Little India

First, just a few more photos of our neighborhood. We’ve had some nice walks along Frankel Avenue in the evenings. There are some HUGE homes here, but also some nice bakeries and restaurants. 

some of the little shops in our neighborhood

nearby Buddhist temple on evening walk

view from our kitchen window (4th floor)

On Saturday, we decided to take a break from work to explore Little India. After a delayed start due to several hours of rain in the morning, we took the train over, planning to follow the Lonely Planet’s walking tour of the area. We saw several incredible Hindu and Buddhist temples, along with lots of well-preserved colonial-era facades, restaurants, and various shops with Indian goods.

            We also had some South Indian food, which was a different experience for us. Most of the Indian food in the U.S. is north Indian, we're told, so this was new to us. We picked a place recommended in the Lonely Planet book. The lunch meal was a set menu so we didn’t actually order anything but were served the same thing as everyone else. Aside from the differences in cooking techniques, flavors, etc., one of the differences in this cuisine is that people eat using three fingers of their right hand. We caved and ended up being the only ones of the place who used utensils. We stopped by a big hawker center for another snack (that ended up being another meal) and were back home after only 2.5 hours or so.

Walking down Serangoon Road 

Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman Temple

across the street from the first temple we saw, old and new

Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman temple

note the drummer on the right

walking away from temple

a small Chinese temple a block away

across from the Chinese temple, the Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple, with a 300 ton Buddha statue inside

walked past a veena class

Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple, just another block away

lots of beautiful old shop fronts 

the old (but remade) entrance to The New World Amusement Park, which featured lots of Filipino bands in the 1920's and 1930's. I didn't realize this was its location until we chanced upon this.

Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, under renovation

old buildings with newer apartment high-rises in back

colorful store fronts on smaller side streets

a contemporary temple

yummy South Indian meal

This was highly recommended and was packed. See more about the restaurant here.

more colorful buildings

giant motorized mortar to grind flour for roti prata (we think...)

Inside the giant Tekka Centre hawker area

where we ordered what we thought was just a snack after lunch

this chicken murtabak was enormous and delicious

First few days in Singapore

            We’ve been in Singapore now for almost a week and feel pretty well settled in already. Our place is fantastic and very conveniently located. We found a great grocery store and a very nice park to walk in. Everything here is so well run and efficient that it feels very easy to live here (aside from the cost of living…). We haven’t yet found a pool that meets our standards but think we won’t find one here. All of the pools are outdoors and most are uncovered, which means that the water temperature is very, very warm. We’ve been swimming a few times in a public pool that’s about a 20-minute trip away. It’s very cheap but it’s like swimming open water since we swim in a 50-meter pool with no lane lines and lots of elderly people bobbing around and moving in random directions.

            We’ve taken up running a bit since swimming’s not so great. The temperature here is definitely much cooler than Manila but the humidity is much higher. When I went for a run at 6:40am the other day the temp was only 79 degrees but the humidity was up to 94%. There’s much less sun in the morning, though, since, for some reason, Singapore is still in the same time zone as Manila. The sun doesn’t rise until around 7:00, so the whole city wakes up about two hours later than Manila.

It’s really fun being in such a diverse place. According to Wikipedia, the make-up of Singapore is 74% Chinese descent, 13% Malay descent, 9% Indian descent, 3% Eurasian. There are lots of variations even within these groups, not to mention inter-mixing. Add in the tourists from all over and you end up with a place where you can easily hear 6 to 10 different languages on any train ride. Those include near-by languages, such as Tagalog or Indonesian, or European languages, such as French or Dutch. This mixture also means lots of delicious types of food from all over. We’ve really been enjoying some delicious Indian food the few times we’ve eaten out.

            Grace found a Spanish conversation partner online and has been meeting up with her most days. The two of them are getting a chance to explore Singapore a bit while working on their language skills (Grace is helping her with her English).

            I’ve been going through the Oral History collection in the Singapore National Archives and have gone by the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore a few times.

            Since Singapore is pretty well protected from tsunamis and wasn’t destroyed during WWII, there are lots of old colonial buildings still around. I’ve been enjoying walking around and finding some of the sites where musicians would perform back in the 1920s. Some of the buildings, such as the Europe Hotel and the Adelphi Hotel, were destroyed, and the Victoria Memorial Hall is under re-construction, but buildings such as the Raffles Hotel and the Goodwood Park Hotel are in pristine condition. There are also lots of smaller colonial-era buildings scattered throughout the city. 

walking towards National Archives, S'pore Central Fire Station on the left, Masonic Hall is white building on right

Philatelic Museum on left, National Archives on right, Ft. Canning Park behind both buildings

Stairs up to Ft. Canning park next to National Archives

lunch break from National Archives in Ft. Canning park

view of Marina Bay Sands from Raffles Terrace in Ft. Canning Park

lots of giant, lush trees with ferns

many signs are written in the four national languages: English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil

Facade of the Capitol Theatre

Goodwood Park Hotel

Singapore, Round 2

            We arrived in Singapore late at night/early in the morning on Friday, and were picked up by my old college housemate and her boyfriend. They helped us move into our new place the next day. Since Singapore is ridiculously expensive, we rented a single room in a four-bedroom apartment that is shared with 7 or 8 other people. We’ve only met two of the others: most people stay in their rooms since the common space isn’t air-conditioned. We think there might be 5 Vietnamese students in our apartment along with the other two or three tenants.

We have a bedroom with an attached bathroom. It’s bigger than our place back in Madison, has hardwood floors, great internet, hot water, and is only two blocks from a train stop so we’re really pleased with it. We’re actually just a few yards away from the train line but we can barely hear its quiet whirring as it goes by. In fact, this is the quietest place we’ve been in our whole year so far.

            We’ll be in Singapore for a month, returning to the U.S. in late May. While many of you may have heard that Singapore is a big, densely-packed city, it really doesn’t feel like that after we’ve traveled around Southeast Asia a bit. Singapore is actually quite small, only about 5 million people, and it doesn't feel nearly as dense as HK, Manila, or Jakarta. (We think that the reason for this is that much of Hong Kong is not actually livable due to mountains everywhere. So if they would actually measure the land where people lived then HK would be much denser. HK, for example, has giant clumps of towering skyscraper apartment buildings everywhere while most of the buildings here are 4 stories, with 20- or 30- story buildings popping up at regular intervals). Out in eastern Singapore, especially, it feels like a very nice, clean, Florida suburb with a very diverse mix of people and lots of delicious food. While lots of people complain about Singapore being boring and sterile because of its strict regulations and clean streets (for example, see here and here), we know we’ll enjoy living here. These same things that may make Singapore seem boring to tourists also makes it quite easy to live here (one of my relatives who used to live in Jakarta said that coming to Singapore was like going to Bethesda, Maryland). The only comparison to Manila is the heat. The actual temperature is actually about 10 degrees cooler but the humidity is much more intense so we end up being much sweatier. Our glasses normally steam up when we step outside if we’ve been in air conditioning.

            Our friends have already taken us out to several great places to eat in the neighborhood and, this morning, took us to a pool and then helped us with errands. I’m going to start working in the archives tomorrow while Grace finishes getting us settled in. 

brunch at Bedok Market

waiting for food

order by coded clothespin

noodles with fish balls, fish cakes, minced pork, shrimp, etc.

yummy turnip-filled items

view from our new room, see the Chinese temple and mosque?

view of our new building, we're on the top (4th) floor

within a block or two of our new place is a mosque, a Chinese temple, and a church

A very pleasant (but hot) 30-minute walk along Siglap Connector Park to get groceries

we see lots of air-conditioning units