Singapore 2019

This is Singapore

Wow, what a place. It took some effort to get here but it was well worth the train from my home town, the tube across London to Heathrow and the 14 hour flight via Dubai.

We arrived at our hotel before 10am and were pleasantly surprised to find that our room was ready. That meant we could freshen up before setting off for the day which included meeting up with family from home. We walked together along the river bank where it was already hot and we were seeking out the shade among the trees.

The skyline of the Business District dominated the scene with its gleaming glass and steel reaching up to the skies and reflecting the passing clouds like giant mirrors. The river was punctuated by the many bridges that crossed it, some modern, made of concrete and softened by pink flowers along their length and carrying traffic. Others were steel antiques. The lovely Cavanagh Bridge was made in Glasgow and was typical of the iron bridges in Britain made in the 1850s. ‘Bumboats’ carried tourists up and down the river from Clarke's Quay to Marina Bay, Singerpore's tourist hot spot.

We followed the North Bank of the river, passing all the bridges that lead to Marina Bay. The bay is a big open rectangular harbour, surrounded by the high rise Business District on one side and the Marina Bay Sands shopping mall and hotel on another. On the third side is Merlion Park where a huge 8. 5 meter high statue, half lion and half fish, spews water from its mouth into the bay. The Jubilee Bridge, built to celebrate 50 years of independence in 2015, is a pedestrian bridge that cuts across the mouth of the river as it flows into the bay. Adjacent is the Esplanade promenade. At one end, the spiky roof of the Esplanade Theatre stands next to Jubilee Bridge and at the other, the double helix curved pedestrian bridge leads to the mall and hotel.

The Sands Sky Park hotel can be seen from almost anywhere in the city and is famous throughout the world. It has three enormous towers housing the hotel rooms with a casino and shopping mall on the ground floor. Spanning across the top of all three towers is the Sky Park. The Sky Park has a garden, swimming pool, bars, restaurants and observation deck. It was here at the hotel that we said goodbye to the family as they were heading up to the observation deck before flying home, while we needed to catch up on some sleep back at our hotel.

Chinatown is where we spent our first evening, drinking in the atmosphere of the bustling streets as well as a beer or two. The evening sky was glowing but the late sunshine didn't penetrate down to street level as the surrounding buildings were all so tall. Chinatown was made up mostly of ‘shophouses’: just as it sounds, the ground floor was the shop, bar or restaurant while upstairs was the living quarters. Built in around 1910, most had arched windows on the first floor with wooden louvre doors and many had pillars or columns for decoration. Between the shop fronts and the road was a covered walkway where people could once have walked along to stay out of the sun or the rain. Many of these spaces have now been used up as extra seating for cafes or display space for the shopkeepers to sell their wares.

Chinatown by night

After a good wander around we settled to eat in Smith Street, now known as Chinatown Food Street. Hawkers have set up their street food stalls down the middle of the street while restaurants and cafes occupy the shop houses on either side. The whole area has been covered over by enormous umbrella-like covers, turning it into an all-weather atrium for food lovers. The atmosphere was great as was the food.

On our way back to the hotel we discovered the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Now this was a bit of a mystery to us since we have already visited the ‘real’ Tooth Relic Temple in Kandy in Sri Lanka. Surely there can't be two of them? In any case the temple was closed but the many red lanterns adorning it at street level we very pleasing on the eye. We also stumbled across the Sri Mariamman Temple and walked around it barefoot to admire the ornate and life-like carvings of Hindu Gods adorning the rooves and gopuram (tower). Then on the next corner we passed the Jamae Mosque built by Tamil Muslims in 1826. We only peered into the tiled entrance with its geometric design before heading  back for some much needed sleep.

Sri Mariamman Temple