Singapore - Day 4: Chinatown, Museums, River

Today was an eventful day full of lots of walking!  We began our day touring Chinatown.  We took a cab from Patrice's house in the Woodlands to Chinatown.  It was an interesting experience as our driver was a Chinese woman who listened to meditation chants on the radio.  Needless to say, we were glad to get out of the cab!

Jenna and I in Chinatown.

MRT station in Chinatown.

View from one side of the street.

Another view from the other side of the street.

Chinatown was really neat.  Lots of stores and little places to eat.  We walked through the shops and bought some souvenirs (chopsticks, little bags, house slippers, t-shirts, etc.).  At the end of one of the streets, is a Hindu temple.  We were fortunate enough to be able to enter the temple during a worship service.  We had to take our shoes off and set them outside the temple.  The temple was very orange and colorful with lots of statues and sculptures.  We walked around for about 10 minutes and left when the worship began.

The outside of the temple.

Worshippers inside.

More inside the temple.

Jenna and I with our shoes off.

After the Hindu temple, we walked to another part of Chinatown that had more shops.  We bought some more knickknacks...most importantly a $1 fan to keep up cool.  (The weather here is very hot and humid.  It rained a little today which made the temps slightly bearable!)

Patrice told us she was taking us to the "wet market" next.  When we asked her what that was, she said "You'll see."  (Never a good sign!!)  When we got to the wet market, we knew exactly what she meant.  The wet market is a place where local people sell goods.  There are flowers, vegetables, spices, rice, and...fish.  (Which made the market smell disgusting.)

Fish in the wet market. YUCK!

Various meats for sale.

Vegetables for sale.

We walked through this little courtyard (where there were old men playing chess....so cute!) and across the street to the Buddhist temple.

How cute are these old men?? :)

We were able to go inside but had to put on shaws because we were wearing sleeveless tops.  Our short ended up being too short (we were told by "security" at the temple) so we had to roll them down if we wanted to continue touring.  The temple was very ornate and we were able to see people entering worship.

Jenna and I wearing shaws.

Outside of the Buddhist temple.

People in the temple.

Worship about to begin.

After walking through the worship level of the temple we went to the Buddhist museum upstairs.  There were lots of artifacts and readings of the history of Buddha.

We started to get hungry after all that walking and ate at this cute little cafe called the Loft Cafe.  They served real American food here so that was a real treat!!  They even had fries and chips and salsa!!! (Salsa = picante....still yummy though!).  We had sandwiches and enjoyed a leisurely lunch.

Lovely little lunch place.

Woohoo! Chips and Salsa!!!

$7.00 chips and salsa???

Patrice, Jenna, and I at lunch.

After we ate we walked back through the shops at Chinatown and out to the MRT.  We took the MRT to Dhoby Ghaut, which is a big train interchange station. The transportation in Singapore is interesting.  People are not polite or courteous in any sort of way.  Everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere and they definitely will not let you slow you down.  When you get on/off the trains, people walk and don't mind anyone.  Sometimes you might get shoved (not intentionally) and when you are on the train, men/boys do not give up their seats for anyone....anyone.  Something else I noticed is that when you are walking and you come up behind someone, they intentionally slow down their pace so that you cannot get around them. Rude! Again, its that sense of needing to be first that kicks in.

Trying to promote politeness in Singapore.

After an interesting experience at Dhoby Ghaut, we hopped on another route and headed for the Singapore National Museum.  We bought tickets to walk through the actual Singapore History exhibit and got little headsets to guide us along the tour.  It was really neat and had tons of information about the country.  (Too much for one day though.)

Sign to the entrance of the museum. 

Outside of the museum.

Jenna and I outside the museum.

Headsets for our tour of the museum.

I learned a lot about the country of Singapore, where it came from and how it has gotten to where it is today. Did you know that in WWII the Japanese invaded Singapore over the causeway from Malaysia on bikes??

Bikes representing the invasion.

After a long time of walking around Chinatown and the museum, we took the MRT to Clark Quay.  Clark Quay is on the Singapore River and is a heavily populated ex-Pat/tourist area.  It felt so much like America....like the San Antonio Riverwalk, but nicer! Lol.  There were tons of restaurants on the river.

Picture of the Clark Quay area.

Cute stores inside the historical buildings in Clark Quay.

Me by the Singapore River.

We walked around the river to Robertson Quay (another area like Clark Quay but less crowded and "loud") where we met Ernie, patrice's husband for dinner.  We ate at an Australian restaurant called Boomerangs, which was right on the river.  We sat outside, looking at the river while we ate.  We had delicious appetizers of hummus, potato wedges, and bruschetta.  I had Ham and Pineapple pizza which was very good.

The Boomerang restaurant.

Ernie and Patrice deciding what to order for dinner.

Delicious Ham and Pineapple pizza!

After dinner we took Ernie's car to pick up Elliott (their son) and headed back home.  We had a lot of laughs on the drive back about Singapore at its people, and just the differences in life and culture.

Patrice and Ernie trying to figure out where Elliott was and which MRT station would be the easiest to pick him up from!! SO funny!!!

I am beat....it's been a long day!! :)