Though this trip had a "laid back, do-whatever" mentality, Karen and I still managed to plan a full itinerary today as we were to buy a one-day "tourist pass" that allowed unlimited rides on the MRT and buses. Must get the best use of it!
We haunted our favorite eating grounds, Raffles City, and went to a well-known franchise called
Ya Kun for some traditional
kaya toast, and it was to die for: imagine thin, crustless bread toasted to a melt-in-your-mouth perfection, spread with a thin layer of kaya (made of eggs, sugar, coconut milk) and pats of butter. The set menu we ordered also included two soft-boiled (they really mean soft!) eggs served on a plate as well as a cup of tasty milk tea. For those of you who are not into eating jiggly egg whites, there probably was an option to get a hard-boiled egg, as we were specifically asked if we wanted soft-boiled, even though it was listed plainly on the set menu. We slurped ours with a dusting of salt and white pepper; I also observed patrons adding a dash of soy sauce.
After breakfast, we headed to the City Hall MRT station to buy the tourist pass. A one-day pass cost S$8 plus a S$10 deposit, refunded when returning the card back to the ticket office. Our first stop was to
Chinatown, which involved transferring to a different line. Some of the streets were lined with outdoor markets selling everything from souvenirs to statues. It was such a hot and muggy day that Karen and I stopped at a drink vendor for some $1 juice before doing any shopping. We ended up purchasing some clothing for gifts as well as ourselves (which we ended up wearing some the next day). There was also a "food street" but it wasn't to open until later in the afternoon. There were many interesting buildings in Chinatown, including a temple and pagoda. I also saw a vendor selling "ice cream sandwiches", literally. You choose what flavor you want, and the ice cream is served on a piece of bread. I didn't take a picture of it but a fellow foodie's page describes it
here. I was not yet hungry to try it, but I had seen the concept on one of those Travel Channel shows.
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| vendor stalls in Chinatown |
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| the old and the new |
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| pagoda |
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| paper lanterns blowing in the wind |
Around lunch time, we hopped onto the MRT towards Little India.
Little India was a bit more crowded than Chinatown. We visited one of the hawker centers, but most of the offerings were Chinese food! We also walked through a "wet market" where produce, meat and fish were sold.
I was in search of fish head curry as I had seen it on Bizarre Foods and it sounded really delicious. This search took us all over Little India, as most of the restaurants offered only vegetarian food. We were lucky to finally stumble upon the
Banana Leaf Apolo restaurant in the Little India Arcade. (turned out it was a branch rather than the main restaurant, but it seems reviews aren't fond of the main restaurant anyway) And it had air conditioning! We ordered the small fish head curry (medium and large were also available), along with some fresh buttered naan. Our "plates" were banana leaves; the server ladled two kinds of vegetable "mush" (one eggplant-based and one cabbage-based) and a big helping of regular rice (not basmati) on it. "Chips" (which I believe was
papadum) were also served in a basket. We were also given a fork and spoon as we were not used to eating with our hands, and a wet wipe for cleaning later on.
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| what a feast! I got a glass of honeydew juice |
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| before |
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| after |
The fish head curry was soooooo nom-nom. I hadn't expected it to be that good, but it was. I even ate more rice than usual as I wanted to lap up the curry sauce. When we got the bill, I was annoyed that we had to pay S$1 for each wet wipe! I suppose that we didn't open the wet wipes, we wouldn't have gotten charged; $1 isn't a lot but no one told us about it.
We hopped back onto the MRT and made an obligatory stop at
Orchard Road, where top branded stores are located. Karen and I figured we'd just take a picture to show that we were there, and browse one of the stores and leave. Well, we did take a picture:
Turned out there'd be another LV store one block away...and a Prada two blocks later. Is there enough business for such stores so close to each other?
Karen and I entered a store called
Tangs to browse at prices, but we ended up buying! There was a display of lovely jewelry made by
Chomel, and we couldn't resist, even though we normally don't buy jewelry. The pieces were well-made and reasonably priced. Plus, if you spend more than $100 in combined purchases for the day at a participating store, they'll do the paperwork for you to receive a
GST refund at the airport. That would be a 7% savings.
After cleaning out the jewelry display of their best pieces, we got back on the MRT and stopped at Newton. The concierge at our hotel had recommended the
Newton Food Center. We were in search of some exotic eats. The vendors are very aggressive here and want you to sit at their stalls to eat. We made sure to walk a full circle before deciding where to eat.
Karen and I decided to try some BBQ stingray along with our favorite sambal leaves and some fresh clams. We also got some watermelon juice and sugar cane juice. The stingray meat was similar to fish, but the bones were laid out as if eating a fin, which makes sense, as a stingray is more fin-like than fish. The sauce on top was really good.
Afterwards, it was time to head to the
Singapore Zoo's
Night Safari. The zoo brochures told us to get off at the Ang Mo Kio MRT stop and take the 138 bus to the zoo. Even though it was a Wednesday, there was a long line to get on the bus.
The journey took us about an hour. As it was night time, the temperature dropped a bit due to the disappearance of the sun, but the air was still thick with humidity. It cost S$32 to get into the Night Safari. We went to see the "Creatures of the Night" show. It was a typical animal tricks show, however, the biggest surprise was after a volunteer was called up to play with an animal, the host informed the audience that the creature had "gone missing" and animal handlers needed to search the seating area. The handlers went up a few rows into the audience not far from where we were sitting and unlocked a wooden panel on the floor but didn't "find anything". They passed our section and proceeded to open the wooden panel on the other side of us and then people started shrieking! A thick, 12 foot long python was being pulled out from its hiding place! Karen was glad that they didn't hide it in the panel under our feet since snakes aren't her favorite animals. It took five handlers to get the snake out onto the stage. The volunteer didn't look so excited anymore, haha. He totally looked like
Sanjaya Malakar from American Idol.
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| a wolf |
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| a bobcat I think |
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| python taken out of the audience (I caught Karen's iPhone mid-snap!) |
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| Sanjaya look-alike braving the python |
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| otters can recycle! |
After the show, we got on the tram which took us on the "night safari" to see animals such as elephants, deer, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, etc. Our enjoyment of the safari was interrupted constantly by a family seated in the car behind us talking loudly, with one of their kids standing up, leaning out and screaming at all the animals, despite the tram guide's instructions to "stay quiet and remain seated with your arms and legs inside the vehicle". At one point, the tram halted in the lion's section, with commentary to follow and suddenly people started exiting the tram! The tram guide seemed to be in shock and asked everyone to get back in. Apparently the people thought it was time to get off and walk around, as there was an official stop in the middle of the 40 minute ride. Seriously, you want to get off where there are lions roaming around? When the "official stop" arrived, Karen and I decided not to get off. We were pretty tired from the day's activities and it was so dark that you couldn't really see anything nor take any good pictures. We left the zoo once the tram ride was over, and took the bus back to the MRT hub, the MRT to City Hall, then walked back to the hotel, completely exhausted. Tomorrow will be at a more leisurely pace, visiting Sentosa Island and finding more good eats...
