Singapore
As I mentioned in our post about the food in Singapore, there are indoor markets with giant food courts all over the city. Since we’re not big on shopping we had mostly just focused on the food section, but after a delicious meal one day we decided to take a wander through the rest of the market.
We were in luck for our fabric project! One of the first stalls we came across had some gorgeous designs on nice cotton fabric. Perfect for quilting and so much easier than our searches in many of the other countries! We had trouble deciding what to buy as there were lots of pretty patterns. In the end we picked three that were thought were unusual or a bit distinctive. Very happy with these ones!
While in Singapore we had one Friday night where we wanted to go out on the town. Being the big partiers that we are, we decided that a bar is just not party-hard enough for us! We instead opted for an ingenious venue found on a very touristy street: the Game Cafe!
The thing that drew us in was a special – all you can drink sugary drinks, and all you can eat chips, and all you can game, all night, for a very reasonable price! We were sold! Little did we know that we’d find classics in this game shop. One of our favorites while we lived in California was the “Bean Game”, also known as Bohnanza, and we happened to find it there! Of course, it was just the two of us so the game wasn’t up to its normal form. We also found Quoridor, a game I had in high school, and tried out a bunch of new games as well.
The real entertainment of the night, however, was a giant group of 15 or so people who were playing a very loud group game – and would spontaneously burst out laughing. Kept the mood lifted! We had a blast — game nights are something you just don’t get so often while you’re travelling.
The first thing that struck me about Singapore is how clean the city is. Seriously, they must sweep constantly and there are heavy fines for littering. No grimy, dirty streets here!
We stayed at an excellent hostel which was a really good deal compared to other places in the area. Singapore is not cheap, but A Beary Good Hostel was reasonably priced, a pleasant place to stay, and wonderfully located right next to a subway station in Chinatown. We were able to walk or take the subway and see a lot of the famous sights.
We had a couple of days of relaxing (we were tired after our long travel and days in the jungle) and exploring the city. So here are some highlights of our time in Singapore.
I’ll start this post out by saying that almost everything we tasted in Singapore was excellent. Singapore is not a particularly cheap place, but we were able to do pretty well by mostly eating at our local food court. We stayed in Chinatown and there were plenty of tasty morsels to try!
We found that the best strategy was to go to the food court (kind of like a mix between a market and a food court you would find in a mall here), look around until we found a longish line and then get in that line and order whatever everyone else was eating. Singapore has very strict regulations about food handling and cleanliness, so pretty much anywhere food is being sold it’s likely to be edible.
We had delicious noodles with pork.