Singapore 8/2

Little India for a late meal Restaurant Decore

View from Swiss Hotel (Future Casino)

View at night

Celebration under way (cool boats)

Stage

Me and Jeff hangin out and hangin on

Awsome fireworks

Singapore Sunday 8/2: Very nice weekend. Friday I met up with Jeff Anderson after work to check out the Swiss Hotel for a later stay and head down to Little India to see what that is about. Great company, good food and bargains galore! I figured I would get a pair of sandals something here so at the price of $12.50 sing couldn't pass up the bargain on some “Waikin” sandals. Tried then out all of today and they feel great.
Wish I could tell you all the types of food we had but it came down to a golden beer, mutton, yogurt chicken and curry chicken along with veggies in some yogurt sauce, all with saffron rice of course. When you start dinner at about 11:30 or so at night and lose time in conversation ranging from Star Trek trivia, backpacking to mysteries of the Universe I guess it was only fitting that the MRT quit running by the time we were done. What is one to do at 1:00-1:30am down in a strange part of town (course it’s all strange since I’ve never been here before)? Good thing Taxis are as plentiful as they are because just walking out to the street gave us a choice of two of the nearest 15 or so coming by at the time.
Saturday after a productive day at work the plan was to meet up on the 57th floor of the Swiss Hotel at Jeff’s place to watch the practice for the Independence Day festivities that will be for real on the 9th of August. All I can say is that if this is practice I can’t imagine what the 9th will be like. I think I’ll let the pictures tell the story of this evening, military boats, helicopters, F16’s surreal lighting etc….fantastic!! I do need to say though that after I got to the hotel and tried to take a picture I found out I left the camera memory chip back in the computer from the download of the day before. But how well did things work out that Jeff used the tripod I brought for all these pictures with his camera. So I got to take in all the sights and Jeff did the artistic documentation seen for this night, thanks Jeff (time lapse too!).
Sunday has been spent down in the area of the stadium where the Independence Day events will be held taking picture for my son Ryan and his art. Nice relaxing day before hitting another week at the office. So, next weekend will probably be the next entry…till then.

Singapore 7_26

MRT Station (Early in Morning) Electronic Mall


Typical Mall (This is at the Marina)



View From Park

Singapore 7/26: I had the whole day to explore some of the surroundings so I got started at 9:30 am to get on the MRT trains. The trains enter the station behind the steel doors to the right or left of the picture, then open to let people out and in. All the stations that I have been in are very clean as is the city itself. Took the MRT only 3 stops to get to a section of town where Cathay Photo was, one of the more complete photo stores. Found out though they are closed Sundays and close at 7:00pm on weekdays. So next Saturday will be the next chance I’ll have to get into the store. Lucky for me there are hundreds of other camera stores here and one had the 120 roll film I was looking for.

Stores are everywhere and things closer than I thought so I walked to check out the Swiss Hotel where one of the other folks from San Diego is staying. Then a couple blocks away is the Marina Square Mall with the Raffles Link Mall between them! Get the picture? Looking at the map I could see that it was totally within walking distance to get back to my hotel so I started back after getting film. On the way back I passed things like the War Memorial Park, Singapore Art Museum, art galleries, Plaza by the Park, The Cathay (shopping place), and Plaza Singapore (where the Thai food fair was) and then numbers of mom and pop shops.

The malls are a combination of La Jolla, Fashion Square and Best Buy type stores. But it is all the electronics and food that keeps me going into these places…….love the selection of food here. In fact, after only a week I must say that Singapore now rates up there with food places like San Francisco, Chicago and France. It’s an Asian culinary melting pot to appreciated for sure. At the Plaza Singapore where the Thai food fair was I had a $2.00 (SG value about $1.40 US) huge plate of golden scallop fried rice with a spot of spice on the side. It was so good and almost more than I could eat.

Well enough about shopping and food. Next post will probably be next weekend when I get time to do something. I’ll look at Cathay Photo, Little India and get some pictures of the skyline perhaps.