After I arrived on Friday, I took a walk around the area near the hotel while JT was finishing up work. I got a little bit hungry so decided to have a snack at the food court in a mall I had wandered into. I came upon a stand that had a picture of a small bowl of noodles for 4 Singapore dollars (3 US dollars), so I figured that it would be a nice light snack. When I walked up, the woman told me I could pick out seven items from the following:
There were vegetables, tofu, fish balls, crab meet, hot dogs, eggs and a couple other items I didn't quite recognize. After you pick your seven items, the woman behind the counter puts them into a pot of boiling water, throws some noodles in there and voila, your meal is ready. A pretty good deal for three bucks.
In the evening, we met up with my friend from college who is now a professor at the National University of Singapore. He grew up in Malaysia but is originally from India, so he took us out to an area called "Little India." We had some authentic Indian food at The Banana Leaf restaurant, which not coincidentally you eat your food off banana leaves. We checked out the night life in Singapore and eventually wandered back to our hotel, which looks amazing at night:
The next day (Saturday), we spent the day exploring the city. Across the Singapore River from our hotel, a large monstrosity of a recently built casino/hotel took up much of the skyline. Personally, I think it looks like a long cruise ship on top of three buildings:
After wandering around Singapore and getting some lunch in yet another food court located in yet another mall, we packed up and headed to our hotel on Sentosa Island. The hotel itself was very nice, but the beaches were a little bit disappointing, mainly because there were about twenty freighters spewing toxic fumes a stone's throw away. This is the hotel:
And this is the view from the beach:
As you have probably guessed, we didn't spend much time at the beach and instead lounged around by the pool for the rest of the afternoon. The resort is overrun by peacocks, and I was able to get close enough to one to take a photo:
In the evening, we left our hotel to expore the rest of Sentosa Island, which is like a spread out Disney World with a little bit more to do. There is, among other things, a Universal Studios, a marine life park and a Hard Rock hotel. We found a nice restaurant to remind us of home called the "Big Easy." We were tempted by the offerings of jambalaya and gumbo, which turned out not only to be the same dish, but essentially chicken fried rice with some cajun spices. At least there was a live jazz band. After dinner we headed to the casino. Interestingly enough, Singapore charges its own citizens a fee to enter the casinos because they want to discourage them from gambling. However, if you're not a Singapore citizen, you get in for free and should try to lose as much money as possible. Therefore, before entering the casino, you have to show ID that you're not a Singapore citizen. After the casino, we were a little bit hungry, so we stopped by a bakery to get a snack and also breakfast for the next day. JT picked out a "potato bun", which is a bun shaped like a potato. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I took a picture. Because of the lighting, however, it looked like it was glowing, so we coined it the "jack-o-potato":
When we woke up the next day (Sunday), it was raining, so we couldn't really do much. We lazed around, had a snack at the hotel and headed to the airport. All in all, Singapore wasn't the most interesting place I've been too, but I'm glad I went as the country and its people have a lot to offer.
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