Jan 26 (Mon): Arrived in Singapore in the evening via Manila. Arrived late, staying in Geylang, Singapore’s red light district. After dropping off our bags at our hotel, we followed the Geylang Food Safari (also see my Singapore Google Map for "Geylang Food and Red Light District Tour" line). For starters, Geylang should probably never be the first place to see in Singapore for a good first impression – it’d be like seeing East Hastings in Vancouver. The streets are dirty and at night are crowded with men and working girls. But Geylang does have a lot of eateries or “coffee houses”, and the hotels are cheap... and probably all offer by-the-hour room rentals. Anyway, it’s hectic and just takes some getting used to. We settled down at one of the many mini food courts and had a curry fish head, a Singaporean dish. Fairly spicy, but still tolerable even for someone who isn’t big on spicy foods. As a nice mix of fish, eggplant, and other veggies, this was one of the tastier foods we had. There was a lot of eating on this trip, and this was just the start. Durian is a big seller in Geylang, and I kind of regret not eating some – even if there are few foods that smell worse.
Jan 27 (Tues): We started off busing from our hotel to Little India (Map: see "Little India Tour"). Breakfast was mutton masala and chappati, eaten with our fingers of course. In the morning, before getting cluttered with people, Little India’s street are very clean. The buildings there are colorful, and it’s hard to really tell what style they’re based upon. We found the same type of look and feel in Chinatown a few days later. We spent some time walking around Mustafa Center, a huge huge department store that sells everything – but we decided to return at night because we wanted to pick up some Indian spices and curries to bring back to Taiwan. Just walking around Little India all morning was enough for sore feet – and we ended up at Zam Zam Restaurant, famous for their murtabaks (roti prata with eggs, onions, meat, and spices). Unfortunately, ZZ was sort of an anti-climax, because I found murtabaks too similar to the 抓餅s in Taiwan – and it was less flavorful than the mutton masala we had in the morning. But I guess it’s a "been there, done that" kind of thing.
After lunch, we went through Bugis Village and spent a couple of hours at the Singapore Art Museum which had an open house that day and was free to visitors. Score! More walking followed (Map: see Singapore City Tour) taking us past Chijmes (what’s here anyway?), Raffles Hotel, St. Andrew’s Cathedral, the War Memorial Park, the old Parliament building (now called The Art House), the new Parliament House, the Singapore River, Fullerton Hotel, and through to Merlion Park.
This walking tour through Singapore’s city center really displays what you’d expect going to Singapore: fantastic buildings that bring together European and modern architecture and spotlessly clean streets. It’s great to see so many buildings with unique styles – very unlike Vancouver where not enough money is invested into adding character into architectural design. We had dinner at the large food court Lau Pa Sat and MRTed back to Mustafa Center for Indian foods to take up some luggage space.
This was the day we did the most walking – probably a good 15+ kms, with lots of standing around in between. Tired feet. Tired feet.
Jan 28 (Wed): Having done a lot of city sightseeing, it was time to switch gears. With no tourism originality, we went to Sentosa in the morning to Underwater World.
I should mention that we did the cable cars both to and from Singapore and Sentosa. I read online before going that it was recommend, but I wouldn't recommend it. The S$11 one way or S$12 round trip is better spent elsewhere. But since we had to walk 5 – 10 mins to get to the cable car station before we saw the prices, we still went through with it anyway because it was recommended, and because I didn’t want to walk back to the monorail station, where ever it was. You don’t see much on the cable cars anyway, and the on-going construction at the harbour isn’t very sightly – you’ll have a hard time finding things to take pictures of while you’re up there. At S$23 per head, Underwater World’s not cheap either. But if you’re going to play tourist, you might as well do what tourists do. Following 3.5 hrs in Sentosa for Underwater World and the Dolphin Lagoon, we went to Chinatown (Map: see "Chinatown and Elgin Bridge").
We passed through Clarke Quay (photo) very quickly, and caught a late afternoon bus to the Singapore Night Safari.
Again, S$32 per person qualifies the Night Safari as a tourist trap, but it was enjoyable when you ignore the hole in your wallet. Seeing huge flying squirrels and bats up close and personal was kind of neat, but the best part was probably a performance by Borneo tribal troupe which included some of the best fire-blowing I’ve ever seen. We reached the hotel after midnight, but not before getting some mee goreng and a dosai to go.
Jan 29 (Thurs): We had a late start to the morning trying to find a currency exchange, and looking for the No Signboards Seafood Restaurant – whose location I wrongly remembered. We finally settled for some more Indian food and Singaporean pan-fried white radish cake for lunch. Then we took a bus to the Changi Village ferry terminal where we boarded a bumboat taking us to Pulau Ubin. Pulau Ubin is a small island less-visited by tourists unless they’ve done at least a bit of homework. It’s also the home the Chek Jawa conservational wetlands which has a mix of several ecosystems: mangroves, coastal forests, rocky shores, and seagrass lagoons. And it’s free! So, we rented a couple of bikes near the Pulau Ubin ferry terminal and rode 10 – 15 minutes to Chek Jawa. Walking around Chek Jawa, you can see a lot of little creatures in their natural habitat. We saw mud skippers, tiny crabs, medium-sized crabs, horseshoe crabs, a metre-long monitor lizard running in the water, a little snake, wild roosters, and a wild pig (I think it was wild). Very well worth a day trip – it’s too bad we got there so late and didn’t get much of a chance to bike around a little more.
We got back to Geylang for dinner, finally finding No Signboard Seafood Restaurant. Singaporean chilli crab was the highlight of our dinner – again, even being one who doesn’t eat spicy often, I just couldn’t get enough of the soupy chili sauce, which goes well with steamed or fried buns (mantou / 饅頭). Absolutely brilliant.
To cap off our evening, we went to City Space, a nice lounge on the 70th floor of Equinox Complex for some drinks and to enjoy a spectacular view of Singapore.
Jan 30 (Fri): Running out of time and Singaporean dollars, we spent our morning walking around Fort Canning Park before busing through Orchard Road, the equivalent to Vancouver's Robson Street (Map: see "Orchard Rd and Fort Canning Tour"). It turns out, it was a good decision not to walk Orchard Road because unless you want to do some shopping, there’s nothing there. Back to hotel and then to airport. Singapore… Done.
3 comments:
great post, Kev! I realized how little I've seen of the city considering i've been there at least five times, so thanks for sharing. Awesome photos too!
I ate Chili Crab at a place near the No Signboard Restaurant. Good stuff, eh?
Cyrus
congrats...you've probably covered more of singapore in 4 days than most singaporeans have in 4 years. i won't be surprised that majority of singaporeans have never set foot in little india or chek jawa.
Cyrus, I do agree that the Chilli crab is a delight. In fact, I bought a pack of chilli crab mix here in Taiwan to re-create that.
Tania, thanks for commenting! I think Chek Jawa's a great little day trip away from the city.
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