April 3rd, 2005
Time to continue the exploration of Singapore and share it with the rents! We decided to take them to our favorite (close) breakfast spot, an Indian Stall at Ginza Plaza where we could get great coffee, and egg pratas for breakfast. Then we showed them our Ginza Plaza wet market and shopping area. On our way to breakfast, we passed by a Buddist Temple, which you were only allowed to take pix of the outside. None, inside.


One of two dragon statues at the entrance of the Temple.


View of the Temple from above.


Details on the roofline.


Dragon art, outside the temple.


Cooking the Egg Pratas.


Yummy Breakfast!

After breakfast, it started to pour down rain, so we decided to do the tour of the market and wet market. You can buy anything from clothes, to pots and pans, to spices, veggies, meats of all kinds, fish of all kinds, and spiritual items at the market and wet markets.


Jeremy's favorite coffee supplier.


Fresh fish.


Fresh spices.


Fresh Squid. I love this shot that Bill took!


Dried mushrooms.


Potatos and Onions and in the bags are small dried fishies.


These are offering papers. The papers are burned for different ceremonies at Temple.


Fresh veggies.


yep, even live frogs!


This was Sherry's nectar!

When you order coffee for takeaway, you get it in a bag. If there is one food item that you can almost always get that's good here, it's coffee!

After we had our fill of the wet market, we decided to walk back to our condo and and drop off our goodies and head to Orchard Road and then to Little India...hoping along the way that the rain would stop and we would be able to visit the Jurong Bird Park. But, Mother Nature was not on our side for that. We did however, see lots of great new stuff and ate lots of great, new to us food in Little India!

Orchard Road is merely a place to visit if you want to be overloaded by high end shops and stores. Like Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Rolex. You name it, it's here! But, not far from Orchard Road, was the Raffles Hotel. So, after another cup of coffee and a piece of cheesecake, we headed to the Raffles Hotel to check out the joint and get one of the famous Singapore Slings!


Fountain at Raffles Hotel.


Green landscape inside the courtyard at Raffles hotel.


At the Long Bar, the famous Singapore Sling!

So we ended up at the Long Bar, not only b/c we wanted to try the Singapore Sling, but also b/c we were not appropriatly dressed to get inside the entrance of the Hotel. No shorts allowed! From what we could see thru the doors as others entered, it looked really nice...

Singapore Slings aint no cheap drink either! Usually $18S, we got ours for a mere $16.50S. Needless to say, only one was ordered. For a pitcher of beer, it was a measly $33S. Welcome to the world where the rich play freely!


A fancy schmancy painting in the Long Bar.

Now even though drinks were expensive, and the decor was beautiful, when you eat peanuts in the Long Bar, you just toss the shells on the floor. We had a rather good time tossing the shells.

After tossing back a beer and a sling and a bunch of peanuts shells on the floor, we decided to head out to Little India for some further exploration which led us first to The Mustafa Center. The Mustafa Center is a block long and a block wide establishment, that houses, several gold and jewelry stores, a money changer, all kinds of clothing, audio equipment, video equipment, housewares, fabrics, a grocery store with fresh goods as well as dry goods, music, shoes, EVERYTHING is at the Mustafa Center, and what we've discovered is that things are cheaper here. This is where we stock up on Nutella and chocolate bars!

While perusing the store we came across this little girl who was all gussied up and proud to be photographed. (We asked her father first). Notice too all the beautiful fabrics in the background.


The little princess at Mustafa Center.

After leaving the Mustafa Center, (Jeremy and his Dad made plans to return later to look for watches) we headed into the town. We took a side street back to this general meeting area, with local shops and food.

Gathering place in Little India.


Man sewing.


Starfruit at a local fruit stand.


Basket.



We came across these men playing a game, that was like a cross between pool and shuffleboard. They would toss some powdery stuff, maybe cornstarch? onto the board and then shoot the pucks like you would shoot marbles and try to sink their color into a pocket.

Next to the guys playing the game, was a food court, and inside we learned how naan was made. They let us take a video of the process from the dough ball to putting the final product into our mouth!


This clay barrel is incredibly hot! The bread is patted into a thin flat circle and sprinkled with water, then, placed onto a ball of cloth and pressed onto the sides of the hot clay barrel.


The coals at the bottom of the barrel begin to brown the bread that's exposed, while the pot browns the bread where it is attached to the pot. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the process and eating the fresh warm bread!


Bill's camera decided to switch to B &W so unfortunatly we didn't get the color of this man's attire, but he was dressed in a beautiful peach colored swath of material. We thought him to be a very religious man.

The weather had offered us a bit of reprieve from the heat, but on and off it decided to pour. We got slammed with another gusty downpour on our way to one of the Hindu Temples. There were a bunch of these rickshaw bikers carting there passengers in the downpour along the main road.


Wet rickshaws.


You never know what you'll find on a back alley street...(Boose, this one's for you!)


Random local woman walking in the rain.


Old woman sitting outside the Temple.


Full view of Temple in Little India.


Temple decorations in Little India.

After seeing the Temple and getting good and wet on our walk around Little India, we decided to head back towards the Harbor Front MRT and if the weather was good, check out Mt. Faber. Mt. Faber is a point on Singapore, where you can get close to 360 degree views of the city, and out to Sentosa Island. You can also have dinner and drinks up at the top, as well as catch the gondola over to Sentosa. We checked out the views and then opted for a gondola ride over to Sentosa, and back.


The cable cars to Sentosa.

The people in the car in front of ours, when we went across, were having a romantic dinner, with entrees, wine, cloth napkins and they went around the second time for dessert.


A view from a top Mt. Faber out into the sea of HDB's.


A view to the South of the Merlion, with it's eyes lit up at night.

There's an observation platform on top of his head, and inside his mouth.


Another view out into the downtown area at night.


Group shot with cityscape behind us.

After checking out the view at Mt. Faber, it was time to go back to the condo, and squeeze in a quick cooling swim. It had been a very long day!

© December 6, 2008