (Labrador Park) to Mt Faber to shorten my hike. This is at the west end of a golf course, and I could see an HP building (augghh!) across the road.
- I ended up walking through what must be a middle class neighbourhood, peaceful wide boulevards with large canopy trees, singing birds, and lots of apartment buildings that aren’t squeezed tightly together.
- After about 15 minutes I made it to the south park system, having seen some sunset colour between the buildings. Oops.
- At this point it was getting dark, but I decided to go into the park anyways, as there were still people around and some lights on the paved trail.
- Crossed the Henderson Wave Bridge (turns out Telok Blangah MRT station was close to that – had I gone there, I would have had a great sunset!), which is a funky curvilinear bridge with wood-strip decking, curved bench/shade areas, and the biggest collection of people-with-cameras-on-tripods I’ve ever seen.
- Continued up the hill to Mt Faber, with great views of the city lit up at night, past the Jewel Box (the name of the gondola station, which heads to HarbourFront and Sentosa Island), then down the dark steps with my mini keychain flashlight (along with an Estonian guy I met on the trail) – the sign did warn that this path wasn’t lit and to take the road, but I’m sure that would have taken a few minutes longer
- Stopped at Clarke Quay before going home
Aside: I saw 2 Maseratis and 1 Ferrari today…
