Chinatown and more general Singapore things

          Last week I had a late afternoon meeting downtown with another graduate student writing about Filipino musicians. We had been introduced to each other by a professor at NUS last week and he suggested that we give a talk together to the Philippine Studies Group at the Asia Research Institute next week. I worked at the National Archives in the morning and enjoyed another lunch in Ft. Canning Park with some especially vocal Oriental Magpie Robins (video here). In the afternoon, I wandered a bit through downtown to get to my meeting. Some of this walk took me through Singapore’s Chinatown (also home to the oldest Hindu temple in town). 

Some of the public housing in big buildings that we see (still very, very expensive!) 

Vocal oriental magpie robin behind National Archives in Ft. Canning Park

Old Hill Police station in downtown Singapore

Singapore River

scaffolded Victoria Theatre tower, Marina Bay Sands

walking towards Chinatown

detail of a cool building

lots of colonial-era facades

even downtown has lots of open space

Sri Mariamman Temple, oldest Hindu temple in Singapore

nearby: Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

another public housing building near the temple

and yet another juxtaposition of old and new

          We’ve enjoyed settling in to our new neighborhood, even though our departure date is rapidly approaching. There’s a delicious Indian hawker stand a few blocks away where we’ve enjoyed roti prata sets and other great meals for a very reasonable price (dinner for two for under $4 USD is possible with some of the cheaper dishes).

          On Wednesday night we celebrated my friend Hui’s retirement since she’s taking on a new exciting job in D.C. They have a great oven so we cooked up two pizzas for the celebratory dinner. We’re really loving the great Indian food here but it was nice to have access to a full-working kitchen and eat some freshly baked pizzas. 

a pesto, chicken, red-pepper pizza for our friend (the other one had a tomato sauce with ground beef and mushrooms)