Singapore Marina and Chinatown

We have to say, it is downright gorgeous here in Singapore.  The city is clean and beautiful.  So many parks and gardens, nice buildings.  Such a contrast to Hong Kong...not that it didn't have it's beauty too, but certainly in a different way.  But don't spit out gum here...you'll be arrested apparently.

Our first full day in Singapore was wonderful.  We had a chance to sleep in and didn't meet up for breakfast downstairs in our hotel until 9:30 a.m.  I finally caught up on some much-needed sleep.  I think the jet lag is finally gone.  We made plans of what to do over the next couple of days here.  So after breakfast, we caught a taxi (taxis are relatively cheap here) to take us to the Marina Sands Hotel area.  This hotel is something else.  It stands across water from the city, but you can access it via road if you go around...it is attached through reclaimed land.

It looks like a boat sitting on top of 3 towers.  The top is like a resort with a swimming pool, but it's only for guests of the hotel.  You can pay to go up to the top where there is an observation deck.  So that's what we did.  Here's a sideways view of the pool area.

From the observation deck, you can see all around.  The Gardens by the Bay, which we visited later.

The funny "trees" near the Gardens by the Bay.  We had lunch at the top of the biggest one.  

And the "Singapore Flyer", which is a ferris wheel that is on a par with the "London Eye".

I have many more pictures from the top.  Too many to put here.  We then went off to explore the Gardens by the Bay.  They are 2 indoor biospheres with plants from all over the world.  The 2nd contains a large waterfall.  Quite an amazing place.

Again, tons of pictures.  But here are some familiar plants.  The Deb & Joanne plants.

And the Gerard and Dan plants (or maybe "they think they own the place" plants).

Then here are the plants drinking - from their roots?

When finished in here, we went to the top of the Supertree for lunch and views.  Here's the Supertree from the ground.

We returned to our hotel and thought we would check out the pool.  Nice spot.  

They even had a small water slide.  Yippee!

For dinner, we decided to try one of the hawker stalls for which Singapore is famous.  These are small stalls where food is sold.  It is tightly regulated, so all food prepared in these stalls is safe.  It's quite the deal.

This is the stall we chose for our food.  There had to be close to 100 of them!

And our food came...along with some Tiger beer (Singapore brand).

On the way back to our hotel, Gerard ran into this guy in Chinatown.

All in all, a great day.

Singapore, Here we Come!

Today was a travel day from Hong Kong to Singapore.  We left our hotel around 7:30 this morning, already knowing our flight to Singapore was delayed about 40 minutes.  It actually took off almost an hour late.  But that's OK.  No one was waiting in Singapore for us!

While at the airport, we had a good breakfast, and I had to buy a pair of shoes.  While in Singapore, we plan on going to the Raffles hotel.  There's a dress code in the bar there where we want to have the original Singapore Sling.  The last time we tried to get into a certain bar in Hong Kong, they wouldn't let us in because of my shoes.  I wasn't going to have that happen again.  So, shoes I bought.

We arrived in Singapore, with my shoes, around 5 pm.  Because of the delay, we had only about 50 minutes to get to our room, unpack and get ready for a tour called "Singapore by Night with Singapore Sling".  We picked up a few more people at hotels, and passed through a small part of Chinatown.  Some photos from that district.

They were just finishing up their autumn festival.  In fact, that happened all over China and Hong Kong too.

We then went for dinner on the Singapore River.  This was included in the tour.  Our restaurant was under the far blue canopy on the right.

After that, we headed to a market for some shopping.  Sorry, people, I already did my shopping for the day.

And last, but not least, we stopped at the famous Raffles Hotel to have their Singapore Sling.  This is where the Singapore Sling was invented.

Here the bartender was whipping them up.

Hmmm.  I haven't had a Singapore Sling since I was in high school.  Whoops, I mean since I was old enough to drink.  Here's Joanne with 3 lined up!  She certainly has a smile on her face.

Well, we took those off her hands for her.

Dan was playing bartender and stood behind the bar to get this shot.  We don't know the dudes on the left.

Even though the hotel is refurbished and is supposed to be an outstanding place to stay, the bar still has not been touched since the "old days".  Original fans in the ceiling, furniture, long bar, etc.  A unique place.  Oh, and I didn't need to buy the shoes!  We told the tour director that he shouldn't claim we need to abide by the hotel rules when no one does.

Well, that was it for today.  Travelling makes for such long days.  Sigh.

Hong Kong Island

Today was a much-needed sleep-in day (except for me).  Our plans were to meet at the Ramada Inn in Kowloon to catch a bus for Hong Kong Island at 12:50 pm.  We went our separate ways this morning. We had a leisurely breakfast, then walked up to the hotel to see where it was.  We then went off to find the jade market.  After much meandering through the streets, we did find it and I ended up buying a couple small pieces of jade jewellery - half price - or so they lead you to believe.  We then wandered through a bit of Kowloon Park.  That's where these flamingos were.

Dan & Joanne also took their time this morning and had brunch at the Ramada before we left.

So off we went with Able & Promotion Tours for a tour of Hong Kong Island.  I have to say...I thought Toronto was bad for traffic.  This is a Saturday in Hong Kong.  Can you say "Parking Lot"?

Our tour guide's name was Virginia, who was quite a character.  She told us a few humorous stories to bide our time along the way.  We had a group of 11 people on the small bus, made up of us Canadians, some Americans, and New Zealanders.

Our first stop was Victoria Peak which is one of the big hills we could see behind downtown Hong Kong.  From the peak, we can look over the harbour, Hong Kong, and Kowloon.  Unfortunately it was quite hazy.  We thought it was going to rain, but it never did.  It was a beautiful drive up to the peak.

After we left Victoria Peak, we went down to the village of Aberdeen.  Here is where we got on a sampan (flat-bottomed boat) and toured around the inner harbour for half an hour.

We drive by million dollar yachts, then out to where the real world lives.  It was quite an eye-opener.  Some of these people live on these boats in the harbour.  Some much worse than others.

By the way, if you ever go to Hong Kong, you will see reviews about the "Jumbo" restaurant, which is a floating restaurant here.  We didn't eat there, but you will see reviews ranging from good to bad regarding the food.  So here's a picture of the front of the restaurant.  Looks pretty appealing, eh?

Well, before you get to like it too much, check out the back of the same restaurant...where the kitchens are!  

As I said...a very interesting little tour.  Our next stop was a jewellery company, where they make jewellery pieces.  Not very impressed with throwing this in to the tour as they tried to sell us jewellery.  Way too long at that place.

We then went on to the Stanley Market which is famous for the hundreds of little stalls selling everything from art work to clothes.  Cute little place.  Perhaps if it was earlier on in our tour we might have been more enthusiastic.

This was our first sight of the South China Sea at the back of the Stanley Market.

And this is a banyan tree.  They grow on the outside of concrete or rocks.  We walked right by this tree, so took a picture.

There was this more elderly woman on our tour who was by herself and who did not show up at the designated pick-up place on time.  In fact, we found her half an hour later.  Let me say we were about ready to throttle the woman.  We were tired, had no place to sit down, and just wanted to get back to our respective hotels.  It took us over an hour to get back from Stanley Market to our hotel.  We were so whipped we just decided to eat at the Bostonian in our hotel before retiring for the night.

By the way, a little tidbit of information for you.  I have to point out that the scaffolding used in Hong Kong is quite different from home.  It's made of bamboo!  How do you like that, all you builders out there?

Tomorrow we head off to Singapore.

I Think I'd Lose Weight

Before I get started today, I have to show you what was on our TV in our room.  Pretty classy, eh?

And how about our slippers?

Now for the real stuff.

Today we had on our agenda to do a foodie tour of Hong Kong.  We met up with a group of 3 others + the tour guide in an area of Kowloon (part of Hong Kong) called Sham Shui Po (means Deep Water Port).  By the way, we are also staying in Kowloon - it's across the harbour from Hong Kong Island where the main part of Hong Kong is located.

It was a 3-4 hour walking tour of the district and included stops at 6 places for food, as well as several other stops at various shops where food items that are sold to restaurants, as well as privately, are made by hand in the old Chinese traditional way.  Things like rice noodles, tofu and soy milk, etc.  This is one photo of the district, but every street was like this, and often with even more crammed into it.

The art of preparing these certain foods is dying out.  Most of the places we visited have been owned by a family for 3-5 generations, and many came from mainland China.  Unfortunately in some cases, the place we visited is the ONLY place left where the food is prepared this way.  Most of it is prepared in bulk in larger plants.

We started out great at the Kowloon Restaurant.  We had a pineapple bun and Hong Kong styled milk tea.  Not so bad.  I didn't care for the milk tea, but that was because it was evaporated milk...not my "cup of tea".  The pineapple bun didn't have any pineapple in it, but hey...what's in a name?  It was still good.

Next we went to Hung Fat for Put Chai Pudding (light-coloured) and Sesame Pudding (black).  It was like a tougher jello with no fun taste to it.  Meh - I think I'll pass.

Then we were at the A1 Tofu Company.  The soybean milk and tofu were made from pure 100% Canadian soy beans.  They process the beans right there in the back of the shop to make the milk and the tofu.  The milk was actually not bad - served cold.  The tofu - well, here are Gerard and Joanne trying to add some flavour to it.

The next stop was the Lu Goose Restaurant.  Here they braise everything.  We had braised goose and pork knuckle.  They were OK.  A photo of the braised geese hanging around - and down below some braised other things.  Those items in the front were not sausage.  Nope - intestines.  Yep, I actually saw my appetite running down the street.

Fortunately, our next stop at the Eight Angels Cake Shop was for walnut and almond cookies.  They were good.  But I saved mine until the end because we had one more place to go.  It was to Lau Sum Kee Noodle.  There, we had egg noodles with shrimp roe.  Yes, shrimp eggs on top of the noodles.

It doesn't look bad, but the noodles were chewy and the taste of shrimp roe repeated on me for the next 2 hours.  The side soup helped wash it down, even though it had a mild fish base.  I'm glad I had my cookies with me - pun intended.

This is our group, except for Dan, who took the photo, and our tour guide, who was paying.

We saw all kinds of things along the way.  The streets were full of things to eat and buy.  Like these yummy-looking octopus fingers, chicken feet, and intestines.  They're coloured the way they are to make them more appealing to buy!!!!

All in all, and in spite of foods I will not go out of my way to buy, it was a wonderful excursion.  Our tour guide - Silvana - was terrific.  Very knowledgeable, and we learned a lot about the area of Sham Shui Po and Hong Kong in general.  This is her in the middle.

We must be suffering from jet lag because by the time we got back to our rooms after the tour, we all conked out.  We had grandiose plans like heading up to the rooftop to catch a few rays.  Didn't happen.

By 7 pm we were at Pier 1 (not the store) to catch the Aqua Luna boat for a short harbour tour.  It was quite breezy and the waves were bouncing the boat, so difficult to get some good shots.

Here we are enjoying a quaff on the very comfy seats on the boat.

The "Symphony of Lights" was on in the harbour - in fact every night at 8 pm.  We have to say though that Disney could give them some tips on how to improve the show.  It was just nice being out in the harbour.

After a couple of failed attempts at dinner, we ended up back at our hotel and ate there in one of the restaurants.  More coming tomorrow.