It’s not all about the travelling

Hello there,

Just looking at my past blogs and realised I appear to be focused entirely on our adventures whilst on holidays out of Singapore. Whilst these are a  highlight, we have found many interesting places to explore in Singapore as well.

Just had our dear friends Janet and Iain from Northern NSW visiting us en route from the UK and was able to share with them some of the interesting places Singapore has to offer.

Our first stop was temple in the heart of the Business District, this temple is one of the earliest examples in Sing....it was a refuge for Chinese refugees as they made the often perilous journey across the seas to reach Singapore. Its mixture of Buddhist Tao and Confucian beliefs make it a worthy and interesting site.

    

We then enjoyed a fabulous steam boat meal in Chinatown, the first Kafil and I had partaken of in Sing. Mountains of prawns, calamari, beef, lamb, vegetables and noodles with a steaming pot of broth both chicken and chilli in the same pot. Needless to say we loved slurping and cooking our meal at the table, we will return.

We ventured to the Botanic Gardens, and the Orchid Garden, fabulous colours and variety of orchids in abundance. Unfortunately the heavens opened up and we sought shelter in a pagoda style .... until it was safe to make a dash for it to the lovely Halida restaurant. We had to return to get a better look at the vast lush gardens and after walking for several hours came home to discover it had been one of the most humid and hot days for ages (DOH)


Janet Iain and I went to the very interesting Chinese Heritage house which is a row of 3 shop houses which have recreations of how people lived at the turn of the century. The display featured electronic accounts as well as examples of the tiny rooms families lived in in these earliest of shared houses. No trip to Sing should be without a sample of the famous ice cream sandwich. This delightful concoction features a large slice of ice cream wit a folded piece of pandan, pink& green bread surrounding it. Iain was very brave he chose the malodorous Durian flavour. At $ 1.00 a pop, served by "uncles" with bicycles and frozen drums shaded by an umbrella a very Singaporean experience.

Arab Street was also on the agenda, a collection of businesses and houses, which surround the largest Mosque in Sing. This mosques is a central landmark and the area around it was were Muslims' from Indonesia and India, gathered on the way to to do the Hajj in Saudi in days gone by. The streets are alive with the colourful fabric and carpet shops, and the constant cry of come in have a look.Despite the modernisation of Singapore there are many enclaves of shop houses and kampongs which are a slice of history.

Little India, was also on the schedule who can resist a trip to Mustafa's 24 hour department store? The surrounding streets with hawkers selling strands of floral garlands for those going to the myriad temples in the area.

Meals at Hawker Centres also dominated, we visited the East Coast Park food court where we ate satays and....with the backdrop of the very busy shipping ......looming. So many ships queuing up to use the ports, a very vibrant transport hub indeed.

Kafil and I in recent times have visited Pulau Ubin, a lovely little island paradise just a short 10 minute "bum boat" ride away. Pulau Ubin has not been allowed to be developed so it is a lovely day out, as the island has a jungle feel dotted with original stilt houses. Riding bikes is the main way to get around, and we cycled (with some difficulty , uphill) for a couple of hours before finishing our adventure with a lovely fresh black pepper crab at the tasty but cheap cafe there.

Changi Village is also one of our favourite places, it is literally the end of the line, and is a seaside suburb whose pace is a little slower than that of the city areas. Kafil and I love to go to Tequila Blue, which serves $9.00 Margaritas and tasty Mexican food. its strange how we now enjoy Mexican Cuisine so much as in Oz it was never a favourite. the Owner a Brit named Terry makes us very welcome, and the Blues Music playing in the background adds to the ambience.

                

We do spend More time watching AFL on the TV than we ever used to, not sure if its "cos it connects us to home, or whether it just saves us thinking of something else to do. It is a very indulgent lifestyle here as we have no responsibilities no no dog, no family no garden no house to maintain, it really does make for a relaxing life.

We went to see the movie Mongol, as well it was a fantastic biopic of the early days of Genghis Khan. I am a little drawn to things Mongolian at the moment, perhaps we will get there some day.

We have been to a couple wine tastings and dinner events of recently, this makes us feel like we are still embracing favourite and much missed part of our former lives.

The most recent was a fabulous meeting of East meets West with a celebrated London Chef sparring with a acclaimed local chef.  The setting was the marvellous New Majestic Hotel a series of shop houses renovated to form an eclectic and arty boutique hotel.

The food was fantastic, a inspired menu mixing Asian delicacies, and food  of a more European bent.  The wines served were a mixture of French Champagne New Zealand white wines and Californian reds.

The night was very special and our table of 7 was fun and it was great to meet some new friends.

We also met up with friends Giles and Anita and finally met there gorgeous 7 month old son Darius.  A lovely afternoon of lunch and chat on  the river at Clarke Quay.

 

We then ventured over to Little India where the streets were bedecked in lights in celebration of Diwali or Deepavali or festival of lights.  Stepping into Little India is like being on the Sub continent teams of mostly men swarm the streets and fill the myriad of cafes eating aromatic curies and generally connecting to there peers.

 

Diwali drew crowds of onlookers to admire the lights and the traffic came to a standstill as the throng of people overspilled onto the busy roads.

Needless to say I am getting very excited as I leave for Melbourne in  4 days, I am looking forward to catching up with friends and family and enjoying some of the good things that life in Melbourne offers.

SHANGHAI- SURPRISE

                      

Kafil and I have recently returned from our week in Shanghai. We went to Shanghai to meet with friends Brad and Janine who were both keen to spend some time in mainland China.

Kafil  & I  really enjoy the opportunity to holiday with friends, so if in the next 2 years you are contemplating a holiday at this end of the world, we would love to catch up with you!! (somewhere in Asia).

Shanghai is about 7 hours flight from Singapore via KL for us to use a budget airline the furthest we have ventured since arriving in Singapore.

Shanghai is a veritable thriving metropolis we were shocked at the modernity of the city as it continues to reconstruct itself with the goal of Expo 2010 in mind. The mascot of Expo was a strange blue creature, which reminded me of a small limbed Gumby type figure. (We were able to resist the constant pleas to buy this ugly memento).

Approximately 14 million people reside in this huge city and the masses of roads and bridges used to connect the city and suburbs to each other was evidence of engineering marvels.

Kafil and I were keen to explore the older part of Shanghai and spent several days exploring the remnants of architecture that remain from the early 1920’s.  this ranged from sprawling laneways of group housing which incorporated group courtyards and share bathrooms. Contrasting with the European style art deco places heavily influenced by French and Spanish buildings of the time.

    

We went to the very well set up Shanghai Museum which is a spectacular circular building with displays of Chinese art such as bronzes, ceramics,

Chinese seals and beautiful hand painted on silk delicate traditional paintings. The Museum was situated in the midst of a park where beggars pounced on us for small change when we emerged from the Museum.

    

We explored the market areas around Yuan Gardens which though largely new was a replica of the Asian style architecture of old.  Janine Kafil and I enjoyed dim sum lunch at one of oldest and most popular dumpling eateries. We went to a tea ceremony and were enchanted by the rituals and serenity of the ceremony.  I was especially impressed with the Jasmine tea, which is made with a large pod, which went immersed in water in a glass teapot emerges as a beautiful floral blossom.  Janine and Kafil preferred the smoky taste of the Oolong Tea.

 

We took a cab out to …Xibo…which is an area where canals and picturesque bridges wound there way around some traditional Tea Houses and buildings.  We went midweek, on a very wet day and were happy not be amongst the tourist throngs.

Shanghai appeared to have many visitors and tourists, mostly who were from Asia, and there were not so many westerners unless you were at the shopping enclave of Nanjing road.  Nanjing Road is a mall which has hoards of peddlers, trying to lure you to buy “designer watches and handbags”. I was a little disappointed that most of the shops were those you would come across in any major city hoards of expensive designer gear and very little interesting or unique shopping to be had.

I was very impressed at the cleanliness of Shanghai, the streets were constantly being swept by employees of the city. However the smog was incredible and a dense grey cloud enveloped the city most of the time.

We ate loads of Chinese food which while unlike Chinese in the West was tasty and delicious. We favoured the Szechuan flavourings where chillies' are presented plentifully as vegetables.  I loved having dumplings, there is something about the delicate flavours of dim sum which I really enjoy.

Kafil and I went to the Pearl tower at Pudong a space age tower which had loads of visitors even quite early in the morning.  The views were impressive and we specially enjoyed the viewing platform with the see through floor so you could look down and across at the myriad of skyscrapers which dominate the landscape.The skyline of Shanghai was the surprise a myriad of impressive modern tower buildings with quirky sci fi features set on top.  We named a few of the buildings ourselves and the names included. The Jetson building, the pineapple the bottle opener, take a look at our photos and see which was which.

At the bottom of the Pearl Tower was an extensive museum which was home to many room size replicas of life in Shanghai prior to Communism.This museum of history had wax figures portraying trades and work skills from times gone by. It also had a extensive array of photos of Shanghai prior to modernisation.

The city has a fabulous transport system which was very easy to use, Oh Melbourne you could learn so much from the rail systems available on this side of the world. Despite the huge populations the efficiency of the Metro system was fabulous, and much quicker than using taxis on the very crowded and congested motorways.  We loved getting the Maglev from the airport into town a super modern Carriage which uses magnets instead of tracks and reaches a blistering 300 kilometres an hour, and you don’t feel any bumps at all.

  I was very impressed with the small slice of China we saw and would be happy to return to another place “somewhere in China” at a later date.