With only 1 full day in Singapore, we spent the day on a bit of a whirlwind tour showing Sharon and John as much as we could in a short time. After a fulfilling breakfast at the hotel, we ventured across the road to Raffles City to buy at day pass for the MRT (rail system) at City Hall Station.
Not Politically correct in Victoria, but the Singaporeans seem fine with it
For a modest S$10 each we purchased our passes and went down to the platform to catch a train to Bugis, our first planned stop.
It was still a bit early (around 10am) for the retailers to be up and running, so our walk around the Bugis Street area was not too busy, but shops were opening up everywhere as we wandered along.
Looks like its laundry day
We walked off in the direction of Serangoon Road, to enter Little India and explore the wet market on Buffalo Road. There was a lot more activity here, as as always the market was very busy as people buy their daily fresh food needs.
Next destination was Orchard Road, catching the MRT from Little India Station to Somerset. This allowed us to have a bit of a walk back up Orchard Road, past the old site of the Australian International School, towards Lucky Plaza where we changed some money and had a look around. Just next door is C K Tang Department store which we explored briefly.
The plan was to have lunch at Newton Circus (now called The Newton Food Centre), so we crossed under Orchard Road to the Orchard MRT Station and caught a train to Newton (near the food centre).
There has been a bit of upgrading of the Food Centre, which still has a very good range of hawker food stalls supplying all of the common Singapore food dishes. We sat down to some Chicken Murtabak, Char Kway Teow and Roast Duck with accompaniments washed down with a cold Tiger Beer (and lime juice for the girls). It was almost too much food, but we managed to get through it
The Food Centre was reasonably busy, but no-one was interested in sitting in the sun
Stall owner next to our table getting ready to prepare his dishes
Slowed down a bit by a full stomach, we managed to get back to Newton Station and caught a train to Holland Village, the old shopping precinct where we used to do most of our shopping when we lived here. Of course there was no rail service there at that time, but the place is mostly unchanged and we recognised many of the shops that were here 17 years ago.
A cup of coffee revitalised us, and it was then back to Raffles City, and across the road to our hotel.
Singapore Recreation Club
The next priority was dinner, but we were still recovering from lunch, so had pre dinner drinks in the lounge at the hotel, before hitting the footpath again for a short walk to the Chijmes complex. We were sure we could find a restaurant serving something interesting. We settled on the Indochine Restaurant, which served a nice menu that was a bit if a mix of Vietnamese and Cambodian dishes. Very nice, and generous serves.
We were back at the hotel by 10pm and ready to have a snooze, having walked around 14km today.
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