The sun falls ending every day in Singapore is met by Esplanade: Theatres on the bay sparkling its lights between its spikey exterior like a clear sky full of stars.
Esplanade behind flower bed
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Travel
The Esplande: Theatres on the Bay (that’s the full name) has many names, it was supposed to look a bit like a pair of microphones, but the spikey appearance had got it a lot of nicknames, the most popular for locals is durium, (the disgusting fruit I tried a few days back), not because it smells, but because durium has a spikey shell. Another one is hedgehog which I can relate to more and prefer personally. Read the rest! \(^u^)/ →
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Walking around Singapore by foot, certainly makes you feel small looking up at the imposing skylines despite a height limit of 280 m (919 ft) due to the close proximity to the airport:
Massive buildings compete for airspace
The shorter but wider Esplanade is also easily spotted from most sights beside the river its unusual shape catching the sun in the background.
Tan Kim Seng fountain was built in recognition of the man for donating to Singapores first waterworks in 1857
A stage is being prepared in esplanade park
One option of touring the city is to find of the many malls and seek out duck tours. They offer packages to ride the Flyer and take a trip one of the Vietnamese amphibious war vehicles that go on land and air.
Amphibious war vehicle turned tourist attraction
Upon entering and exiting the water you’ll promptly quack like a good duck like all good ducks do. In this tour you can see sights such as the Merlion, Esplanade theatres on the bay and the new 3 tower hotel and casino being constructed with a bit of the F1 street track too:
View of Singapore from the river
Esplanade from the river
Merlion statue
Singapore Flyer as viewed from the river
With land and sea done you can then choose to fly. Not a aeroplane or a helicoptor, but ‘The Flyer’, the biggest revolving wheel in the world similar to the London Eye, something my friend, who runs a professional moving company, once took me to see. Views are spectacular from the boats all anchored out at sea, to the main business area and the smaller districts like Little India and China Town.
Overlooking the harbour at the busiest shipping passage in the world
Pit lane entrance to F1 circuit
Looking above the F1 track reveals how much further Singapore stretches
View through the Singapore Flyers construction
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The Singapore Science Centre is a bit out of town, but after a 20minute MRT ride and a short walk (with assistance of a local pointing me in the right direction) I found it. This is probably Read the rest! \(^u^)/ →
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I met up with Puput, Hera and Cita from Indonesia along with Suzen and Hafeesa who were locals to Singapore and kindly showing us around for the afternoon.
We first went to a muslim mosque in Chinatown where the girls had to wrap up due to being in short skirts.
Hafeesa, Hera, Puput and Suzen outside the mosque
Islamic chandelier
There wasn’t much more inside it, a carpetted floor for praying on (men only, women go in a separate section) and pillars supporting the roof. The chandelier was very stylish though. So we headed off down the road to the next temple.
Guardian statue outside Chinese Temple
This was a Chinese temple and it was busy with monks inside chanting. Outside was two god like figures looking very threatening but cool at the same time.
Up on the roof was a garden with Orchids in; the national flower of Singapore, beautifully presented by my 2 assistants in the picture below. Further up and surrounded by 10,000 mini budda statues was a prayer wheel where you hold onto the bar and turn it around 3 times making a wish. You could pay to have one of the Buddhas named after yourself, I never found out price for this.
Worshippers inside Chinese Temple
Orchid on the roof of the Chinese Temple
Rotating pillar brings luck
Some other items inside the temples:
Even statues need to rest
Miniture statues inside Chinese Temple
Statue with lots of arms
Sultan Mosque
We passed the red dot museum and headed into the business area of Singapore and through to Little India after a short MRT trip to find we was running too late to go into the Sultan mosque as it closed at 4pm, still good for an outdoor photo though! Getting a little hungry we decided to rest for a bit. We went for some strained tea and Indian flatbread with a curry sauce which was made right in front of us by the stalls and tasted delicious. I’ve this bread a few times now, as it’s a cheap and common snack across Asia but I never knew the name before, at least now I can order it for myself, see this article for more info on the indian flatbread.
Colourful Chinese dragon and rider
We was joined by JayJay, another local Singaporean who I talked to about Australia as he’s been and going back again soon whilst carrying on with our walk, tasting some dried meat on route, passing through some mini Chinese festival and stopping at a place for desert where they insisted I had my first proper taste of durium, the king of fruits apparently, albeit they gave me a weak one.
Ice cream time!
Durium ice cream reaction
Can you guess what I thought of it from the picture? They say it tastes like a cross between kiwi fruit and passion fruit. I say it tastes like a cross between a kiwi fruit, custard, and a sewer.
After the toilet flavoured bowl of custard we went past my hostel where I quickly got a shower and dumped the camera box that Suzan had been carrying for me all day (thanks again for that!) and headed deeper into Little India to have Nepalese food, and our group quickly turned very big and a big spread was put out so we all got a taste of everything, I enjoyed it all apart from some weird nuts and seeds they handed out at the end. Amusingly after negociating a 10% discount (for size of group and repeat custom for some of the locals) the staff put a 10% service charge on the bill :)
Nepalese food is popular
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