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Arriving in Singapore and Little India, Chinatown, etc

After a grueling day of traveling due to China Eastern Airlines inability to depart on time I made it to Singapore last night around 9pm. After meeting up with my friends, we headed out to Chinatown to find some food at one of the various hakwer stalls. It was a familiar site, very close to what Kuala Lumpur was like with hawker stalls and people everywhere, but about a thousand times clear and hundreds of signs saying how much you’ll get fined for just about anything (including eating durian). We had some pretty good street food, then went to get some foot massages, then ended up walking around for a bit in the area. After we got bored of walking around, we decided to jump in a taxi and head over to the spectacular Raffles Hotel to grab a Sinagpore Sling at place it was created, Long Bar. The hotel was fantastic, full of old world British charm. The Long Bar was picturesque too, if not a bit touristy and the sling was, well a sling. We went back home to get an early start to today.

In the morning, we made our way over to Takashimaya to get a highly recomended breakfast of coffee, soft boiled eggs and strong sweet coffee at Ya Kun Kaya, located in the basement. It was delicious. We cruised around the basemen tof Takashimaya for a little longer, and I got some more food (it was pretty much the theme for the day), a Noyan rice ball wrapped in banana leaf. Again, delicious. I’d always wanted to try one, and that was the first time I’d seen a vegetarian version of the snack. 

After finishing up breakfast, we went over to Little India by MRT. The subway system is very simular in rolling stock, ticket systems, and floor plans to the one in Shanghai. It’s very comprehensive, clean and runs often. Little India was fun, again centered around food. There were still a lot of signs up for Diwali as well as plenty of South Indian looking/styled temples. We ate at a veg South Indian restaurant, where I had a good masala dosa and a few other folks got some great looking thalis, too. We made our way back to the major market area in Little India to get some teh tarik, a Malay-style pulled sweet black tea.

From there it was back the colonial/city/downtown area and walked through the cricket grounds, the Supreme Court, and some of the other old British buildings. A lot of times it was hard to tell if you were in London or in Singapore just how the roads were layed out and the buildings were styled. On the docket for tonight is the night safari at the zoo, a supposed top thing to do in Singapore. We’re about to head out to dinner, who knows where, but I’m in South East Asia, which means I’m always ready to eat. Tomorrow I think I might hop over to Indonesia to spend the morning-ish hours at the beach at Bintan or another island over there.