I arrived in Singapore last night at about 8pm. I immediately headed out to see the city at night and to meet my new friend from KL, Nor. After a spot of dinner we headed to the marina bay sands all lit up.
This morning my first stop was Pinnacle at Duxton. This is a housing project which is 50 stories high and has 1848 apartments in 7 blocks which are linked together by the sky bridges. The view of the city from the top was really stunning!
Next on the days list of things to do was a nice walk around China Town. This Chinatown was really lively with food streets and market stalls. A great spot just to wonder.
Also in the Chinatown area was the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. As some of you may remember I went to a Buddha tooth temple in Sri Lanka so I had to try this one out as well! This is a Buddhist temple which was built in 2007. It contains a relic of the tooth of Buddha which was found in a collapsed stupa in Myanmar in 1980. It was a beautiful temple which is based on the Tang Dynasty architecture style.
After this I was feeling a bit peckish so headed to the Maxwell road hawker centre. This is basically a food hall which has a tonne of choice. On a recommendation I went for sugarcane juice, popiah (like a vegetable wrap) and a carrot cake (this is not as we know it! This is a noodle and egg dish, it was delicious).
By this point it was the afternoon and I wanted to check out Sultan Mosque. The original mosque that stood in its place had been built in 1826 but was too small and had fallen into disrepair. In 1928 the new mosque was opened and is absolutely beautiful!
After this I had a little look around Arab street and Haji Lane, both of which are beautifully picturesque and have amazing some incredible street art.
After this I decided to check out the Tiong Bahru neighbourhood. Nor had recommended a bakery which apparently sold amazing cupcakes so of course I went on the hunt. Whilst I was wondering around I saw some of the heritage. The name Tiong Bahru literally translates to ‘New Cemetery’. In the early 20th century this area was predominantly farmland and cemeteries, it was also swampy and mosquito ridden which was of huge concern given that the hospital was a couple of miles away. Therefore the clean up of this area commenced. The land was drained and the graves exhumed. Flats were built on this land and gradually it became the town it is today. Also in this area are air raid shelters built in the back garden of the flats. These were used during world war 2 when Singapore suffered a series of intense air raids from Japan.
I found the cupcake place and Nor was right they were awesome. I couldn’t decide so I got two, one for now and one for a bit later. They were the carrot cake and the salted caramel (I have now eaten both and they were delicious).
In the evening after a day of a lot of walking I went to see the Marina Bay light show. It was pretty stunning with the use of lasers! Overall it was a pretty good day!
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