Singapore: Food and Neighborhoods

The food and the neighborhoods!  One weeknight I went to Newton Circus with coworkers.  Newton Circus is set up like the hawker stands that are all over the island, but less intimidating.  Here's why: at hawker stands, the owners make a hard sell to get you to buy their food and the price is up for haggling.  At Newton Circus, prices were fixed, but they still tried their hardest to get you to their area.  They'd shepherd you over, hand you a menu, call out to you, anything!  We ate some chili squid and pepper beef.  

Another night we went to Little India and stopped at this place called the Jungle Tandoor, and they weren't kidding about the jungle part!  The inside was like Rainforest Cafe.  I had butter chicken and it was the best I've ever had.  I didn't get a photo of the food because there was green mood lighting all over!

We had an afternoon off and I took the opportunity to head to Chinatown for some high tea and dim sum.  I went to Yum Cha and ate my favorite, bbq pork buns, xiao long bao, and two things that I didn't know what they were but they were delicious.  After dim sum I wandered around the market stalls and picked up some souvinirs.  There were mostly kitschy item stalls, but there were also many "Chinese medicine" shops around with all sorts of dried goods and herbs.  

Today I went back to Little India to get some more butter chicken and try out a different place.  Unfortunately the place I wanted to go didn't open until 6 (I think?  The shop was dark and I could see the men taking naps on the floor so 6 was my best guess) so I went to the Banana Leaf Apolo instead.  Instead of plates, they give you trays with banana leaves on it for eating.  It seemed like every other shop in Little India was a jewelry store, with a cache of gold necklaces and bangles for sale.  Do Indian women buy gold necklaces all the time?  

Singapore: Impressions and the Zoo

I am enjoying my stay here- Singapore is easier than Beijing was because everyone here speaks English (even if you can't really understand them) and there's more than just Chinese food. :).  The diversity of food here is fantastic.  The locale is hot and full of greenery.  There's lots of shopping, although everything is more expensive than the US so I have refrained. 

One night after work I had dinner and drinks with a college friend and his lovely wife and they shared about their experiences here as ex pats.  Housing here is incredibly expensive, condos are $1 million, easy.  Because Singapore is small, driving and owning a car is discouraged and so cars cost upwards $60k for an entry level and the license costs almost as much.  The MRT is cheap and easy, plus everything is close together and easy to reach by foot.

There are a few things that are different here from Beijing, which is my basis for what an Asian city is like. There are very few bicycle riders and only a moderate amount of motorbikes - I was expecting hordes. They drive on wrong side of road and there are a fair number of taxis.  All of the cars are pretty new and expensive brands.  The women here are very well dressed!  I haven't seen this many designer handbags in a long while.  Nobody wears sneakers, or jeans, it is all very nice footwear.  My friend talked about how there is a massive class discrepancy here, and I think that these things are probably symptoms of that.

There is a great zoo here where the main feature is the open exhibits for the primates.  They have a lot of free area to roam in the tree cover and it is connected via ropes and extended branches.  Also, you can get extremely close to the monkeys.  They also have pandas, but what they don't tell you is that they're housed in a different section of the zoo that you buy a different ticket for!  Lame.  Regardless, my coworker and I had fun taking photos with our SLR cameras.  Here are a few, and the rest can be seen in my album here.  

Singapore: Week 1

I am currently in Singapore for work doing another Wifi installation.  This time it is on a 747-400.  I have been a few places since my last entry, and I am going to post those trips soon too!

It was a grueling 25 hours of travel time from Atlanta to Singapore, via Chicago and Tokyo.  The hotel that I'm staying in is located on Orchard Rd, which is the main shopping drag.  I have never seen so many malls in such a small place in my life, and each one seems to have all designer brands.  The outsides are showy and bright, just as much as night during the day.

Ion Orchard, by day and by night

There is a window from the bathroom to the bedroom...

Per my dad's suggestion, one of the first meals that I had was pepper crab, at his favorite restaurant, Red House.  It was delish, but they didn't have forks or napkins so it was extremely messy.

The carnage

I took a trip to the Marina Bay to take some photos of the skyline and this incredible hotel, the Marina Bay Sands - there is a swimming pool at the top which has the swim to the edge feature.  There is also a large ferris wheel, the Flyer, which used to be the tallest structure in Singapore, and then they built the Marina Bay Sands hotel.  And then a bunch of other buildings followed and now it's not the tallest.  The lion fountain is under construction and so it is slightly visible beneath the blue tarps.  

More photos here!  Up next: the Singapore Zoo!