After a cup of coffee and some fruits and toast (yes Mom I ate some of my fruits) we went off to little India. An area that, as you can imagine, has lots of Indian shops and restaurants as well as some hindu temples. One of which I wanted to visit. So that means, shoes and socks off. It seemed quite small but it was still interesting to see how the Hinduism was celebrated here. There were packs of milk and flowers all over the place. Also, food (curry with rice, obviously) was served here.
We had a look out for a nice authentic Indian restarant and I believe we had found one. At least the food was served on a banana leaf and there was no fork and knife. It was going to be the hands then. I only used the right as I have read in the travel guide and it worked out ok.
As we continued our walk we came through an area which has plenty of different Malls of all sorts. Chinese tacky bits and pieces, IT and entertainment malls and just plain usual clothing malls. As we kept walking we made our way to the harbour or bayfront area. We decide to have a fancy coffee at a pretty posh looking hotel. The Fullerton Bay Hotel. The idea just came up since we were quite under dressed for the occasion and wanted to see what's going to happen when we ask for a table. No one cared and the coffee for 12 $ was nice although maybe not best value for money. However, there was some sort of model casting show going on and there was a photo shoot just outside the window from our table.
From here we we took the MRT (Singapore metro) over to southern china town and started exploring this area a bit. But to be honest it wasn't really exciting. Most of the stalls were selling touristy bits and pieces.
It was about time to head back to meet our friends we have met 5 years ago in Kyoto, Eve and Joey. Thanks to facebook we kept in contact and they offered us a tour of their city. Plans were to meet at Marina Bay station exit A at 5pm. It worked out perfectly and Joey picked us up at the Station and a few minutes Eve came with a (it was Joey's care as it turned out later) and we drove off to a food court to have another sample of Singaporean food.
The food here has influences from all the different cultures that come together in Singapore, Chinese, Malay, Indian, a bit of Indonesian and Thai. The food courts are the best (and cheapest) way to sample a little bit of everything during one sitting.
Next stop was the top of a hill that could be reached by car. From here we wanted to take a cable car across to Sentosa Island. Sentosa Island is a small island just off the main island Singapore which houses lots of entertainment facilities, like Universal studios and other resorts.
It was only going to be Basti and I to take the cable car as Eve and Joey have already done this plenty of times. So we asked for 2 tickets and I already handed they guy the money, but for some (unknown to us) reason another guy said we don't need to pay and gave us free tickets. Quite a pleasant surprise. You have to be lucky sometimes. :-)
The journey with the cable car was very impressive. Great views of the bay and Sentosa
Island. One interesting thing about the cable car was, that it went through a building, where it stopped and you could get off or stay on and continue your trip. We chose to continue and go to Sentosa Island where we turned around and went back. This whole trip was just taking place during sunset and the view was truly amazing.
We met up with the girls in the cafe on the hill and from there Basti and I took a walk along the Henderson Waves. This is a pedestrian bridge stretching between two hills, from where you can have a great view towards the city centre and the bay. Henderson “Waves” comes from the fact, that the bridge has some sort of alcoves that look like waves.
Although we haven't really been hungry yet, our next stop was going to be another restaurant. This time it was a frog restaurant. This was located on Geylang Road which is one of the red light districts in Singapore. The opening times for the frog place (Eminent Frog Porridge) were 5pm to 4am and the dish itself was a bowl with three boiled frogs and some dark chilli sauce in the middle and each of us had bowl porridge which was to be mixed with spoons from the frog bowl. All in all it tasted like chicken with chilli sauce in porridge. Not particularly great in taste but more so as for the experience.
My attempt to cover the bill this time was once again refused, as Eve and Joey were our hosts here in Singapore. Fair enough, you will have to come to Dublin then. :-)
On the way home Joey dropped us off at Clarke's Quay, an entertainment area that looked pretty much like a shopping mall, but instead of shops it had loads of pubs, clubs, restaurants and bars. We chose the Brewwerkz pub and I enjoyed an IPA for 17 $. As I said, Singapore is expensive, it was good beer though (home brewed by the Brewwerkz).
At 11:30 the pub closed and this could have been a good hint to head back to the hostel, but
instead we decided to walk over to Antonio's place as it didn't look that far on the map. I estimated 20 minutes but it took 40 (with a bit of a detour). Anyway, we got there in the end and he still had a few cold ones in the fridge. It continued to be a relaxed evening as we were all a bit wrecked. Back at the hotel we made tentative plans for the next stops of our adventure and decided (from an advise of Eve) to head over to Malaysia and check out Malacca, a historic (possibly the oldest in Malaysia) City on the coast of Malacca straight.
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