Singapore - Day 28 - May 28, 2011

Day 28 - May 28
Location: Singapore


I seem to have lost track of a day somewhere.


Today's goal was to visit the Singapore Botanic Garden and then Bugis Street and Little India, which turned out to be easier said than done. Mission was not accomplished, but we sure did walk a lot.




Just one of many incredible plantings in the
National Orchid Garden 

 We took the Hop On shuttle to the Botanic Gardens and Jackie was right -- it was the most beautiful botanical garden I have ever visited. It is huge -- 128 acre botanical wonder. It is beautifully laid out with great signage for individual plants and the various categories of plants. It was clean, well manicured and very serene. Our handy-dandy pack of vouchers included admission to the National Orchid Garden, which has the largest display of tropical orchids in the world -- more than 1,000 species and 2,000 hybrids -- with a Cool House for high-altitude orchids and and gardens with orchids in natural settings. What a paradise. MJ and I both favored the Orchid Garden, though the entire grounds were excellent.








After a few hours we caught the Hop On again and headed for Little India, which we never really found.


We visited The Sultan Mosque, which is the focus of worship for Singapore's Muslim community. It's glided dome is impressive, but we didn't linger inside because it was prayer time.

The Sultan's Mosque in Little India

By this time, we were starving and ready to sit for a few minutes and tried to get WIFI in a coffee shop attached to the hospital. I was able to receive messages and though I sent some, only to discover later that the messages never actually went - another mystery to add to the list. I did receive messages from Linda about Dan, but the one I sent back to her didn't actually transmit until later in the day when we went to Starbucks.


We had lunch at a food stall attached to the hospital. You got a bowl, made seven selections of vegetables and then gave it to someone who chopped it up and cooked it in a boiling vat of chicken broth. MJ and I shared a bowl, thinking we were still going to have dinner at a particular place in Little India.




One of our favorite meals -- you select the ingredients and it all
gets cooked in the boiling chicken stock. Delicious!

We walked through an Arab section with many restaurants and finally found our way to Bugis Street, which a number of people had raved about as the largest market with great, inexpensive shopping and tourist trinkets. We were disappointed, though I did find pins of the Indonesian and Singapore flags. Mostly it was really cheap, poorly constructed clothes and shoes, very low-end jewelry, nail and hair booths, a few tattoo and henna spots, and lots of other cheap stuff. On  things that I would have considered buying, we saw them for so much less in Bali that it didn't have much appeal. It had also gotten really hot And I think we were shopped out on the usual stuff.

By late afternoon  we were exhausted and headed back to the hotel. After a half hour nap, we were ready to head out for dinner, but putzed around too long and ended up missing the last shuttle to where we wanted to go for dinner. We were not happy about that!!!


Ended up walking over to the Singapore River area and had dinner at a Thai restaurant. Most expensive meal on the whole trip and not the best, but we were seated right on the water and there was a nice breeze.




This building was our landmark for which street to take
to get back to our hotel. It was a really colorful,
easily distinquished building in the daylight and at night.

 Our hotel is in a great location and it's nice that we now have a little sense of where we are so that we can walk places -- like to the Starbucks for WIFI and restaurants and boat rides. Singapore is a very safe city to walk and by evening it cools off a bit.


Tomorrow we are heading straight for Little India -- we now know where it is, so that should help. :)


Later,
XO
Mum/Nancy