Eating in Singapore

Not much to do in Singapore apart from eating. My cousin, Peter, was in town, and he loves afternoon tea in a posh hotel. If my cousin invites me out to tea, I'm not going to be rude and decline!

Afternoon tea started back in the Victorian times when people would eat breakfast and then nothing again til dinner time in the evening. One afternoon, a peckish Victorian lady (I've just checked, she was a Duchess) got her maid to prepare some cakes, and tea for her. She did the same the next day, and then started inviting her pals round and getting them involved too, and it all started from there!

Tea, cakes, and finger sandwiches. A few of my favourite things in the world! Thank you Anna Maria Stanhope (1783-1857) and thank you Mr Raffles for hosting the event for this is where we went.

I was a little worried at first because there is quite a strict dress code, and having traveled through S. E Asia, I didn't really have formal attire. I don't even remember the last time I wore shoes! (I've been wearing flip flops) You must remember to book before you show up too because there is a check list with names, and still a bit of a queue.

Anyways, on top of your usual tier of cakes and sandwiches, Raffles also have a buffet section too- with dim sums, all sorts of cakes, and fruit. So great. Had a great time that afternoon. I would recommend paying the extra $$ for this experience.

Tiffin tea room at Raffles Hotel, Singapore

Talking about cakes, we stumbled across this lovely wee cupcake shop in Marina Bay mall. This was a different day by the way!! It was called High Society, and surrounded by designer shops so of course there was a champagne bar at the back. I was more interested in the front display though.

Cupcakes at High Society

I had just finished lunch so a cupcake and a cup of tea was perfect. Shortly after this we went across town to meet my cousin again but this time for a Chinese afternoon tea, CNY special at the Park Hotel in Little India.

We didn't get to use this tea set...

This is a dish which is traditionally eaten at Chinese New Year. Everyone puts their chopsticks in and tosses and mixes it up together. I've never done this before, and when I called my mum to check if it was ridiculous that I hadn't eaten such a traditional dish before she said she had only seen it on TV, and hadn't tried it herself either! Maybe its not so common in Hong Kong.

Ok, next on my eating adventure, hawkers stalls. You cannot go to Singapore without checking out the hawkers stalls. Although Singapore doesn't have a national dish as such, the centres feel like a small community whenever you go eat at them. There's so much to choose from. Its cheap, and when there's always plenty of locals eating there, you know the food is going to be good.

Several people had recommended Newton Circus stalls, and after some research I discovered it was one of the more popular ones and it was only a few stops away on the MRT. Go at dinner time though, we went at lunch time and only like 1/5 of the stalls were open. I still found something though.

Grilled stingray from stall 16 I think it was

Delicious

I'll save the rest for next time. Enjoy!

Singapore

Cyclone Yasi caused my original plans to be cancelled (I hope everyone in QLD is making a speedy recovery) so I found myself in Singapore for a further 7 days on top of the five I had already spent here. Too long.

My first hostel was Tresor Tavern. I've been traveling around S E Asia for 4 months and this was by far the worst hostel I have stayed in. Dirty, smelly, the rooms were damp, and cramped. It was disgusting! Thankfully that was only for one night. The next day I moved to the (its fun to stay at) YMCA.

The (its fun to stay at) YMCA is in an ideal location. The MRT (Dhoby Gaut) is a 2 minute walk away and acts as interchange station for 3 lines. Perfect. Based on Orchard St, it is shoppers haven. They are mostly designer malls which didn't really interest me as a budget traveler.

The one good thing the re-scheduled flight was that I got to spend Chinese New Year in Singapore. This was actually the first time I had celebrated CNY in an Asian country. I was in the mall at Raffles Place (I only go to the malls for the food halls. So much choice!) when I overheard two Caucasians wishing each other a happy Chinese New Year. I was like, wow, this most be a big deal, EVERYONE celebrates it! Or maybe because the population of Singapore is 75% Chinese so EVERYONE gets at least 4 days off work. Huzzah. Good times! The only bad thing for tourist is, well , there's nothing to do if all the shops are closed...

Of course because of the occasion, everything was going down in Chinatown. I thought the MRT peeps did an excellent job controlling the crowd, and running later trains which was good for me for since I was still staying in the (its fun to stay at the) YMCA at this point. I shuffled down Pagoda street with the rest of the crowd, and turned the corner into Smith Street for some food. I have to say I wasn't too overjoyed with the selection of stalls available but the buzz of people made up for it. After this, myself and Pete wondered around for like an hour and a half waiting for the countdown in which time Pete managed to fall into an open drain (what the hell?!) and fractured his wee nose :-( We didn't know this at the time, and ignored the advice of a kind nightshift guard telling us to visit the hospital thinking that he did not want messy blood on his steps rather than because he had experienced several others fall and break something outside his block.

Anyways, with a wee roll of tissue up his nose we wandered back to South Bridge Road where there was a big stage set up, and people singing. I kept trying to speak to people here in Cantonese because the place reminded me of Hong Kong (but with little personality), and because they don't really look like they're from China. Its mostly Mandarin here though, and so I did not know what the woman was singing about. It was raining, and you had to pay to get into the seated area facing the stage so we just hid under the shelter of the mall.

waiting for the CNY countdown

So many different coloured brollies. It was a great sight, and the fireworks were worth the wait for sure. One of the best I'd seen I'd say. They had so many firecrackers on top of this one building I thought it had caught fire at one point. Not joking.

The next day we moved to Chinatown to a hostel called a beary good hostel which was actually really great. They had a lion dance show in the lounge area for CNY! The cymbals and drums were quite loud in such a small place but it was good fun, and they put on a show at their sister hostel a beary nice hostel on Smith Street too.

Offering for the lions

Lion dancing at Beary Nice Hostel

As part of the performance the lions crouch down and I guess open up the satsumas and use the segments to create lucky numbers. I've never seen this done before.

Lucky numbers from the lion

A nice welcome. Then we sat and played the Wii for two days because everything was closed, haha. I will write about the food in Singapore in a seperate blog because there's so much to say.

Happy Lunar New Year everyone!!