Adventures in Singapore

Kevin and I had a wonderful time in Singapore, we spent five days in the city over the long Memorial weekend. We knew it would be hot, but we weren't expecting it to be over 90 degrees the entire time we were there! Wow...

However, despite the heat, we enjoyed ourselves. We stayed at the Carlton Hotel which was centrally located in the city and allowed us to easily get around to visit all the sites.

On our first day, we walked into a shopping center to get some relief from the heat and decided to have our first Singaporean breakfast. Here I am enjoying toast with kaya. Kaya is a local jam-like spread made with eggs, milk, sugar and coconut. It is spread on toast and often eaten accompanied with runny eggs. I wasn't a huge fan of the runny eggs, but I did enjoy my toast with kaya. Oh...and the coffee was pretty tasty too. Definitely different from standard American drip coffee. :)



Later in the day, we headed to the National Singapore Museum. This museum has several exhibits within its walls, but our favorite had to be the History exhibit. The History exhibit chronicles the very international history of Singapore and all of its immigrants. Singapore has a rich history as it was colonized by the British and later occupied by the Japanese during WWII.



Singpoare, now of course, is a major cosmopolitan city with large populations of Malays, Thais, Chinese, Indians, and ex-pats. Although several languages are spoken here on this island state, English is the official dominant language. Take a look at a sign I found at the train station. It sorta made me chuckle.



For those who don't know, durian is a type of tropical fruit found here in Southeast Asia. It is often called the "king of fruits." Durian is a large fruit with a hard thorn-like shell and emits a strong smell. So horrible is the smell, the fruit is banned on trains in Singapore. I have to say, I've never tried it, but from what I've heard, it tastes like custardy garlic and milk....so I'm not so sure I want to give durian a taste. Anyway, I digress.

Back to our trip....after the visit to the Museum, we found ourselves in Chinatown for lunch. We were able to find a place where several hawker stands sold multiple Chinese dishes. I was a little wary with eating at a hawker stand, but Kevin assured me that we would be fine.







To be honest, the food was actually quite yummy. The above photo is BBQ Pork with Hainese rice.

While in Chinatown, we came across a beautiful temple, the Sri Mariamman temple. As we walked inside, we could hear monks chanting. We could smell incense burning and our eyes were amazed by all the Buddhist statues covered in gold.







It was an amazing place....

Unfortunately I'm going to end this post here, but do stay tuned for part II of our adventures in Singapore. More on that later....

~Chrissy