Singapore: Day 3...
People were telling me that I was very fortunate when I was over in Asia. It seems that during this time of the year (CNY) it's usually drought season... Strange thing is parts of JB were under water, and there were times in the day when the rain was coming down REALLY hard. This, of course, led to milder temperatures... which I obviously won't complain about :)
M was going to the market again today... a different one this time! We went to Ghim Moh market at Commonwealth so she could pick up her ground pork and so I could experience some more hawker food :P It looks like they take their markets, and 'marketing' pretty seriously... alot of the people have mics around their necks and are hooked up to stereos or bullhorns. There was even a guy in Chinatown who was losing his voice, regardless of the fact that he had a microphone. wth.
While M went to pick out her pork and then waited for the butcher to grind it, we all went to the food stalls. There are too many different foods to choose from. Actually, to more accurately put it, there are too many hawker stands to explore. Many of them offer the same items and choosing one or the other is a matter of personal preference. I'm told that if a stall bears the mark of actor Adrian Pang and the show 'Makan King' then Singaporeans do what many of them do best... begin queuing up!
Anyway, after walking around looking at all the different stalls (and being as wishywashy as I am) I let Jacq choose my meal for me :) I had the Lor Mee & Grass Jelly Drink while Jacq had Fried Sliced Fish Mee Hoon. That hit the spot... I was still a little bit worried because my grass jelly drink came with ice. Even though I know Singapore has very high sanitation standards I can't help but feel reluctant to put a piece of ice in my mouth, especially when I'm in a market eating hawker food. The last time I had hawker ice (in Malaysia) I ended up bed-ridden for 4-5 days and having to eat charcoal pills to purge everything from my system... that sucked arse.
Another interesting thing that I forgot to mention in my other post is... parking coupons. I have to say, the S'porean gov't is brilliant. Here everywhere we go, we have to get out and slot coins into meters, grab a ticket from a box and place on our dash, or slot a card or something when we park. It's a system that we've been using forever and it's probably going to stay that way for awhile. In S'pore, almost ALL parking is prepaid! If it's not coupons that you punch out, then it's the prepaid cards that are mounted on your windshield. Granted, I can see why some people would not want to put those on their car. Apparently, they drill through the glass to get that little electronic box mounted on there. BUT... for that little inconvenience you can go to many underground parking lots and just drive slowly through as you hear a little beep. The drawback to this is... you never really realize how much money is going into parking because you never see anything leave your hands... and that's the genius of it all. The government sees all the money before the citizens get the benefits!
Onward... Jacq decided to take me to Chinatown that day :) Chinatown over there is alot nicer than Chinatown in Vancouver. Our Chinatown covers an area of about 5 blocks by 5 blocks... I'm not even 100% sure about that... the area between Keefer & Union, Gore & Jackson are like thte Chinese Projects. Some people will argue that but I knew someone who lived in there.. and trust me, it's like the projects. Just west of that the 4 blocks between Hastings & Union, Main & Gore is the main Market area of our Chinatown... there are, of course, more restaurants and other storefronts even further west for the next couple of blocks, but it trickles off.
Singapore's Chinatown kicked arse... they even had a FOOD STREET!!! wth :D Unfortunately, during the time that we were there we didn't go down that way. I briefly stopped to take a shot of the street. The only one place that Jacq wanted me to try (in Chinatown) was a place that served Frog Congee... *sigh* it wasn't open when we went so I didn't get to try it. While we were ther, however, I saw one of the crazy long queues that I'd heard so much about. During CNY people like to give out BAKKWA it's a sort of overrated (hope I'm not offending anyone :P) beef jerky that's given out as a gift. Sure, some of them ARE pretty good.. but it's still not worth queuing up for like this...
And it's all because of places like this...
I'm thinking that the closest thing that we have to Bakkwa here is the Soo Jerkey that we can buy here... but then again, I haven't gone looking for it here, soooo.. don't take my word for it ;)
Aside from all the beautiful red decor there were stores that made it blatantly obvious that it was CNY...
Towards the end of one of the streets there was a stall setup where you could go to get your name put on a Chinese Name Seal. There were two of them... it was obvious that one of them was the Master and the other one was the Prodege. Anyways, I took some footage of the guy when he was making my seal. I requested that he do it in the traditional (old style) characters... It's very impressive because they don't use any clamps, and they only use one tool throughout the whole process...
Just a heads-up the video is over 18 minutes long... enjoy...
Here's some footage of the Master doing a carving, how could I tell? well, first of all he's not leaning on the table. Secondly... it took him a fraction of the time carve the name.. and he did it freehand!
[oops... haven't recompressed the vid yet :(]
Just around the corner from the carver stand was Sri Mariamman Temple, the designs were elaborate and statues of cows and a lion looked on from atop the ledge. Towards the entrance was a tower of platforms held up by statues. I'm told it is a Tamil temple. Apparently my sister tried to take pictures of the temple when she was there last year... they allow photos from the outside, but when it comes to photos from the inside, you have to pay. I didn't bother trying to find that out for myself so we crossed the street and took photos from there :)
Round and round Chinatown we walked, it was much of the same thing... nick knacks here-and-there... immitation brands everywhere... we got tired from walking in and out of stores and then found the foodcourt area, right across from the Chinatown Heritage Centre, a storefront with a museum in the back. The man that served us was an older man, he reminded me of my grandfather. Jacq and I ordered some popia and some sort of kway, it wasn't bad, the old man gave us a special price :)
While we were eating then deciding where to go next it began to piss down rain... I hadn't seen a heavy rain like that in ages. People here complains when it rains hard but they don't know what HEAVY RAIN is. Not until you've experienced Tropical Torrential downpours. We had to yell at each other just to hear what each other were saying :P See for yourself...
When the rain finally stopped we took the MRT over to VIVO CITY, the newest shopping mall in Singapore. Vivo City is linked to Harbour Front and from there you can take the new Mnorail over to Sentosa Island. Something that wasn't there when I was visiting last year. While walking around we found my favorite store... only to be disappointed when I stepped in, it was womens only! :@ Yes, I was upset.. I was hoping to be able to get some cheap Mexx clothing :( While exploring kids' stores and looking for gifts for people we ran into Toys 'R' Us and this sight...
Wow... we don't have those over here!
Oh yeah.. before I forget, we saw this creepy sight in Chinatown too...
Time for me to get some rest, I'm sure we did something that evening as well... I think it was dinner with Mary, but I don't have those photos prepared atm, so I'll see if I can add them later.. ciao for now!
