Hot but Friendly

Grace in her cute new togs, the photo is steamy due to the heat!
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Hot and friendly Singapore, what a destination!

The heat was very intense, walking down the main street at 8 in the morning and breaking out in a sweat was not so pleasant!  The exhausting heat and the need for Grace to sleep all afternoon meant we didn't do a lot of the activities that we had planned, but fortunately our hotel was located in a prime location for shopping, so one of us could pop out for a bit of retail therapy while the other had a nap with Grace.

We did make it through the Botanical Gardens, Chinatown, Little India, most parts of Orchard Road and a suburb called Toa Poah, using the MRT (underground) and busses.

Children having a school lesson at the Botanical Gardens
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The main highlight would have to be the shopping, we bought a lap top, a tailored made suit and shirt for Tim, a beautiful dress from DKNY for Angela, and some very cute togs for Grace (her togs were reduced to $35 from $159!).  The shopping malls in Singapore are extreme, they are huge and there are lots of them and best of all they provide relief from the heat!

We were keen to eat as much local food as possible, but in the heat the last thing we wanted was a hot curry or something deep fried.  It's astounding that asian people are so slim with the amount of deep fried food consumed.

It was a nice surprise to see all the Christmas lights already up on Orchard Road
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On one hot day when we had been walking for some time, we gave in to the allure of an air conditioned McDonalds, but decided to try something that looked slightly asian, so ordered a Chicken Fan-tastic, this was the biggest mistake of our trip ... imagine a chicken burger, but replace the bread with soft rice cakes and replace the chicken breast with a very fatty strange tasting thin slice of 'chicken' and replace the lettuce with cabbage and you get an idea, but without smelling it you can never really appreciate how bad and very un-fan-tastic it actually was!  On our last night we went to The House of Peranekan Cuisine, which is a traditional straights chinese restaurant, Angela had peppered cray fish and Tim had a spicy chicken curry with these amazingly large black nuts still in their shells.  These dishes were very good and we felt better having sampled some good traditional food.

Botanical Gardens
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The buildings in Singapore were varied and great, from the huge high rise living blocks to the old colonial homes and hotels.  The modern and imposing architecture of the new shopping malls and the almost shack like style of the hawker food centres.  Every part was fascinating.

The people of Singapore are so friendly and Grace was favored with many smiles and waves and even some cuddles.  She got very used to the attention and began waving and calling out 'ello' to everyone she saw, gaining a delighted response from just about every passer-by.

We were a bit sad to leave Singapore, wondering how London would compare in friendliness, modern organization and overall great shopping.