Walked back through Bugis St area – surprising how walkably close these neighbourhoods are in central
Peeked in the Goddess of Mercy Hindu temple (no photos allowed)
Bought 2 little gadgets at Sim Lim Square electronics mall: a cigarette lighter USB adapter (S$6/US$5) and a phone recharger (S$20/US$16 – you can charge it with a USB cable, then you recharge your phone via the micro-USB plug; the latter one would have come in very handy earlier this trip when my smart phone battery died in the middle of the day!)
Enjoyed a seafood dinner at an outdoor hawker centre at the Esplanade on Marina Bay with Sue and her friends
Nasi Goreng for breakfast (rice in red spice), with teh tarik (milk tea) – both typical Malaysian
Balloon art in the form of children’s play area (temp exhibit in the atrium of the Central shopping centre near Clarke Quay
Clarke Quay in the daytime, with the funky glass roof over the pedestrian street
Statue in the gardens of the round, white Armenian Church
Chinese Business Association building
“Smash the cool, No. 6 (Death by the Most Holistic Influential Utopian Goals” by Louie Cordero, 2008 (in the SAM). Is that a cool title or what?
Lee Wen’s Yellow Man series (temp exhibit at the SAM)
Ping pong reinvented as a multi-player sport (part of temp exhibit at SAM)
Jolly Buddha statue in front of a shop in Bugis
Ready-to-go fruite juices in Bugis shopping arcade (mostly for S$1/US$0.80)
2 new gadgets: cell phone recharger (would have come in handy earlier in trip!) and cigarette lighter USB adapter
Walked along Orchard Road (2.7km long!), the big fancy shopping street (inc. all the major international brands). Unless you’re high end shopping, meh
It’s called Orchard Road because there used to be orchards and plantations here, including nutmeg trees
Tip: Check out the views from (and funky artwork on) the rooftop garden/terrace of Orchard Central mall (near the Somerset MRT); take the outdoor escalators up and the elevator back down.
Walked through the Singapore Botanic Gardens – excellent and highly recommended!
It’s quite large – 1.8km long, stretching between the far end of Orchard Road and the aptly named Botanic Gardens MRT.
I didn’t realize bananas were in the same family as ginger!
Took the monorail to Sentosa Island (from HarbourFront) and went to the “southernmost point of continental Asia” – which ironically is on a little island reached by a hanging foot-bridge. How is that part of the continent exactly? And it’s not quite off the southern tip of Sentosa Island either. But hey, that’s where the self-proclaiming signboard is…
Was invited into Sue’s home (from dinner previous night) to see what a local government subsidized apartment/condo looks like. Surprisingly large and quite nice
Neighbourhood was great too, and Sue explained about how these things work.
Met Ellen for dinner at Newton Circus – the hawker stall near Newton MRT – where amongst other things I had the chilli crab
Hopped in a taxi to Little India to buy an alarm clock at Mustafa, since I have a very early flight on Wed morning
Tip: check out gothere.sg for directions between any 2 places in Singapore: it gives you options including time and cost for bus, train+bus and taxi (and car driving directions too).
The taxi fare option was quite handy, though it doesn’t take the many surcharges into account (like certain time-of-day). Fancy website with map or smart phone version too.
Tree-lined Orchard Road high-end shopping street
Giant nutmeg sculpture on Orchard Road (nutmegs were one of the orchards/plantations that used to be here and gave the road its name)
Funky artwork on the rooftop terrace/garden of Orchard Central mall
Flowering ginger plant in the Botanical Gardens (bananas are related!)
Nice sculpture in Botanical Gardens
Another flowering ginger
Map sign showing southernmost point of continental Asia
Southernmost Point fo continental Asia, on Sentosa Island
Sue hamming it up during our walk along a canal-side park connector (trail)
Last night I checked out Clarke Quay, which is a popular, modern resto/bar area on the Singapore River. Expensive food and drinks, although Happy Hour helps a bit. S$10/US$8 for a beer bottle, really?
And do we really need a Hooters there (an “American Concept Restaurant”) according to the info map of Clarke Quay. This is wrong on several levels 😉
Picture a square with an X drawn between the corners (i.e. divided into four triangles). Two of the outer sides of the square are on the river, and in the middle of the square is a big courtyard. Along all the lines are restos and bars. That’s Clarke Quay. Also a funky reverse bungee jump thingee, with a 3-person seat that slings out over the river.
Anyways, It happened to be the second of two nights of Maifest, a German spring celebration, complete with dirndl-wearing Asian hostesses, a band (doing American rock n roll) and, to their credit, signs explaining about this tradition. This was in the centre courtyard of the Clarke Quay complex.
Riverside part of Clarke Quay viewed from other side of the river (lots more bars/restos in the outdoor complex)
Maifest in centre of Clarke Quay complex
Asian hostess in dirndl
Octapas (Malaysian spelling of Octopus) resto – didn’t eat there on Clarke Quay, I just liked the logo
Well, just about everywhere there are significant Chinese population, it would seem (recall he is the founder of “modern China” who overthrew the last Chinese emperor).
There are monuments/memorials/roads/historical sites in honour of Dr Sun Yat Sen in Taipei (Taiwan), Maui (Hawaii, USA), Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Penang (Malaysia)!
Given the large Chinese community in Toronto, I just googled it and found this memorial statue in Riverside Park.
Downpour and cold. Put the damper on shopping in the market.
Because I travelled light today and didn’t bring my umbrella to Stanley near the south end of the island.
HK$9.9/US$1.15 one way by minibus, 15km and 30min for the route I took.
Saw some other seaside towns and beaches on the way.
I hadn’t realized how mountainous the entire island actually is.
Dropped off laundry around the corner. Even though they spoke English, I’m not sure what the price is – it sounded expensive as I wasn’t sure if she was quoting me a per-pound price or not (it turned out to be reasonable, HK$42/US$5.40 for a few pounds of laundry, possibly up to 7 pounds).
Ate tasty dim sum at a resto called Dimdimsum Dim Sum Specialty that I found on openrice (a user resto review site, like Yelp) in Mong Kok (Kowloon). By oneself is not the optimal way to enjoy dim sum, as it’s meant to be shared, but I won’t let that stop me.
Walked around Tsum Sha Tsui a bit and stumbled on the (in)famous Chungking Mansion, a group of highrise apartment buildings that contain a lot of cheap guesthouses and hostels. I’m glad I chose Causeway Bay, even if my room more expensive. Area feels a little dodgy, but most annoying are the Indian touts (“SIM card!?”) who get a little too in your face compared to the rest of the city. The ground floor of the mansion is like walking through Little India (inc. Indian food) where you can apparently buy just about anything you want… That and there is only one little elevator for about 8 floors), which makes it very slow, especially when people have luggage. Interestingly, a monitor on the ground floor next to the elevators showed the elevator-cam images.
HK Space Museum – interesting exhibits, though I only perused the ground floor. It was free museum entrance day (Wednesday), so it was probably busier than usual and I didn’t wait in lines for the little interactive things. I’d go back and spend more time there on a future trip.
Avenue of Stars – like Hollywood Boulevard (i.e. stars and hand/foot prints of local movie stars embedded in the sidewalk) but much more scenic, as it is on the waterfront promenade looking directly south over the harbour at “Hong Kong” (vs Kowloon). There is also a statue of Bruce Lee (the only statue of an artist).
HK Museum of Art – skimmed this since it was free (you’d have to be an art junkie to appreciate it more, I think, or have specific art interests that match their collection)
I did a 1hr45min buffet dinner cruise harbour tour (which I had bought on groupon.co’s HK site a week before my trip). I chose the 17:45 sailing since I wanted to see both day and night views of Hong Kong and Kowloon. It was sprinkling a bit, but the view was still good and I got to see more than just on the ferry crossing, as it went deeper into
the harbour. The buffet was better than I expected from reviews, with lots of seafood. The boat was only 1/4 full – I’d hate to see the buffet lines if it was completely full. Oh and a live “band consisting of a guy on keyboards, a tambourinist (is that a word?) and a singer, playing recognizable Western songs, albeit a little lounge lizardy.
I sat at a round 10 person table with 2 nice Filipino women (and the
daughter of one of them) who have been living in HK for 20 years, both married to locals. They were supposed to be a bigger group of coworkers, but a few people couldn’t make it. They even bought me 2 drinks, which was a pleasant surprise.
A few dim sum dishes
Elevator monitors in Changking Mansion showing inside of the elevators
Me on southern tip of Kowloon
Bruce Lee statue on Avenue of Stars
Jackie Chan’s star on Avenue of Stars
Funky painting “the break (la rupture)” in temporary exhibit near Avenue of Stars
Bride posing with her bridesmaids (or friends?)
Kowloon at east end of harbour (from dinner cruise)
So I’m sitting in a Pacific Coffee Company cafe on The Peak, enjoying a latte at 9:00 with an incredible view of the city. But let’s back up a few hours…
I guess I’m still not adjusted to the timezone change, though I thought I was doing moderately ok.
Last night I fell asleep at 22:00 but woke up at 4:45 and couldn’t get back to sleep. After reading a bit, I left my hotel around 6:00 and walked to the Golden Bauhinia statue commemorating reunification (return of HK to China). This statue is on the waterfront in front of the HK Convention & Exhibition Centre. The water front is being further revitalized (in a good way – parks and open spaces and performance places) from Wan Chai to North Point.
Then I had a little dim sum on a side street in Wan Chai. Small place, full of locals, and no English on he menu. I sat at a communal table with 5 older men who didn’t speak any English. I asked for a Set A while pointing at the wall menu, though I’m not sure he understood, as what I received had a different price. Oh well, it’s not like I knew what I’d be getting in the set anyways – I just picked the more expensive one (though still under US$5) in the hopes of it being higher quality contents.
I ended up with shu mai (pork dumplings) and chicken on a rice bowl, plus tea of course. The damage: HK$31/US$4.
Then I took a tram to Central and walked through the length of Hong Kong Park (bigger, hillier and greener than I though, as I had only seen a little bit of it a few days earlier) on my way to The Peak tram station. It’s not really a tram per se, more of a cable car, and was built in 1888!
Tip: use your Octopus card for the ticket instead of buying one from the counter (hmm, I wonder if I could have bypassed the hour-long line last Sunday?), as then you don’t need to decide if you want a round-trip ticket or not (you can take a bus back, or even walk if you’re feeling particularly active and in hiking mode). Once up on The Peak, I see there is a 1 hour walk around the peak, or a 2.5 hour walk to the University in the western Mid-Levels, which happens to be where I’m heading for lunch to meet David. Not sure I want to walk that far in flip flops (though I have done that before), though it would stop some backtracking.
Anyways, The Peak is very commercial (albeit quiet and nearly empty at this early hour, in fact most shops and restos are closed). Though the cafes, including this one and St@rbucks and McC@fe, are all open. There are an upscale shopping mall and expensive restos. And nearby on the peak are expensive houses (including one that sold for US$67MM in 1997, according to the tourist info board).
You have killer views over the harbour (towards Kowloon and the mountains behind it), as well as to the west towards the islands – I can see Cheung Chau Island (where I went on Sunday) and Lantau Island (with its peaks) behind it.
Unfortunately it’s hazy so hard to get a clear picture further into the distance.
Golden Bauhinia statue commemorating return of HK to China
Rode the MTR north into the New Territories to see 500 year old Kat Hing Wai walled village (approx 110m squared) + walked around the nearby neighbourhood (inc. a second walled village across the street – in-town rivals?)
Enjoyed that tasty walled village lunch (poached fish) near Long Ping
Walked around Tai Kiu Market and bought several food items (this one will definitely get its own post soon)
Lei Cheung Uk Tomb near Cheung Sha Wan
After a little rest (and shower) in my hotel, went to Tsim Sha Stui to meet couchsurfer Tony+friends for a light dinner and interesting conversation
As a bonus, watched the Symphony of Lights from the parking garage rooftop of Harbour City Mall where I met Tony
Drove a few minutes (yes, got to ride in their car) to Jordan area for a tasty but hot Szechuan dinner (I’ve never seen so many 1cm chunks of chilli peppers in a dish, and apparently that’s half the usual amount!)
I didn’t know you could pay for the parking meter with the Octopus card, which seems counter-intuitive until you realize it’s not a transit pass as much as a stored value card primarily for the transit
Entrance to Kat Hing Wai walled village
Walled Village from the main road
Stephen, Tony and I with Hong Kong Festival of Lights in background
OMG, look at all those chilli peppers!
Update: surprisingly I didn’t have an upset stomach the next morning from all those chilli peppers.
Noonday Gun (viewed from across the street – too long a walk around the busy street and construction)
Walked through Victoria Park – huge with lots of sports fields (inc. 6 concrete soccer pitches)
Tin Hau temple (most important one of many, but I found it disappointing visually)
Lunch at Delicious Kitchen in Causeway Bay
Architecture walk in Admiralty and Central
Drank stocking tea (actually yuangyang – mixed with coffee) and French Toast with Kaya in Central
Rode up the covered escalators to the Mid-levels (15 minutes one way!) and walked all the way back down.
The Mid-levels are the residential area partly up The Peak. Saw quite a few expats riding up, going home after work.
The escalator runs downhill from 6-10, then uphill from 10-24, then closed during the night (there are partially covered stairs/walkways next to it for the opposite direction).
Picture a long raised walkway snaking its way through the neighbourhood, between buildings and up the hill.
Enjoyed a happy hour drink at a bar in Lan Kwai Fong (mainland Chinese tourists took my photo)
Temple Street Night Market between Yau Ma Tei and Jordan MTR
Dinner in market: deep fried mantis shrimp – messy but good!
Tin Hau Temple (near the Tin Hau MTR :-)
Funky Fashion Walk sculpture in Causeway Bay
Lippo Centre building looks like koalas hugging a tree
