We spent 10 pleasant days in Singapore, a sophisticated city-state with lots of cultural diversity. Singapore was one of the four early Asian tigers that experienced exploding growth and urbanization starting in the late '50's, and there's a wealth of interesting modern architecture. This is the Supreme Court building by architect Norman Foster that was built 2002-05.
It was fun to stroll along the Singapore River. This is the cleanest city we have ever visited!
This view shows the Esplanade Concert Hall just beyond the bridge. It is nicknamed the durian since the aluminum cladding looks like the exterior of the thorny fruit.
And here’s a view of the interior. Durian is the national fruit of Singapore.
This is a Merlion, Singapore's mascot, which is half fish and half cat.
The Marina Bay Sands, like the Merlion, has become a recognizable symbol of Singapore. The views from the boat atop the three high rise buildings would likely be spectacular, but we never got close enough to go up.
Some of the older buildings reminded us of San Francisco. The first is in Chinatown, and the second was in our neighborhood and shows a date of 1920.
Singapore is now called Our City in a Garden for good reason. Creative efforts were made over the last 50 years, such as gathering and filtering water from roads to use for irrigation. The Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was the initiator who wanted to ensure that the densely populated environment wasn’t just concrete, steel and asphalt. The streets are typically lined with trees and there are many parks as this photo of Dhoby Ghaut Green amphitheater shows.
We walked around the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which were created by the British in the 1850's. This photo is from the evolution garden, which shows planet earth with the types of plant life that existed from its birth 3 billion years to the present. The tallest tree is a fern moss tree, which over millions of years changed from rotting vegetation to peat and then became coal. The evolution garden opened in 2005 as an educational center.
We saw this sign in the evolution garden. In other places it would simply say No Pets, but in Singapore there is a full explanation given.
In the trellis garden we watched the Carpenter Bees pollinating the Elephant Creeper flowers. The bees were so quick that it was hard to take their photo. We learned there are 500 types of Carpenter Bees and they are so named because they make their solitary nests in dead wood or bamboo.
The botanical garden has the largest display of tropical orchids in the world. Behind Kristina are red Renanthera Paloma Picasso and orange spotted Tiger orchids.
We saw hundreds of different hybrids like these. The purplish spotted ones are Vanda Mimi Palmer orchids, which are unusual because they are scented – they smell like jasmine.
National Day festivities were being planned, and there were tons of Singapore flags on display. Singapore turns 48 on August 9th. The tall buildings in the second photo are apartments.
When we were planning our trip, we reached out to our friends Tajel and John. John grew up in Singapore, and he gave us great suggestions about where to stay and lots of different foods to try. The first meal we ate was chili crab - it was incredibly delicious, with the richness of the crab being balanced by the heat and sweetness of the chili sauce.
Singapore is a multi-cultural city with four official languages to accommodate the largest ethnic groups: English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil. More than 70% of Singaporeans are of Chinese heritage, so their impact on the cuisine seems to be the most significant. We enjoyed some of the best dim sum we have ever eaten during a Sunday brunch. Shown here are steamed scallop dumplings, 带子凤凰卖. The price card listed 42 types of dim sum, not including the congee, noodles, rice or dessert dishes!
We ate at several hawker stalls (similar to food courts) and enjoyed having a huge selection of foods available for really cheap prices. One of our favorite dishes was Char Kway Teo, which is noodles cooked in a wok with cockles (small clams) and pork. Pete is about to eat some duck rice, boneless duck served with a sweet sauce over rice, which of course tastes better with beer!
We stayed near the Little India neighborhood and savored several delicious Indian meals. We love tandoori cooking, especially kebabs (these are lamb cubes that had been marinated in yogurt before cooking with spices) and breads (we sampled onion naan and paratha stuffed with paneer).
We were happy when we finally got our Burma visas that we need for a cycling trip in November, and we celebrated by eating Burmese food.
We worked up an appetite each day by swimming the Olympic-sized pool near our hotel. It cost only about eighty cents to swim.
Singapore has an efficient metro system that we used every day. There is art in most of the stations: mosaics, murals and stained glass. We liked this modern mural that included a Phoenix.
This is part of a Chinese poem with the characters made of inlaid granite. The poem stretched the length of the subway platform.
There are lots of regulations to keep the subways clean. The odor of durian fruit is so strong that animals can smell it from half a mile away. The smell is sometimes compared to vomit, but people still love to eat it. We photographed this sign to make the penalty of bringing durian on the metro appear to be a hefty fine instead of just being forbidden.
We visited SAM, the contemporary art museum. We liked this piece by Ryf Zaini, which was a modified fire alarm.
Between visiting the Chinese Heritage Museum and the Singapore National Museum, we got a great sense of the cultural history. This is a tenement kitchen from the 1910’s. The kitchen would have been shared by four families, where each family had their own brazier.
Here's a Pete and Kristina Roam geography quiz:
1. What are the two countries we visited that are islands?
2. What two countries are part of the Malay archipelago?
We have visited India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore. Email your answers to yoga@kristinaisberg.com
It was fun to stroll along the Singapore River. This is the cleanest city we have ever visited!
This view shows the Esplanade Concert Hall just beyond the bridge. It is nicknamed the durian since the aluminum cladding looks like the exterior of the thorny fruit.
And here’s a view of the interior. Durian is the national fruit of Singapore.
This is a Merlion, Singapore's mascot, which is half fish and half cat.
The Marina Bay Sands, like the Merlion, has become a recognizable symbol of Singapore. The views from the boat atop the three high rise buildings would likely be spectacular, but we never got close enough to go up.
Some of the older buildings reminded us of San Francisco. The first is in Chinatown, and the second was in our neighborhood and shows a date of 1920.
Singapore is now called Our City in a Garden for good reason. Creative efforts were made over the last 50 years, such as gathering and filtering water from roads to use for irrigation. The Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was the initiator who wanted to ensure that the densely populated environment wasn’t just concrete, steel and asphalt. The streets are typically lined with trees and there are many parks as this photo of Dhoby Ghaut Green amphitheater shows.
We walked around the Singapore Botanic Gardens, which were created by the British in the 1850's. This photo is from the evolution garden, which shows planet earth with the types of plant life that existed from its birth 3 billion years to the present. The tallest tree is a fern moss tree, which over millions of years changed from rotting vegetation to peat and then became coal. The evolution garden opened in 2005 as an educational center.
We saw this sign in the evolution garden. In other places it would simply say No Pets, but in Singapore there is a full explanation given.
In the trellis garden we watched the Carpenter Bees pollinating the Elephant Creeper flowers. The bees were so quick that it was hard to take their photo. We learned there are 500 types of Carpenter Bees and they are so named because they make their solitary nests in dead wood or bamboo.
The botanical garden has the largest display of tropical orchids in the world. Behind Kristina are red Renanthera Paloma Picasso and orange spotted Tiger orchids.
We saw hundreds of different hybrids like these. The purplish spotted ones are Vanda Mimi Palmer orchids, which are unusual because they are scented – they smell like jasmine.
National Day festivities were being planned, and there were tons of Singapore flags on display. Singapore turns 48 on August 9th. The tall buildings in the second photo are apartments.
When we were planning our trip, we reached out to our friends Tajel and John. John grew up in Singapore, and he gave us great suggestions about where to stay and lots of different foods to try. The first meal we ate was chili crab - it was incredibly delicious, with the richness of the crab being balanced by the heat and sweetness of the chili sauce.
Singapore is a multi-cultural city with four official languages to accommodate the largest ethnic groups: English, Mandarin Chinese, Malay and Tamil. More than 70% of Singaporeans are of Chinese heritage, so their impact on the cuisine seems to be the most significant. We enjoyed some of the best dim sum we have ever eaten during a Sunday brunch. Shown here are steamed scallop dumplings, 带子凤凰卖. The price card listed 42 types of dim sum, not including the congee, noodles, rice or dessert dishes!
We ate at several hawker stalls (similar to food courts) and enjoyed having a huge selection of foods available for really cheap prices. One of our favorite dishes was Char Kway Teo, which is noodles cooked in a wok with cockles (small clams) and pork. Pete is about to eat some duck rice, boneless duck served with a sweet sauce over rice, which of course tastes better with beer!
We stayed near the Little India neighborhood and savored several delicious Indian meals. We love tandoori cooking, especially kebabs (these are lamb cubes that had been marinated in yogurt before cooking with spices) and breads (we sampled onion naan and paratha stuffed with paneer).
We were happy when we finally got our Burma visas that we need for a cycling trip in November, and we celebrated by eating Burmese food.
We worked up an appetite each day by swimming the Olympic-sized pool near our hotel. It cost only about eighty cents to swim.
Singapore has an efficient metro system that we used every day. There is art in most of the stations: mosaics, murals and stained glass. We liked this modern mural that included a Phoenix.
This is part of a Chinese poem with the characters made of inlaid granite. The poem stretched the length of the subway platform.
There are lots of regulations to keep the subways clean. The odor of durian fruit is so strong that animals can smell it from half a mile away. The smell is sometimes compared to vomit, but people still love to eat it. We photographed this sign to make the penalty of bringing durian on the metro appear to be a hefty fine instead of just being forbidden.
We visited SAM, the contemporary art museum. We liked this piece by Ryf Zaini, which was a modified fire alarm.
Between visiting the Chinese Heritage Museum and the Singapore National Museum, we got a great sense of the cultural history. This is a tenement kitchen from the 1910’s. The kitchen would have been shared by four families, where each family had their own brazier.
Here's a Pete and Kristina Roam geography quiz:
1. What are the two countries we visited that are islands?
2. What two countries are part of the Malay archipelago?
We have visited India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia and Singapore. Email your answers to yoga@kristinaisberg.com
