Sticks, slings and fluffy things – day 2 in Singapore!

Making the most of our second (and last day) in Singapore by checking off as many To-Do’s on our Singaporean bingo card as possible.  Jet lag is still a bit of a crusher, so we were up early for breakfast – but then crashed out for a quick nap straight afterwards.

Today, we decided to visit a couple of temples in town (as recommended by the hotel concierge ….sorry, MO curator) so we hopped into a cab around 10am to make our way over to Chinatown.   The two temples are cultural icons of the city – the Sri Mariamman Temple (built in 1827) and the ornate Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum.  While I recall having visited Chinatown on my last couple visits to Singapore, I don’t remember either temple – the Sri Mariamman is the Hindu temple (https://smt.org.sg/HEB/Template3/history and the Buddha Tooth Relic temple is, as you can probably guess, Buddhist.  We visited the Hindu temple first and because we were there independently, vs going as part of an organized tour, we didn’t really have much of a clue what we were looking at, tbh.  It was very busy, with lots of worshippers making offerings – all with a kicking soundtrack provided by 2 musicians.  We looked at the architecture and ornate carvings for a bit – but didn’t stay long as we just felt a little awkward.  By no means were we the only tourists in the place, but standing gawping at people engaged in their devotional practice just felt a little disrespectful, almost exploitative in a way, like we were viewing their day-to-day lives for our own amusement.  Maybe we were being oversensitive and no-one there gave a shit, but we’d seen enough to get a local flavor so were fine to move on after only about 10 mins.

We had planned to visit the Buddha temple next – but en route, my attention was grabbed by a sign proclaiming “Chinatown’s First Ever Cat Cafe!” – and I was hooked!  I trotted up to the second floor to be told that it wasn’t yet open and to come back in a half hour – so ManpanionTM and I went to have a coffee at an Insta-ready coffee shop which proclaimed to be the “Only 2D coffee shop in Singapore!” (lots of proclaiming goes on in Chinatown, clearly).  After a very mediocre coffee, I’d killed enough time to go back to the cat cafe where I paid 12 Singaporean dollars to be studiously ignored by the 8 cats housed within.  To be fair to myself, they were being fed right as I returned, so I wouldn’t expect to be able to compete with a bowl of chicken and broccoli (yes, they were being fed broccoli – which apparently they do actually eat).  But after feeding time was done, their levels of disdain remained unchanged.  They could not have given less of a shit that I was there and showed precisely zero interest in my presence.   After about 15 mins of this, I gave up and quietly excused myself – I thought about warning the large family group that had just rocked up to Not Get Your Hopes Up for any meaningful feline interaction, but figured they’d soon find out.

I met back up with ManpanionTM (who’d excused himself from this side quest) and we headed over to the Buddha Tooth temple.  Similar to the Hindu temple, it was very busy and crowded with people (unlike the Hindu one, you didn’t have to remove your shoes and they seemed way more laidback in policing the “no bare shoulders and shorts” policy).  We stayed just long enough to “admire” the copious amounts of gold that was plastered over every conceivable surface (WHY do religious institutions do this?) before leaving the faithful to it.  After this, it was time to check another experience off our bingo card and head to Maxwell Food Court, where ManpanionTM would visit his first hawker food center.

Apparently here, the dish to get is the Chicken Rice – so that’s what we looked for on entering the noisy, chaotic covered food court.  There were lots of stalls selling Hainanese Chicken rice – but one stand in particular had a GIANT line, so we decided to join that one.  As it happens, it didn’t take too long to get served – while I waited in line, ManpanionTM found us a table to sit at (which was lucky, given how busy it was!).  We found out later when we checked online that we had queued up at one of the stands that had a Michelin rating, was social media famous AND had been visited by both the late great Anthony Bourdain and Gordon Ramsey.  No wonder it was popular.  As for the chicken rice – well, honestly – I found it kinda meh.  It was pretty bland and I wasn’t all that keen on the slightly rubbery texture (alternatively described as “velvety”).  But we gave it a go – and at the best place in the city to boot, so could check that off our list!

After lunch, we were fading a bit, so got a cab back to the hotel to rest for a while.  We headed back to the Haus65 lounge for cocktail hour first (gotta get our money’s worth, right?) before walking over to the Raffles Hotel and the Long Bar where, yes, you guessed it – we checked off “Drink Singapore Sling at Raffles” from our bingo card!  Now I have definitely been to the Long Bar before as I remember it very distinctly – particularly the funky palm fans in the ceiling, rocking back and forth to cool you down, as they have done for 100yrs!  I asked our server what percentage of clients order anything OTHER than a Singapore Sling – and she said only about 8-9%.  I can’t imagine how boring it must be for the bar staff to make the same endless cocktails – but at $41 a pop (yikes), if you’ve got a winner on your hands, then milk that sucker for as much as its worth.  Given the rather steep prices, its not really a place you linger for multiple rounds, so after we’d sucked down our Sling, ate some ground nuts and chucked their shells on the floor, we headed off to our final destination of the night, the Lau Pa Sat hawker center.

This food hall is housed in an historic Victorian era building and is quite the scene!  https://www.laupasat.sg/ Like the Maxwell center, this also has a number of Michelin rated food stands, and while there are many, many different types of food available, we were there for just one thing – satay!  All the satay vendors are grouped together outside on one side of the building called Satay Street – its pretty easy to spot (and smell) by the wafts of charcoal smoke rising up from the numerous grills.  We once again joined the longest line (realizing this might be a self-propagating fallacy) and ordered a small set of skewers – 10 chicken, 10 beef, 6 shrimp.  We were handed a buzzer for when it was ready so ManpanionTM got in (yet another) line for a beer and I found us somewhere to sit at one of the long tables, where everyone gathered to chow down.  It was a fun atmosphere and before long, our order was ready – and they were as tasty as I remembered.  The skewers came with a little dish of peanut dipping sauce – and they were a delightful bite!

And so, Singapore Bingo Card complete, we made our way back to the hotel.  Its been a pretty short visit but I think we’ve at least gotten some of the essence of the city and hit a few of the highlights.  Later today, we bid farewell to Singapore and embark on the second phase of our adventure – 4 days, 3 nights aboard the Eastern and Oriental Express and a journey into the wilds of Malaysia!  See you there!!