Flashback: Singapore (May 26th to June 2nd, 2005)

If you are in Hong Kong for a while and wanted to go somewhere relatively urban, and cheaper than Japan... then Singapore could be a great stop for you too. The ticket cost me something like 1100HKD with all taxes included (roughly 185CAD), and a youth hostel is about 18SGD (14CAD) per night.

Was in S'pore in end of May, beginning of June. Was so hot, unbelievable hot. Not sure if Singapore is a sunnier town than HK, but it was mostly on the sunshine side most of the days I was in the Malaysian peninsula. Had not posted many pics after the first day, so here we are.

Bunk bed at my youth hostel in Singapore, the Betel Nut.

Finest xiao long bao skins ever, at the Singapore branch of famous Chinese dining chain from Taiwan, Din Tai Fung.

Me, enjoying a not-oversweet-like-in-North-America lime juice, from Old chang Kee, a famous counter 小吃 (xiao chi) chain in Singapore.

Feet of me and K, my guide in S'pore. ^^;

Kaya toasts must be enjoyed with runny and wet eggs... (Ced: "Hmm, not so bad, maybe I should order one for myself lah")

Eggs, runny and wet, with soya sauce, the Singapore-style (Ced: "Hmm, maybe I'll settle with my okonomiyaki then...")

It's not an impression... We spent the whole day eating. :D This is a so-called "hawker centre", an organized outdoor food court selling street-side-ish foods, another particularity of Singapore (and variants can be found elsewhere in the Malaysian peninsula, I guess, but surely not as organized, with the scoring system, as in S'pore...).

Smoking kills. :P

MRT station at Ang Mo Kio, one of the most well-known new towns of Singapore.

Durian is a public threat in any Southeast Asian country.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) is probably (on par with HKU, I think) one of the top universities in Asia. A nice campus (in a tropical country - so that kicks our McGill campus good for only 3 months a year, in the ass) southwest of central Singapore.

Tastes like Pocari Sweat, but isn't Pocari Sweat. It's 100-Plus, one of Singapore/Malaysia's home brew (and distributed by Coca-Cola).

Chicken rice from the Makansutra Gluttons Bay venue on the Esplanade (aka The Durian, see two pics down). And some sort of Indian-style pain-doré with ground meat...

Spicy noodles wrapped in banana (?) leaves. Huge lineup to that particular stand, had time to ponder about getting chicken rice, get it, and get the Indian bread, eat both, before K arrived with them noodles (and they would've been better if I weren't complaining of heat-related sickness of too-much-food, bleh).

Beautiful Esplanade at night from the bridge to the Merlion.

A statue of a giant overweight pigeon (if you see what I see), near the United Overseas Bank Centre on Boat Quay.

Hmm! Merlion chocolates!

Joo Chiat Avenue, on which the hostel was located. Famous, picturesque street of southeast Singapore quarter by day, what seems to be a red-light district by night.

Another one of those hawker centres.

Rows of colourful houses.

More houses (and the guy living behind where I stood came to ask what I was doing on a Thursday morning taking pictures of private houses like that...).

The Katong/Joo Chiat neighborhood is home to members of several cultures found in Singapore, including the Hindu one.

Warning sign, to be understood by everyone...

My plane leaving Changi Airport, flying above the rows of ships supplying/transiting by Singapore.

Food unboard the Cathay Pacific flight taking me back to Hong Kong, my temporary home.

If only skies could be as beautiful over here...