Singapore: Days 2 & 3

We've really enjoyed our time in Singapore - I can't believe we're already leaving in the morning !  It has really been a unique experience, as the city doesn't seem to fit in Asia.  As Aar mentioned in the previous post, it is extremely clean, organized, and efficient.  It's also a very international city and there are people living here from all corners of the world.  

Yesterday (Friday) we slept in a little since we were quite exhausted and had breakfast in our hotel.  Unfortunately, it was raining buckets so we weren't sure what we wanted to do...especially since I seemed to have gotten Aar's cold.  We decided we'd just deal with it and stuck with our original plans.  Our first stop was Little India, which is one of the parts of town that has not been effected by the west as much as the rest of town. It was quite bizarre, as it was basically a cleaner version of the real India.  Having just come from the real India, we weren't really as impressed as other tourists probably were.  We could easily find everything they were selling in the shops back in India and for probably a third of the price!  It was still cool to walk around and see some temples.  After Little India we walked to another part of town to view a mosque.  Thankfully, it wasn't pouring quite as hard as it was earlier, but it was still hard to take a lot of pictures and enjoy everything.  The nice thing about the rain, however, was that it cooled the temperature down immensely.  We walked around an arab part of town and then continued to walk down to the Raffles Hotel, which is an immaculate hotel that is several years old.  We had a delightful lunch at one of the restaurants at the hotel called the Empire Cafe.  It was a bit pricey, but reminded me of cafes in Paris.  After the hotel, we went across the street to a place called Chijmes, which is a converted cathedral turned restaurant area. After having walked all around town for the majority of the day (in the rain!) we got a bit sick of it and decided to see a movie.  We had both been dying to see Inception so we decided to go for it since it was raining anyway.  After the movie, we headed back to our hotel to freshen up before meeting Saranta (one of my girlfriends that I met while studying in Paris) who is from Singapore.  We had dinner with her and then headed to a restaurant that one of her friends owns.  All in all, it was a good day!

Today we slept in again and spent a little time relaxing in our hotel room before going out in the 90 degree heat.  We walked to China Town and walked around for quite awhile and saw a Hindu temple and two Buddhist temples.  I find it quite fascinating to see the way that different people worship around the world. Culture, in general, is quite intriguing.  I got a fresh squeezed pineapple/orange/banana juice (which was SO refreshing in the hot weather) and we had lunch at a delicious little Thai restaurant in China Town.  We then walked (seems to be repetitive, doesn't it?) with the destination of the Fullerton Hotel and ended up stumbling upon the practice for Singapore's National Day Parade, which is on August 9th.  There were countless military tanks/trucks/large vehicles that were lined up and down the road.  Apparently the Singapore military doesn't do a whole lot (even though it's required for all male citizens) and this is the highlight of their year.  We then walked to Clarke Quay, which is a   strip right along the river filled with restaurants.  Next, we took the MRT to meet with a new friend, Venky, who will be one of my future classmates at LSE.  We talked with him for a couple hours and he directed us to an American diner that was near by where we had burgers and milkshakes for dinner.  After dinner, we headed back to our hotel to workout and now we're just getting ready to start packing for Jakarta.  Our flight is at 9:45 am tomorrow, so we have to get up moderately early to take the MRT to the airport.

Although it's quite expensive, we've loved Singapore!


p.s. I also uploaded the majority of our photos onto picasa so you can check those out here.