Visit to the City Center

I am in love with Singapore. It is hot, but it is beautiful and special. Once you get past stewing in your own juices (sorry) it is quite enjoyable with sea breeze and light rain...

I was talking to Eszter yesteday about where the city center was and she has found something called Downtown Core on the map. So I headed that way this morning :) First I took a bus (after ingeniously finding the shortcut, a close, between rows of houses that I also need to take to get to the university tomorrow) then one of the five local metro lines (called MRT, Mass Rapid Transit) to the city center. This metro is very secure with doors on the platforms as well as on the carriages. (I included 3 photos because you can see full doors and half doors and high rises in the background.)

 

 

On the metro (which they call rail) I had the wonderful idea, inspired by the example of Suzanne :), to have a look at Tripadvisor and have a more organized tour with sights instead of walking about aimlessly. I have chosen a tour called Singapore: Past, Present, and Future. Therefore, I had to walk back from St. Andrews Cathedral

  

about two stops, passing Parliament

Clarke Quay

and the Ministry of Communications and Information

 to Chinatown, specifically the Garden Bridge, the start of the tour.

 

(Intermezzo - there are a lot of orange-gold horses and round cheeses with holes :) around in Chinatown. This is in anticipation of the celebrations of the Chinese New Year (celebrations start on 30 January, but the new year only starts on 4 February, don't ask!). 2014 is the year of the horse in the Chinese calendar, hence the horses. And the cheeses stand for Chinese coins, I guess in expectation of a prosperous year. In addition, as I have learned, Chinese like anything round, because that symbolizes completeness. Intermezzo over, pictures below.)

 

 

Tripadvisor says that for many Singaporeans the story starts with an immigrant from China, because the true origins of the city start when Britain established a trading post and attracted immigrants from China. Later in the day I have learned that the first settlers of the area are Malay fishermen, but I'll get to this later. So (old) Chinatown at Pagoda Street:

 

 

 

And the many places of worship in the area: Sri Miramman Temple, Singapore's oldest Hindu temple, where you have to enter barefoot

Masjid Jamae (Chulia) Mosque, serving Singapore's Tamil community

 

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (not Chinese, as far as I cold see)

Then on to Hong Lim Park, Singapore's first privately owned public garden

 

where in 2000 the government has created the Speakers' Corner, a designated place to demonstrate or speak (and hold exhibitions and performances) in a regulated way(!), and I mean regulated in detail:

But what I really liked was the hotel next to the park:

 

Then Clarke Quay (again), which is an entertainment area next to the Singapore river:

 

Sorry for the picture quality, it was a very hot day, but overcast, and taking a photo against the "sun" didn't really work...

I have added the next picture of a pub called Highlander in honor of the Scots (long live Caledonia!) and the pub of same name in Maastricht :)

(Intermezzo 2 - Singapore is the city of covered walkways. I guess this is in protection from the LOTS and LOTs of rain in an affluent tropical city. I don't have pictures of everything but there are a lot of standalone covered walkways - to/from bus and MRT stops, alternatively architecture is used cleverly to be able to go along a street without getting soaked: modern buildings overhang walkways on the ground floor so that the lobby starts a few meters underneath the building's front, old buildings do the same but there are columns supporting the overhanging facade. Intermezzo over with some pictures below.)

 

 

I also had lunch at Clarke Quay, and this time I took a picture of the place and not my food :). This is a soup and braised food place, with delicacies such as pigs' trotters (disznóláb körömmel), pigs' intestines (belek, zsigerek), and tripe (pacal) in soup or braised, but I have only ventured to eat something that looked like tofu but I was told it was not tofu but some kind of fish tofu :) I have eaten everything with chopsticks MASTERFULLY, even if I say so!!! And I drank something made from barley (árpa) - bland and sweet.

Then I continued along the river

and passed the Ministry and the Parliament again, to enter the museum district. This is where you find the statue of Sir Stamford Raffles, the father of Singapore, who has supposedly started the transformation process of a small fishing village into a major British port and trading post.

Unfortunately (or not) most museums are being renovated, so I have only taken one picture :)

Opposite the museum is Cavenagh Bridge, the Glasgow made suspension bridge

leading to the historic Fullerton Hotel (fort>post office>hotel).

And I have arrived at Merlion Park where I have visited with Merlion. The inspiration for the mascot of Singapore, a combination of lion's head and fish tail, comes from a story of a fierce lion observed by a prince on the island, with the fish representing the past of Singapore as a fishing village. There was a smaller one a little to the back, which I like much better!

It/he/she (the big one) looks on Marina Bay and Marina Bay Sands Resort. This is a place that integrates dining, shopping, entertainment and an ice rink and of course the world's highest outdoor swimming pool.

 

I have decided not to wait for a boat taxi and have ended the Tripadvisor tour here (my phone/camera has started to give up the ghost), but will definitely explore the place later.

Instead, I headed back to Chinatown through the office district (skyscraper territory) and explored a little beyond the Tripadvisor scope. This is how I have finally found a Chinese buddhist temple, dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea by the first immigrants, and a Chinese Methodist church in a street called Telok Ayer. These are next to a little park that explains the history of the area and the first settlers. Telok Ayer is Malay, the language of the fishermen who first lived here. It means bay water, indicating that this street was once the shoreline in the bay (they have somehow filled in the area in front, but looking at the map, I don't quite understand what happened). Sir Stamford Raffles, in the early 1800s, has set this area aside for the Chinese immigrants, this is how today it is called Chinatown. I have found a Chinese food court/food market type place, but I was not hungry :) I had a cup of Dragon fruit juice that I was craving since my shopping tour yesterday: I am sorry to report that it has no real taste, but is very sweet, however, it has an amazing pink-purple color. I wanted to include a website reference, but it is too long, so just search for dragon fruit on google and you'll see the color. I have to say that the juice is more of a neon shade :). I have also found a huge, multi-storey complex with Chinese shops the like of which you can see in Budapest (sorry: Kőbányai úti kínai piac): less than 4 sqm shops, container-like, but call themselves department stores :), generally no prices (I guess you can haggle) but a LOT of goods: shoes, clothes and Chinese decoration, everywhere.

On the way back I took the bus home that would take me to the university as well. I wanted to get off at the Business School and walk home. It is a good thing that the bus has only one final stop (it goes round on the campus and returns to the MRT station), because I couldn't figure out where to get off :) I'll have to figure this out until tomorrow. But the campus is very nice. A little bit of hills, a lot of greenery, and a lot of residence halls (with covered walkways connecting them to one another and to the bus stops). 

To be continued after my adventures at Nanyang Technological University tomorrow...