Hey guys!
Thank
you for your patience.
Day 4:
The
first 2 days, I couldn’t explore the neighbourhoods of Singapore. So on Day 4,
I decided to explore Chinatown and hawker street of Chinatown. So I hired cab
to Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown, one of the main cultural heritage
site. It is believed that the place houses the artefact of Buddha’s tooth
relic. Thus the name, duh! The temple has array of stupas lined on the wall and
each of them individually lit. One of the main tourist attractions, people
across any religion can offer prayers inside the temple. There are some
workshops ‘Discovering Buddhism’ that’s held for the public.
Adjacent
to the temple are the Chinese eateries and souvenir shops. I walked across the
street to Maxwell Food Centre. This is full of food outlets selling mostly
Chinese and Singaporean Cuisine. A visit to this hawker food street was already
there in my list. So I showed up hungry and 70% out the outlets were open. The
best time to visit this place is 12 PM when all the outlets are open. I had
Hainanese chicken rice at the Tian Tian Chicken rice stall. This place is world
famous, thanks to Anthony Bourdain who covered this food shop in one of his
documentaries. The plate is just $5 and the food is amazing. The rice is cooked
in chicken broth, accompanied by pieces of juicy boiled chicken and veggies and
sauce. Hainanese chicken rice is so tasty that, it is declared as SG’s national dish. Ah!!! I
am drooling, just thinking about Hainanese chicken rice!!!! Ah Tai food stall,
I heard, is even tastier than Tian Tian but to my bad luck, it was closed. Porridge
at Zhen Zhen and Noodle soup at Marina South Delicious should never be missed
at Maxwell’s. At the end, finish the meal with sugarcane juice.
After
strolling around Chinatown for a bit, I met Will at Orchard Road. This road is
full of malls and is a shopper’s paradise. We had prepared our list of items to
buy; time to take out the list! So in our list, across each item, we mentioned
their Indian price, just in case we needed comparison. And that’s when did I
realise SG is actually VERY expensive. The same items were priced double and
sometimes triple in SG. Like, what?! A simple Paco Robane perfume costs around
6 grand while in SG it was 11 grand. The same was the case with Samsonite
travel suitcase to Under Armour shoes to The Body Shop facewash to basically everything.
By now you should know what happened next! Anyway, after buying couple of soft
toys for Bagheera, we went to a café at Tangs for sandwich and coffee.
Day 5
I
started out early to explore the main attraction of Singapore, The Merlion
Park. The landmark of Singapore, Merlion is an absolute beaut of its own. The statue is
the face of a lion on the body of a fish. This overlooks the
sea and very touristy.
From
Merlion Park, I walked a couple of miles to Singapore Flyer, a giant Ferris
wheel. The ticket costs $33 per adult. The flyer stands 165 feet above the
ground and the entire city can be seen from the top once you are inside the
capsule. One complete rotation takes 35 minutes and you don’t even feel that
the giant wheel is moving. Gardens by the bay, the sea, the Merlion Park, Marina
Bay sands, everything can be seen from the top. It was exhilarating to stand at
that height and overlook the city. After 40 minute ride, I had some Satays from
the food court at SG flyer. It was tasty as well as cheap. I started walking to
Cloud Forest but had to cancel because of heavy rains. I took cab to hotel to
check out.
So I
checked out the hotel and Will joined me after office and we headed to airport
with 7 hours in hand for our flight. Once we entered airport, we put the
luggage in baggage room and started exploring the airport. We moved from
terminal to terminal exploring major shops. If you hadn’t shopped, Changi
Airport is the place to shop. It houses over 140 brands across four terminals
and is a shopping mall of its own. We bought some grocery items which we
normally don’t find in Indian grocery shops. We bought skincare items for our
moms from Sum:37. The best part is when you buy skin care goodies, they give
you loads of samples that would last for 1-2 months. It was time to check in.
After checking in, we shopped some alcohol for friends and perfume, duty free. By
then, it was time to board.
Until
next time, SG!
Hotel Jen Tanglin
Some
of you had asked about the place of stay. It is Hotel Jen Tanglin. Also it’s
not fair from my side not to mention them. Their hospitality is top notch, the breakfast
even for a complimentary one, the spread was huuuuuuuge. The lunch and dinner
spreads were even huger. The spas, the pool, a mall attached to the hotel, I
guess it should take another day to completely explore them. It was an amazing
stay after all.
Much love,
Sindhura
