Singapore Reunions and Food!


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Asia » Singapore » Tiong Bahru
July 9th 2013
Published: August 24th 2013
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Today was our first day exploring the city/state/country of Singapore! We had a bit of a leisurely morning because Jemi had to do some paperwork for her upcoming trip to Canada, so she had to get that straightened up before we could hang out for the day. She has taken Tuesday and Friday off to hang out with us and we will see her husband Jeremy in the evenings. They live in a really nice condo complex about 10 minutes from the airport. It feels like a resort in Florida, where there are multiple buildings that are situated on a very green and treed lot all surrounding the common amenities, such as a kids wading pool with a pirate ship to play on, playgrounds, a beautiful pool, a sandy manmade beach, tennis courts and a big clubhouse in the centre that has a reading room, gym, squash courts among other things. When we were ready to go, we headed off to an area of Singapore called Tiong Bahru for lunch. We were also going to meet up with some friends from Singapore that we had met in London last year that were in Mike's class, Fuad and Aloysius. The last time
This Is How They Pay For ParkingThis Is How They Pay For ParkingThis Is How They Pay For Parking

Almost like lottery cards, except there's no reward (except for the parking enforcement if you don't fill one out).
Elysia saw the boys was when they left her in Romania last year (this was planned, she was not abandoned). They hadn't met Jemi before because we had known her from undergrad, but we were all going to have the opportunity to bond over food in pure Singapore style.

We arrived in Tiong Bahru before the boys and went to a coffee shop to wait for them so we could all have lunch together. We had a very nice catch up chat with Jemi, and we had a lot to catch up from the last 6 years! Tiong Bahru is a charming new trendy area of Singapore, with lots of hip coffee shops and interesting stores and storefronts. We had coffee at this trendy cafe/bakery called Tiong Bahru Bakery, which is French and really quite good. When the boys arrived, they all took us across the street to the Tiong Bahru Market and Hawker Centre for lunch. The hawker centre concept is very unique to Singapore. Basically it's Singapore's version of street food where all these independent asian food stalls are congregated in one area and you go from stall to stall getting food. It looks a lot like a food court, but they're open air and found every where. Instead of the food stalls giving out napkins to customers, people (almost like beggars) come around and give you tissue packs for money. It is very common among locals to eat dinner at a hawker centre (Jemi says that her and Jeremy do this all the time because it's cheap, quick and very convenient for busy professionals). The Tiong Bahru Hawker centre is actually one of the most popular Hawker centres in Singapore.

Jemi, Aloysius and Fuad were very eager to show us their local foods (Singaporeans love to eat…. and shop!). So we let them loose, and they coordinated and went off to find us the dishes that they believe represent Singapore! It was so cute watching them head in all different directions to different stalls in the hawker centre. We got excited to see what they would bring back for us. And they did bring us back some interesting things…. to name a few: Chwee kueh, chicken rice, char kway teow, and for dessert, kueh lapis and talam. We also washed it all down with some yummy sugar cane juice which we had never had. Apparently chicken rice is a huge singaporean staple. It might sound plain but it was very good. We really enjoyed the meal and getting to catch up with our friends that we haven't seen in 6 years for Jemi or 1 year for the boys!

After our meal in the hawker centre, the three of them were happy to show us some of the sites that they thought visitor-worthy in the city. We were really happy to go with their suggestions of what to see in the city because it gives us a bit of a local perspective, and we so rarely travel to places where we can really hang out with the locals, so this was good. The next stop was down at Marina Bay Sands. Marina Bay Sands is a Mall that's on Marina Bay, where the city's harbourfront is located. This is not right on the ocean, rather it is fed by the Singapore river and then goes out to the ocean after Marina Bay. You can walk around the entire bay, and it gives you a great view of the downtown business core. Surrounding the bay is the business core on one side, but also the historical Fullerton Hotel, a stadium and a bunch of malls including the Marina Bay Sands. Singapore is a mall haven, and everywhere you look is a mall, so the fact that there are a few malls right on the bay is not unusual. In order to get a sense of some of the mall culture (which is a common theme that will reoccur throughout the next few days), we explored the MBS mall. The mall was full of designer stores such as Gucci, Prada, Louis Vutton, you name it and they have it. That's not the interesting part though. The mall itself is very beautiful, modern and full of sunlight. Of course just as everything else in Singapore, it is air-conditioned. The mall also has a fake skating rink (not ice), a venice-type canal that you can take boat rides through (although it's so short I don't know why anyone would waste their money), and some interesting water features. They have this one where there is a whirlpool swirling around outside on the roof that you can go out and see, but then it swirls and drops down through a funnel and goes into the water that joins with the canal within the mall. It's pretty neat to watch. They also have a garden area on the roof that we walked through and it took us through this beautiful hotel that houses an infinity pool on it's roof that has a beautiful view of the city (you have to stay there to see it, or we also heard rumour of some tour that went up there too). I would have loved to stay there, but rooms apparently started at $300, so the view wasn't that worth it to me. The building, however, is a very iconic piece of Singapore's skyline (see photo).

On the other side of the hotel is this very interesting botanical garden that is something akin to that you would have seen in the movie Avatar. It seemed very futuristic. It's a very new park but they built these tree templates so that eventually the greenery would cover them and would turn into enormous tree-like structures. They also had gardens representing different local cultures such as Chinese, Indian, Malay and Other. I guess we're included in other. I think green spaces like these are really great and have given a certain charm to Singapore. Even the highways have beautiful greenery surrounding them, and everywhere you look is green and beautifully kept up, including these gardens. Yeah these gardens aren't natural, but it's a great attempt to bring some colour to this businessey city. Our friends are very quick to point out that everything in Singapore is fake and is manmade to make the city look more beautiful. While that might seem a little bit Truman Show-ish, I think that this is better than some of the concrete cities we have in North America… *cough* Toronto, that barely does anything at all.

After we walked around the park for a bit, it was time for dinner. We walked back to MBS got into the car and drove to the next mall and parked there. Singapore also has a very big car culture, i would say even more than some of our cities in North America. Despite a really amazing transit system with subways going every which way, people really like to drive here. In fact, just to own a car you have to pay around $40,000 every 10 years as a licensing fee for your car. The government has made it extremely pricey to drive, but people still do. Anyways we had spent so much time walking around that we were happy to get in the car even to go such a short distance! We had dinner at another Hawker centre just off of the boardwalk that goes around the whole Marina Bay. From there as we ate, we saw the sunset over the city. Again our friends made us try some interesting dishes for dinner. We started off with a lemon barley drink, had some chicken wings, fried rice, and a dish called "carrot cake". Only, carrot cake is not the type of carrot cake you are thinking of. In Singapore, carrot cake is made out of turnips (which apparently the Chinese call white carrots) and it's baked in some way to make it soft and almost jelly like. So now we're confused when we walk by signs that say that they sell carrot cake. Is it really carrot cake or is it just a turnip dish? Definitely the weirdest dish that we tried this night, however, was stingray. When I say we tried stingray, really that's just it- we tried. Each of us took just a bit of it, enough that we can say that we have had stingray. Elysia wasn't the biggest of fans of it. It wasn't as bad as she had thought it would be, but she's not a seafood or fish fan at all so we weren't expecting that she would love it. Mike thought that the stingray tasted a little bit too fishy, but we're glad we branched out and tried something new!

After dinner we walked a bit to see the lights of the downtown core and then we headed out. Tomorrow will be the first day of Ramadan, so tons of markets have sprung to help the muslims following Ramadan to eat all night so they can begin their fasting in the morning. The Muslim population in Singapore is large because of the Malay influence and people in Singapore. Jemi dropped us all off, and Fuad, who is Malay, showed us around the markets. Since it was just the first night, some stalls were still just setting up. They had hundreds of stalls (set up or not set up) that were selling many different types of local products including clothes, furniture, jewellery, fruits and food. Everything looked so good! We settled on some dessert balls (I'm
Colourful DesertsColourful DesertsColourful Deserts

Including kueh lapis (pink layered cake) and talam (in green)
not exactly sure what they are, but they were filled with this yummy coconut jelly called Kaya), and a bunch of fruit including longans, jackfruit and rambutans. I'm sure they have these kinds of festivities in Toronto too for Ramadan, but somehow we never get out to these things unless we're out travelling. We always vow to change this, but unfortunately that never happens.


Additional photos below
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The Marina Bay Sands MallThe Marina Bay Sands Mall
The Marina Bay Sands Mall

Little Venice, with the canals and bridges over top
Singapore's Durian-Shaped Concert HallSingapore's Durian-Shaped Concert Hall
Singapore's Durian-Shaped Concert Hall

They just love their durians!
Marina Bay Sands HotelMarina Bay Sands Hotel
Marina Bay Sands Hotel

This iconic Singapore landmark looks like a floating ship!


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