10/20 Singapore--Last Port of Call

We’re in the tropics – that’s for sure. Hot, humid and rainy today. Our plans were to go to a nature preserve and hike, but the weather looks like it’s going to literally rain on our parade. Not that we can complain, we’ve had such fantastic weather the whole trip – one day isn’t going to kill us.

We hop off the ship early – and even though Princess has said the shuttles aren’t starting until 8:45, past experience has taught us they aren’t always right. Sure enough – we find the shuttle buses and are on our way to the “shopping” district in Singapore before 8am. It’s a 30 minute ride through the heart of a very beautiful city. This is a more sophisticated stop than what we’ve seen with the exception of Hong Kong. It’s all high rises and nice buildings, high end shops and lush tropical plants. For a city – it really is beautiful – landscaping everywhere, huge palms frame the base of most buildings, flowering plants run along bridges. It’s lovely.

But – it’s a city – and it’s also “sterile” (how Ed refers to it). They have laws against chewing gum (or they did), you will be put to death for drugs. It’s hard core. We decide to just walk around the city today. We head for the Raffles hotel just to take pictures of the place that invented the Singapore Sling. The Long bar upstairs isn’t open until 11 am – we’re there so early it doesn’t make sense to hang around. And good thing too – later we found out Joel and Susan went there and ordered 2 Singapore Slings – they almost choked when they got the bill: 51 Singapore dollars! That’s $32 US! Wow!

From Raffles we head down to the river and cross over into the Quay area walking past tons of restaurants and little food stalls. There’s a brewery there – but again, we’re very early, and they’re not even thinking about opening yet. We trudge on (soaked to the bone with sweat – it’s HOT! What the heck is Bangkok going to be like?), finding China town without a problem. It’s the end of the firewalking festival, so it’s packed with participants ending their celebration.

All the little stalls in the market are open, hawking their Chinese wares. It’s just as cheap as China! We get Ed a great shirt – Singapore, a fine city – that lists all the fines that are levied against crimes! We’re still wandering when the skies open up and the downpour begins. We manage to find the food stall market and wander around looking at all the great food on display and the really cheap prices! 30 SGD cents per piece at some places. That’s like 20 cents US each. Wild!

We waste enough time that it’s just sprinkling when we leave. Since we don’t have many Singapore dollars, we decide we need to find someplace that takes credit cards. We find just the place at Yum Cha, a great little restaurant upstairs in a building. They take credit cards….and bonus! It’s air conditioned! Yea! We ordered Dim Sum – little plates of food – by marking what we wanted on an order sheet. The food was great! The best soft shell crab we’ve ever had – fried with garlic. Some steamed buns with bbq pork – the buns were sweet with this one – very interesting taste. Congee – which was sort of like rice porridge with fish strips in it. Excellent – and still cheap!

After filling our tummies, we began our trek back to the shuttle stop. It took a little over an hour of walking. We still had 19 SGD burning a hole in our pockets so we stocked up on beverages at the 7-11, but when I tried to buy a candy bar with the last 1.50, it wasn’t enough. As we were walking down the street we saw an ice cream vendor and for 1 SGD we got street ice cream! It was great – a personally made little ice cream sandwich. The guy takes a slab of ice cream (flavor of your choice), cuts off a chunk, grabs 2 little cone like biscuits, slaps them on the side of the ice cream, then peels off the paper and hands it to you. How fun!

Back on the shuttle, back on the ship – we’re a little sad the cruise portion is almost over, but we’re really looking forward to the next land-based phase of our adventure.