Singapore Day Two – Stroll in the Park

We awoke at 9 on Saturday after realizing that the alarm we set to wake us for dinner….hadn’t gone off. We decided that we would quickly get ourselves something to eat and make our way to the Funan DigitaLife centre (massive nerd fest). I was extremely excited to get there but Chantal was more interested in clothes shopping.

We made our way downstairs into the shopping complex attached to the Novotel building and found more shops than we realized was there. Nearby was a food court/dining hall which primarily provided asian food. CHEAP asian food! We had a delicious Nasi Penang meal and stopped at Starbucks for a delicious coffee (I know….we were surprised too). It seems like the coffee here is less strong and more sweet. Great for me!!

On our way to the centre, we thought it would be nice to go through the park. We didn’t realize how big the park really was though and how interesting it would be. We later found how significant the park was as well. It was quite a hike to the top of the mountain in the middle of the park, and we saw a cute squirrel too! There were some very loud insects that we couldn’t see but it was quite an eerie sound to hear. I loved the old structures scattered around the park. These included a large brick gate, small wooden hut and the main hall which we could hear some beautiful piano music. There was a youth environment forum being held at the hall and on the other side we found people setting up the MTV Asian awards concert (including a large stage and bar).

It was so hot in the park and we eventually found a building nearby. We got closer (after taking a photo of a massive capsicum) and Chantal pointed out that the building was a giant capsicum…I mean a museum.

We walked in and were immediately relieved of the heat. The museum was beautiful and I later realized that it was made of two buildings that were attached to each other. One that looked colonial and one that was very modern. We then bought two tickets into the Singapore History Gallery.

This was an amazing and eye-opening experience. The gallery included 360° projections displaying the history of Singapore. As we walked around to the other galleries, we used an electronic device which was the size of an old portable cassette player which detailed the history of Singapore. We would enter the numbers of sections we entered and the audio would explain the history, some in story form. As we found out, the park we were in (Fort Canning Park) was where the first King settled Singapura (lion city) and when the British arrived it was considered sacred and no one would go near the hill. There is a lot more history to Singapore but we could be here for days explaining it.

At this stage it was quite late in the afternoon and we left the gallery very early, missing out on quite a bit of content. We made our way to a Burger King so that we could contact family and let them know how we were going. We didn’t have much luck as the place was so noisy it was hard to communicate over Skype. Chantal forced us to go to Central shopping centre to look for a shirt for me so that we could go out to dinner. Unfortunately we had little luck and I decided I would just wear one of the shirts I had brought.

That night we went to an amazing area full of restaurants, bars and even markets. Chantal was quite excited by the markets and how ‘alive’ the area was. We went to an Irish bar called Mulligans and I ordered a Grey Goose and Guinness. It was VERY expensive but we enjoyed it very much. We had dinner at Marakesh where we saw people smoking seesh (not sure on spelling sorry). Its a large device full of tobacco that smelt like vanilla. It actually smelt quite amazing with all of the people sharing amongst friends. We went inside though and had a platter and cocktails. Once we had finished our meals we went outside to the markets and I bought Chantal a gold cat keying.

And that was the end of day two in Singapore.

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