Singapore 2018
Walking back from the fort past the cable car station, we spied this peacock posing for a photo in one of the empty photo-op cable cars.
This was the first really warm, humid day we'd had, and we had to make an emergency stop at a 7-11 and Co+Nut+Ink for refreshments halfway to our hotel, as everyone was hot and mosquito-bitten and tired: coconut ice cream served in half a coconut shell so you could scoop out the meat and eat it with the ice cream, topped with chopped peanuts, with a glass of coconut water served on the side. I had lemon barley water just because it sounded different--it was incredibly refreshing, exactly what you always wanted to drink on a hot day but didn't know that you wanted.
After the fort and ice cream, Robert took the big kids to the beach right across the road from our hotel. I'm not a fan of sand, and Helen was conked out asleep anyway, so I laid her on the hotel room bed and dozed next to her for a bit.
Then I got up and organized things and when they came back we took a free tram to the monorail back to the main part of Singapore, and went to another hawker centre for lunch a couple blocks from the monorail, near the Vivocity mall. This time we had a beef noodle soup--familiar in style but very meaty and hearty; a prawn mee (pan fried noodles); a milo dinosaur (iced hot chocolate with extra cocoa powder on top); a spicy Malay style soup of some kind; a yam rice with sliced duck; and another sugar cane juice for Robert and a stalk of sugar cane for Marcus to chew.
We unfortunately mixed up the plates and utensils and got a talking-to from the cleaner auntie--Robert was trying to be helpful, stacking all our finished plates, but you're actually supposed to keep them separate and remember which stand you got which plate/utensils from and if that stand was halal or not and then put the plate and utensils on the proper dish cart (halal or non halal). I felt terrible! Plus, I was a tad bitter at all the websites I'd read beforehand, which mentioned things like, don't expect napkins; reserve a table with a pack of tissues or a ballpoint pen; anticipate long lines at the most popular stalls, and unpredictable hours at all of them; etc. Nowhere had I read, "Caution! If you are getting dishes from multiple stands, keep track of which stall which plates and utensils come from, and whether that stand is halal or not. You'll need to return the plates to the proper cart (hala or non-halal) when you bus your table." Sigh.
From the hawker centre we went to the biggest mall in Singapore, Vivocity, back at the monorail stop, and plopped down by their (huge) outdoor play area for awhile--trampolines embedded in hills in the ground, but swivel-y red swings, lots of slides, fountains, some see saws, etc.
Then we wandered through the basement dessert court of the mall and got a kaya toast (sandwich of white bread, butter, and pandan-coconut jam), salted egg yolk lava tart, waffle with chocolate, Korean walnut cakes with chocolate and red bean, and bubble tea topped with "cheese," which supposedly has a mix of cheeses including Gouda in it, but tastes like a pleasant fluffy cheesecake, not as weird as you'd think on hearing it. We also got $.80 sushi nigiri at a sit-down restaurant, to round out "dinner." Then we took the monorail back to the resort island and watched some fireworks and walked back to the hotel for bed!
Day 7--Sentosa
This morning after breakfast we took the monorail to the subway to little India, and walked around to a Pongal (harvest) festival I had heard was going on. We timed it right and got there for the kindergarten show--as in, though the festival was open to the public, literally, there was a whole kindergarten class with 5-6 year olds there, with their teachers, and virtually no other "public" whatsoever, so we joined in with them.
Samantha just answered questions, wrote thank you notes to the cows, learned a harvest dance, watched some dancers and drummers, painted with rice flour paste (usually done on the ground so the ants and birds could then eat the paste, as a thank you to nature), colored pictures of overflowing ("pongal") pots of milk, tried balancing pots on their heads, learned about the sugar cane and coconut leaf decorations, etc.
It was fantastic. There were two tents and a stage and some activities in the nearby Indian Cultural Centre, and we stuck with the class for all of them.
Then we went to the little India Tekka hawker centre for lunch, where we got masala dosas, some big poori, a banana paratha, a kopi ice for Robert (iced coffee with sweetened condensed milk), another Milo dinosaur, a big coconut, a beautiful fresh Thai mango juice, and a chicken briyani. And we didn't mess up our dishes this time re halal/non halal!
We walked around the corner to look at a big colorful temple, then stopped briefly at a playground before taking the subway plus monorail back to the hotel.
By this point we were pros at the subway. We liked the subway, but we weren't dazzled by it. Possibly we had heard "Oh, Singapore is so clean!" "Don't eat on the subway!" "Don't chew gum in public!" so many times that we were expecting something a bit cleaner than is possible outside of a science-fiction movie with gleaming futuristic surfaces, but the subway, and the streets, really seemed nice, obviously cleaner than 1980s NYC, but not particularly cleaner than 2017 Boston in a season that doesn't involve snow, salt, and sand.
In the afternoon Robert took the kids to beach/pool for an hour, and then we went back out at 5pm to a restaurant by the river downtown to get Singaporean chili crab, fried baby squids (1/2"-1" long) in black bean sesame sauce, steamed and fried mantou (bao) to soak up the crab sauce, and salted egg fried shrimp. It was also really pretty eating by the water.
From dinner we took a taxi to the Singapore flyer, this giant Ferris wheel that's one of the tallest in the world. Samantha had just read a book about Ferris wheels, and it was neat to see her apply everything from the book to this.
It was a great experience: it took about 30 minutes in the Ferris wheel car, which never stopped, but went around continuously, and you didn't have to stay sitting but could wander around the car as you liked.
Then home, quite late, kids almost all asleep.
Go back to web essays.
robertandchristina.com
was made with a Mac.
© 2018 C&R Enterprises
Email christina@robertandchristina.com
or robert@robertandchristina.com
Created: 1/22/18. Last Modified: 1/22/18.