Day 30: Exploring Singapore

A little sleep in this morning before a buffet breakfast at the sister hotel around the corner. I should almost mention that our hotel room is comically small, I think about 14 square metres? It's basically the width of a queen size bed plus maybe half a metre. We knew it was small (and hotel rooms in Singapore generally are, particularly at our end of the budget scale) so we weren't too surprised, but it's still funny how small it actually is. Oh well, we weren't planning on spending much time here in the room anyway.

First stop today was walking about 500m down the road to Chinatown where we'd stayed in 2011. As we hadn't done much exploring on that trip we were determined to see a lot more of the city, so we spent the first hour or so just wandering the little alleys and streets, looking in shops and generally feeling impressed. It's such a huge change from Jakarta in that there are actual sidewalks you can use, there isn't rubbish and stench everywhere, lots of English is spoken, plenty of westerners so you aren't constantly being gawked at and so on. Singapore is a society where people Behave Responsibly and Follow The Rules, which I guess is a big tick in my book.

We diverted into a large Chinese Buddhist temple to see a fascinating relic - one of Buddha's teeth. I'm not sure how they know it's actually one of his teeth (the Buddha himself lived several hundred years BC), but it's certainly impressive. The temple itself has four storeys, each with different meanings and galleries - eg one about the temple, one about Buddhism the religion and the Buddha's life and times, and finally on the top floor the relic itself. Housed in a massive stupa of pure gold, it was both ostentatious and impressive. You can't get that close to it as it's in a separate controlled room (sort of like the Mona Lisa these days), but they have TV screens showing you a live close-up. Also checked out the orchid garden on the roof which was quite nice.

We'd spent a while in the temple and it was 11:30am by the time we left. Conveniently we were very close to Maxwell Road Hawker Centre, which is a large warehouse marketplace with permanent food carts. The best-known is Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, which had a line probably 100 people long. It's been there for 30 years and has featured in many travel/eating shows like Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. We decided to try it, so Shandos hopped in line while I acquired fruit juices and a table.

Happy to report that the food was amazing - Hainan chicken rice is basically a serve of steamed rice that's been flavoured with chicken broth, and topped with steamed chicken breast. The chicken itself is steamed at a low temperature, meaning that it's unbelievably soft and tender - delicious! And an absolute steal at $4 each for a medium sized plate. Not long after we left Maxwell Centre it started to rain quite heavily, so we took shelter and figured a plan to switch sides of the city.

The underground was only a short scurry through the rain, and we puzzled our way through the ticket purchase and hopped straight on a train to Bugis Junction, adjacent to the Arab Street district, historically the home of Singaporean Muslims and the community of Arabs who'd come here as traders.

Over here at Arab Lane there was another great community of little shops, bars, restaurants and galleries which we spent a couple of hours immersing ourselves in. Found a gallery exhibiting works from super famous anime artists like Miyazaki and the guy who originally drew Astro Boy. Thankfully the rain had cleared up though it still looked threatening, and we retreated to a British-themed cafe called The Mad Sailor. I had a Ribena & mint slushie which was amazing, while Shandos had an apple & rhubarb soda.

More wandering into the Muslim district followed, checking out the mosque and more buildings, though I viciously stubbed my toe on a small step while I was reading the map and had difficulty walking for a bit. Eventually we called time on our exploration (it was nearly 5pm by this point), but agreed to walk back to the hotel. It was actually not that far, only about 1.5km and mostly through the old downtown where we hadn't been. Walked directly past Raffles at about the time we needed a break, so we agreed that it was splurge time!

Off we went to the world-famous Long Bar, waited about 10 minutes and despite our (probably) dishevelled and sweaty appearance, we were in! I guess standards have slipped these days. We both ordered the famous Singapore Sling, which was very tasty and packed a bit of a punch, though $31 plus tax is an outrageous price for a cocktail. Resumed our trek back to the office after passing the National Gallery and the Parliament, though skipped going in to both.

One consequence of the time zone change is that the sun goes down at a much more reasonable hour - we arrived back in our room at 6:15pm, still almost an hour before sunset. We had showers and freshened up before going back out in search of dinner and another drink or two. There's a speakeasy behind an unmarked door around the corner from our hotel that's apparently one of the best cocktail bars in the world, but they didn't have a spare menu for us to look at and it was a 45 minute wait for a table anyway, so we kept moving.

We're staying at Clarke Quay which is a large waterfront area, around the area where the old harbour becomes a narrow river. It's a pretty touristy area like Darling Harbour, though there seemed to be plenty of office workers around too - it is a Friday night after all! Found a brewery that also served food and settled on that despite - again - extortionate prices. This place did something I've never seen before - timed drink prices. Your schooner is $6 between 12-3pm, $10 between 3-7pm and $15 after 7pm. Go figure!

Alas it was after 7pm but I still ordered a pint of their in-house Irish Red Ale, while Shandos had the golden ale. We both ordered burgers and I had the double-meat one of course, topped with bean chilli, sauteed onions, bacon and American cheese which was humongous but amazingly tasty. Easily the best burger I've had since visiting Rockpool a few days before leaving Sydney. Since the drinks were so expensive we opted against another round and headed back to our hotel tired at about 10pm.

Looking forward to tomorrow - Singapore didn't impress me much on our previous visit but I'm liking it a lot more this time around!Read more