As we had had a late night yesterday, we took our time getting ready and left the hotel late morning. We went to orchard station first of all and decided to grab something to eat before heading off to the Singapore Botanical Gardens – We ended up in the food hall of the Ion Mall, looking at all the different foods on offer. We came across what looked like a pork dumpling and noodle shop and decided to go for that as you could choose which noodles you wanted….unfortunately it didn’t taste or look like what we were expecting – we think it may have had some chinese herbal medicine in it, because it had rather a strange tang to it!! We both ate as much as we could, but neither of us could finish our meals. We were left feeling a little hungry and with a strange aftertaste in our mouths, so when we discovered a soya milkshake shop, we jumped at the chance to cleanse our palates! As you know, I can’t have dairy but soya milk was fine and so this looked quite safe. We watched as the guy put the soya milk base in the glass….and then our faces dropped as he added two scoops of chocolate (Seio) and strawberry (me) dairy ice-cream to the mix!! Oh dear (^^)> I drank most of my shake, but ended up with a bit of a sore head for the rest of the day!! Never mind….
After we’d recovered a little from the food and milkshake events of the morning, we jumped on the bus to the Botanic Gardens and took a nice long walk through the park. It was a lovely place, full of rare and interesting plants and flowers – with a special orchid garden as the main attraction. Unfortunately it started to pour with rain again in the early afternoon, but that don’t stop us taking lots of photos. Luckily we had an umbrella with us today, so we didn’t get as soaked as yesterday!
On the way home from the botanic gardens, we stopped off at Little India and had a walk around the shops in the Little India Arcade. There were henna tattoo salons, sari material shops and various market stalls selling little trinkets. We also went to the Mustafa Centre – a huge mall selling everything from watches and cameras to spices and sari material.
We didn’t buy anything, but it was nice to have a look around and see what was on offer.
It was getting a bit late and so we headed back to the hotel through Chinatown.
It was another quick turnaround to get dressed, and get back into town to meet up with Wai Hon. We met up at the same place as yesterday – City Hall station.
From there we went for a Singapore Sling cocktail at the famous Raffles Hotel Long bar – the only place in Singapore where it is Ok to throw litter on the floor – in this case peanuts!!
Singapore Sling originated at the Raffles Hotel Long Bar and to this day they still use the original recipe – mainly dry Gin, cherry Brandy and pineapple juice. It was very fruity and very easy to drink – quite dangerous on an empty stomach…luckily we had lots of peanuts to pace ourselves with.
After our cocktails, Wai Hon took us to a traditional Chinese restaurant where we tried some more authentic cuisine. Tonight we had sweet potato leaves, Sam Sui Chicken with ginger, and fish with ginger and spring onion. We all had some rice and lots of Chinese tea as well. Towards the end of the evening Wai Hon’s friend Beng (nickname ‘Ben-gu’) joined us and we all went off to see some more of Singapore at night. The boys took us to through the Esplanade concert hall, locally known as the Durian (as in the pungent fruit), and down to Marina Bay – home of the Singapore Flyer and Merlion. Singapore Flyer is a like for like copy of the London Eye really – giant pods that rotate on a half-hourly basis, giving you a grand view of the city. The Merlion was spouting tonnes of water into the Bay and looked very majestic. Wai Hon and Bengu pointed out some of the different buildings to us including the Fullerton Hotel, a gorgeous colonial building which was originally the general post office apparently!
After I’d taken lots of photos of Singapore at night, we all headed back towards Bengu’s car, passing City Hall, the statue of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Victoria Theatre, and the Supreme Court ‘flying saucer’ building on the way. Bengu kindly drove us back to the Hotel Re! where we said our good byes and promised to meet up again someday soon.
We were quite exhausted again and just fell in to bed and went to sleep – we will do our packing tomorrow morning as there is not too much of a rush for our next flight.
Thanks Wai Hon and Beng for showing us the real Singapore – good food, amazing sights and brilliant company (^^)v We will be back someday – and maybe they will have moved Merlion yet again, who knows?
Filed under: Asia, Singapore | Tagged: Esplanade, Merlion, Singapore | Leave a comment »