Singapore Chinatown

As we flew over the city of Singapore we were amazed at the grand scale of the city. It is the home to 5 million people. They city skyline is filled with high rise buildings that stretch as far as we could see in every direction. Talk about intimidation. We stepped off the airplane to a stifling humid heat that is what we expect will continue for most of the rest of our trip. We grabbed a cab to our hostel (Fern loft hostel) which is right near the airport. We are still exceeding our budget in Singapore but are waiting to get to Malaysia where our costs will be cut greatly. So for now, we try to live as inexpensively as possible and will "live it up" when we go further north into cheaper land. This budget natzie is almost ready for a holiday. For the last 6 weeks our budget has been $150/day. Including travel/housing/food/entertainment.

Our first day in Singapore was spent walking around our area and in China town. We wanted to see more of the old world city. Singapore has many different sections to it. China town and little India are two fascinating parts because they have such interesting history. This area is a cultural hub of the early Chinees migrants. Here is where they still hawk their wares in pre-war shophouses. You can get anything from delicate silks to traditional crafts. There are many temples and mosques that we checked out and the shopping was so unique. We couldn't help but pick up a few presents to bring home. We stopped at the food stalls and each picked some traditional dishes that we could try for lunch. They were all yummy.


We met a teacher in the temple who gave us a tour and told us all he knew about the gods and symbols surrounding them. It was very interesting to learn a little about the hindo religion.

We found lots of cool fruits in the stalls. We bought fresh mango's, apples and lechi fruit shown below.

This  is the Sands Sky park which has not been completed yet but will be an exclusive luxury hotel.It will have a 200 meter above ground swimming pool. It also has palm trees and a sand beach on the boat shaped top.

We had a busy first day touring. It was a hot (34 degrees), humid (100%) day. We drank 3 litres of water as we walked for 6 hours around downtown. We have one more touring day left before we leave for Malaysia.