Category: Singapore

SG: Day 4/Sun Summary

(more details and photos to come)

Sunday in Singapore:

  • Returned to Clarke Quay to see it in the daytime – uninteresting and deserted
  • Firestation museum (?)
  • Armenian Church – it’s round! And was commissioned over a hundred years ago when there were only a dozen Armenian families in Singapore
  • Decided to skip the Peranakan Museum since I went to one in Penang
  • Latte and blogging (free wi-fi) at SoHo Cafe (see my other blog entry) as it started raining, hard!
  • Singapore Art Museum (SAM) with modern art exhibits
  • 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

SG: Day 5/Mon Summary

In a nutshell:

  • 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.

SG: finally had chilli crab

This is one of the “must do signature dishes.”

Sorry, totally overrated and overpriced. Don’t bother.

This guy cost me S$34/US$27 (it’s priced per kilo, generally S$50/kg = US$40/kg)

fyi, these crabs come from Sri Lanka. Actually most of the (sea)food is imported here.

Update: those are tourist prices. Apparently the place to go is small neighbourhood “coffee shops” that are known for crab (not necessarily chilli version).

SG: drizzly this morning, maybe no Indonesia?

I was going to pop over to Pulau Batam, Indonesia (a 45 minute ferry ride) for a few hours today, but not in this weather. Visa-on-arrival for US$10 for 7 days (slightly more for a longer visa) for many nationalities at many ferry terminals and airports in Indonesia.
Though it may clear up a bit around lunchtime, in which case it will still be doable…

This island was suggested by Singaporean Sue and her friends at dinner last night (no, she does not go by “Singaporean Sue”, that’s just how the sentence ran :-) since it’s a shorter ferry ride from a more convenient ferry terminal (vs the 2 hour ferry ride one-way I was considering to Pulau Bintan).

SG: Maifest in Singapore (Clarke Quay)

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.

SG: it is hot and humid

As in high of 32 C, feels like 42C. Low of 27 C !!!
(that’s hi 89 F feels like 107 F, low of 80 F for the Celsius-challenged)

Wow. Even in the evening – it doesn’t cool off nor get less humid (esp. compared to NYC/Toronto in the summer). thought it wouldn’t bother me, but wow.
A/C never felt so good. Especially after slogging up and down Mt Faber well, Mt is an exaggeration – really it’s a hill).

Today it was a little sunny this morning, which made it feel hotter (if not in the shade). And very humid. Then a nice refreshing pre-storm breeze kicked up and it was like god (little ‘g’) turned on the A/C – both the temp and humidity improved, even while it was pouring down. So I ducked into a cafe for this flavourful and colourful latte (and a little snack), and bonus, they had wi-fi. Yes, I did have my netbook with me – for all my complaints about it being slow, it is small and light, barely noticeable if I’m carrying a knapsack anyways.

Matcha Tea Latte at SoHo Coffee in the Colonial District

SG: back in Singapore, lazy morning

Did a little bit of blogging, eating and shopping this morning. Well, it’s 2pm now, how did that happen. I’d better get sightseeing…

In Mustafa, the huge 24-hour Indian department (mega-)store in Little India, they have funky imported foods (I bought some snacks and an Indian pizza slice), and random things like 3 rows of suits for 4-year-old boys (I’m guessing the age – i.e. they’re really small).

On the street I saw a “Remittance Kiosk” for Indian Overseas Bank, which clearly states it is not an ATM but only for remittances back home to India.

And I saw some serious laundry lines (poles?) on the apartment building above Tekka Centre, which houses a wet market (fresh fruit/veggie/meat/fish) and hawker stalls right next to Little India MRT.

While eating at the food court, I began to notice the Malaysian menu items, having just come back from Penang and learned a teeny bit of Malay (esp. food items). Ironically I saw the two items I was trying to find the previous day, teh narik (milk tea) and nasi lemak (rice in a coconut sauce with toppings).
Note: Malay is the largest ethnic group in Malaysia, and Malaysian is one of the 4 official languages (the others being English, Mandarin and Tamil).

Dr Sun Yat Sen – he’s everywhere!

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.

SG: MRT notes

Some MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) notes:

  • Not to be confused with MTR in Hong Kong :-)
  • Mostly everything a modern subway should be: goes everywhere, clean, air conditioned, wide concourses
  • Definitely buy an “ez link” transit smart card (there’s a S$5/US$4 non-refundable deposit), but after Macau, trust me, you really don’t want to futz with change and figuring out fares
  • Goes to Changi Airport (but not if you have a late arrival or a super early departure)
  • I like the way stations are named and numbered (and colour-coded) by the line designation, e.g. NE7 Little India is the 6th station on the purple NE (northeast) line.
  • mobile phones work in stations and trains
  • Does have washrooms in unpaid area of stations (unlike Hong Kong which is shameful), but they are very dirty
  • Full glass walls on the edge of the tracks; it occurred to me that besides the obvious safety benefits (can’t jump or be pushed by crowds onto the track), it makes air conditioning of the station platform area more efficient.
  • There is a local area map in the station, both in the main concourse and, what I find noteworthy, in the middle of the platform as well (this lets you head in the right direction off the platform, which would have have been more useful in Hong Kong since the platforms are twice as long and the exits more spread out)
  • Trains less frequent than Hong Kong – about every 5 minutes
  • The floor markings by the train doors have a really wide “let them off” marking, i.e. you Q on the side (Q = queue), unlike Hong Kong where the exit lane is about 1/3 the width of the doors (too narrow!)
  • Some lines indicate on which side the doors will open, some don’t

General related notes:

  • Cars drive on left side of the road (former British colony), just like in Hong Kong and Macau
  • Escalators in the MRT stations usually follow the same pattern, i.e. keep to the left, and you stand on the left on the escalator (in Hong Kong this was totally random)