Singapore Day 2 March 4, 2016

---

No plan for the day other than to take the subway to somewhere around Chinatown and check out the area, then maybe to the Buddhist temple which claims as a relic another hair of the Buddha. Which Buddha is unclear, but it is no wonder with the number of hair relics that almost all Buddhas are depicted as bald.

One subway stop past Chinatown put us in the Clark Quay area. This area abuts the river cutting through the central city and is chock full of restaurants (including Asia's first Hooter's), many bars, boat tours, and oddly, carnival reverse bungy and catapult rides. It was too early in the morning for any of these things, and even after 11am there was little activity.

Following our noses and easily distracted, we poked around aimlessly here and there until, hidden between office towers and electronics stores, we spied some colourful dragons. We drew closer and found a Chinese clan temple.

I poked my head inside, where an old man sat reading a Chinese newspaper, and catching his attention, asked if it was OK to take some photos. He leapt up in welcome and beckoned us in, waving in welcome. He explained that the temple was 140 years old, one of the oldest clan temples in Singapore (Tang clan?). He asked where we were from, and when we replied, "Canada," it was if we had passed a test and his welcoming attitude redoubled. After a recounting of the history of the temple and the clan in Singapore, he turned us loose to wander.

The intricacy and colours of the arrangements, figures, sculptures and idols is a microcosm of the convoluted and intertwined religions of the East. Hindu gods sit beside Chinese dragon pillars, where figurines of traditional Chinese fairies line up facing ornate wooden sculptures of Mandarins at court. Colourful tigers face off against line upon line of Buddha figures, and small offerings made of wood and rice and paper and fruit are tucked into corners everywhere. A well in the center of the courtyard entrance is stocked with koi, and sand-filled urns stand ready to receive all sizes of incense sticks.

The man engaged us in conversation again in the central courtyard, asking questions about Canada and our travels. He went over to a little desk and brought back a small packaged stuffed Chinese figure. Giving it to Jane, he asked how many daughters she had, and when she replied that she had two, he returned to the desk and brought back two more. "For luck, for you and your beautiful daughters," he said as he pressed them into her hand.

We met a friendly Australian fellow and his Thai wife outside as we took some final photos. We chatted about their lives living in Singapore and Thailand, and travel and places we had seen, and said goodbye and headed off towards Chinatown.

Stores, stores and more stores, with restaurants and food courts in between. We wandered up and down main streets and alleyways, pedestrian malls and open-air, multi-story fabric and hardware markets. We passed a sandal repairman who would apply tar, glue and rubber to your blown sandal or sneaker to give it another month or two of hard urban living. Gold stores everywhere, selling krugerrands and collector's and investment ingots, and here as elsewhere, pawn shops which seem to deal exclusively in gold and jewelry.

We once again ran into the friendly Australian fellow and his Thai wife coming out of a gold shop. They now greeted us like old friends and chatted animatedly to us about the deals available from local gold merchants. When they started talking about Facebook addresses, well, this got my cautionary radar on high alert. This intensified as they offered to show us their favourite gold stores and items. We extricated ourselves and tried to put a couple of blocks between us and them. Perhaps paranoia, perhaps not.

We found a cunningly designed ring of sorts, meant to cover an entire finger, jointed at the knuckles. Sadly, we could not find the right one as our favourite, a dragon head and body which would have suited youngest daughter perfectly, was terminally damaged and they had no other like it.

I bargained for a mah-jong set for Devon and Jonathan and the proprietor agreed much too easily to my price, which even so was much lower than on the tag. Nevertheless, it is a set from Singapore and seems well-made with a local Chinese flavour, like the city itself.

Back onto the wonderful subway system for the bullet ride back to the terminal and its attached shopping malls, where we picked up some grocery items and posted some last-minute emails on the wifi. Exchanged some messages with Shailesh in Mumbai. That two-day tour seems to be shaping up well, and more people are expressing interest and I keep changing the requirements on the poor guy. He is nothing if not flexible, though. I have a good feeling about seeing scary, huge Mumbai with him.

The ship is noticeably less crowded as we left a lot of people here and gained very few. It would be a good time to ask the front desk for a complimentary upgrade, but we quite like our room and its location, so we'll persevere for the duration.

Such hardship.

---