Singapore

Last night we flew to Singapore on Air China. Let me just say I hope never to fly with them again! First we had the whole luggage issue with is still makes me very angry, and then they changed our flight time to leave 2 hours later. Now I understand that I guess is partly my fault for not checking the flight status while in Beijing but I would think they would at least email me or something. It is not like the plane was delayed. They just moved the time back. When we got to the airport, we noticed the new flight time. Maybe I am expecting too much, but other airlines seem to handle emailing us about schedule changes. When we got on the plane, we realized the plane is probably the oldest plane we have ever been on. There was a large projector for the TV for everyone to watch which shows how old it is. Then there were actual ashtrays on the armrests. Unbelievable, but at least we made it to Singapore.

We landed after 11:00pm. We had to go through immigration then get our luggage. We also learned from wikitravel that in Singapore there are surcharges for taxis after midnight. We really wanted to get a taxi before midnight which we did. Most people do speak English here including taxi drivers. We checked into our hotel and went to sleep.

This morning we woke up and worked on the blog for a little while. Then I was starving so we went to breakfast. We really did not eat much yesterday. We had a weird vegetarian Asian dinner on the plane and did not eat lunch so I was hungry last night but we were not going to eat at midnight. So this morning I was really hungry. I did not want to eat a fast food American breakfast but was unsure if I really wanted an Asian breakfast either. We found the perfect place. We had eggs, Asian tea, and what they called French toast. All was really good. There tea is very sweet so I loved it (it came with milk and sugar already in it).

Then we started walking around the city. We visited little India. There were many stalls setup with people selling things. Unlike anywhere else, most booths actually ahd someone with a microphone explaining and demonstrating the product like someone would in an infomercial.


Next we walked to Fountain of Wealth. We were told to walk around it 3 times, place our right hand in the water, and make a wish. It was neat. Then we walked to Merlion Park. The famous lion statue is there. We took lots of pictures.


At this point it was getting around noon and I was getting tired from walking all morning in the heat so we sat down and took a break. All of a sudden several people from an Islamic tour group wanted to get their picture we us. The group was pretty large and probably had 50-60 people in it. We probably had our pictures taken with over 30 women. It was really unbelievable. Brian even asked them to use our camera to take a picture for proof of this. It was funny. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and we were not in a hurry, so we did not mind. We found out that Chinese tourists visiting from other parts of China liked to do this, but apparently they are not the only one. See we really do stand out!

We went and washed our hands and stopped in a shop to look for souvenirs. It was prefect timing because it started to rain. We shopped until the rain stopped which took about 15 minutes. Then we walked to Thian Hock Temple. The temples are something different to see. After that we stopped and had some cookies Brian got from a street vendor. We walked to Chinatown. Near Chinatown we had a Chocolate Ice and Passion Fruit Ice for lunch. They had gummy pieces in them, which Brian liked, but I thought was weird (especially in the chocolate one).

We continued our day and walked around the entire city including through Clarke Quay and Fort Canning Park. Neither was particularly impressive, but they were nice to walk through and see. We started to get tired and wanted to go back to our hotel.

There are several things we learned today about walking in Singapore. On a side note, it is illegal to jaywalk here so keep that in mind. There are not always crosswalks at intersections and they force to either climb up to a bridge to cross the street or go underground and walk under the street. Often it is unclear where you are supposed to do this. We preferred to use overpasses. The underpasses often included malls and snaked underneath the streets rarely having you emerge only on the other side of the street. Usually you ended up 2-3 blocks away and it was confusing to get your bearings again. More than once we started walking the wrong direction down a street because of losing our sense of direction this way. I guess we needed a compass or GPS to help. Also there is construction everywhere. Often the sidewalk is closed and forces you to take a detour.

Another annoying part of pedestrian life is that the green crosswalk signs only let you walk for a few seconds. Even though the lights are in your favor for much longer, it does not let you cross but for a short window. Thus we ended up waiting to cross the street constantly and often for 2-3 minutes. There were many times today we could have gone but had to wait for it to turn green. There really should be two types of maps for Singapore – a road map and a pedestrian map.

On the plus side, cars did yield to pedestrians. In Beijing this was completely the opposite. Cars made it clear that they would hit you if you did not get out of the way. A large group could be crossing the street and a car would force its way through people to go in Beijing. Despite this, it was easier to get around in Beijing because there were so many restrictions about where and how to cross the streets. It is hard to say, but perhaps Beijing was actually more pedestrian friendly!

We had to take the longest way possible back to our hotel due to all the construction, under/over passes, and getting losted. Finally we made it back around 5pm. We freshened up for dinner. It is around 90 degrees – sunny hot and humid. Brian was even sweating today!

For dinner we wanted to try satay. Satay is chicken and mutton (lamb) kabobs that are marinated in a sweet spicy sauce and served with peanut sauce for dipping. It comes with fresh onion, cucumber, and rice cakes. We heard that in Singapore you had to try it. It is popular here and in other places like Indonesia. We looked up online where to get it. It recommended Clarke Quay. We decided to take a taxi. I was done walking for a while. We had a nice taxi driver and he recommended a local market to get satay instead. He dropped us off there and explained how to walk back. It was good.

After dinner we walked back to Merlion Park to see it at night. Then we walked to the fountain of wealth so see a water light laser show. It was definitely no Bellagio in Vegas but still was good. The plan was to get ice then walk back to our hotel. Ice cream places were closing by the time we got there (nearly 9pm) so we decided against it. Ice cream is very expensive too (about $5 for a one scoop cone). We walked back to the hotel and now we are both exhausted. Time for bed.

Side note: We did not post this until morning sinc we were so tired and did not want to go through pictures. We get on the cruise ship later this afternoon.