Singapore was quite literally a breath of fresh air. After the exhaust fumes of the Philippines, we were very happy to have cleaner air to breathe and it was an added perk to have tap water that was safe for us to drink.
Singapore is an interesting port city. It has very distinct neighborhoods of Chinatown, Little India, and Arab Street (actually a full neighborhood, but everyone referred to it as Arab Street), but there are also areas that are quite blended – especially in terms of religion. At one point we walked past a large Buddhist Temple, a Hindu Temple, a Catholic Church and a Mosque all within a block of one another.
Our first night there, we went on a night safari to get up close and personal with lots of nocturnal animals at the zoo. This was not the kind of zoo we’re used to! We were right in the enclosures with many of the animals and had to really search to see what seemed like an insufficient fence between us and the lions! We passed by a tapir that was resting where if we’d been looking up, we would have tripped over it and Colin almost accidentally touched a flying fox – the largest bat in the world – while trying to get a good picture.
The next day, we met a plethora of interesting birds – again being right in the enclosure with most of them at the Jurong Bird Park. At the “High Flyers” show, Rachel was chosen as volunteer to help out and a Sulpher-Crested Cockatoo landed on her outstretched arm and handed her one of those red envelopes that are usually given to children for Chinese New Year. Because the lunar new year is celebrated for a couple of weeks, there were still lots of celebrations going on. There were dragon parades, loud gongs, elaborate decorations, and the streets of Chinatown were filled with small fires all along the sidewalks as people burned fake money and whatnot for deities and ancestors.
One of our fellow travelers from the dorms we were staying in pointed us to a store up the street called Mustafa Center. Down in the basement was a city block-sized room entirely dedicated to gold jewelry and gold bars. The largest bar we saw was 10 kg (about 22 lbs!) that was worth well over $500,000. The jewelry was extremely elaborate; it seemed like the stuff you see Egyptian pharaohs wearing. We are sure that we could have spent a great deal more time exploring the city, but we would have needed a few of those bars of gold to be able to afford it.
We got to the airport early on our last day and found that our flight was delayed. In the end, we spent a little over 10 hours in the Changi airport, but we both agree that if you are going to be stuck in an airport, Singapore is where you hope to be. There were some amazing art installations as well as a rooftop pool, sleeping lounges, a free movie theater, a butterfly garden, etc.
We had dinner at this great little sushi joint where the sushi was on conveyor belt that made its way past each of the booths so you could just watch it all go by and grab whatever looked interesting. For the most part, it was all delicious. The only one that we regretted was one with “cheese” on the outside. We’ve learned that usually when something says it has cheese, it’s basically Velveeta. The locals don’t seem to mind, but coming from Dairyland, USA, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to eat it. Colin ate fish heads in Chinatown, but Velveeta was crossing the line. 🙂
