For our first real stop in Asia, Singapore is the place. We really love it here. While we may not want to live in Singapore, we want to live near enough that it would be easy to visit...mostly to see Tiffany and eat lots of good food. Ooooh...the food...I crave it as we speak, uh, I mean, as I type.
Singapore
Stop 1...Singapore. While I always think there's really not much to do here so we don't plan a ton of time here, I end up leaving wishing we had just one more day. There is so much good food here!! Since this was our second time to Singapore we knew a bit more about where to eat. We stayed on Joo Chiat road again and went to the Joo Chiat hawker center a bunch of times. I tried more of the drinks and since Greg and Kara are adventurous eaters, they tried a lot of different foods and fruits. My favorite thing was probably the lime drink that I had over and over again as well as the pisang goreng (fried bananas...also known as heaven).
When we first got to Singapore we went through immigration and the officer was super nice. At first, he looked like a gruff Chinese man, but he was very interested in all our travels and wished us well while calling us rich and lucky to do this before kids. We collected our bags, had them scanned, and then made our way to the taxi stands. Our driver was named Edward and it took a little bit for him to open up, but when he did, he told us about good food places and was really friendly. The room we were assigned was as black and dark as you can get...perfect for sleeping. We were starving, though, so we decided to see what we could get to eat before we slept. There was a hawker center that made a noodle soup that was so good. Greg and Kara ate from the same place but they had the fish ball soup and liked it too. Now, finally, we could go to sleep.
We woke up at about 930 and went off to the Joo Chiat complex hawker center for breakfast and drinks before we set out to see the sights. The list: Nasi Lemak, 粽子 (zòngzi - sticky rice triangle with filling), 叉燒包 (chāshāobāo - steamed bun with meat filling), Lime Katsuri, Pisang Goreng, and a bunch of different fruit. So good.
On our way back to the hotel to finish getting ready, I saw my friend Carlene in the lobby. It was a surprise because we thought we weren't expecting her until the next day. While in Utah we talked over the phone about having her and her friend take us on a tour of Singapore on the second day since we were flying in super, super early the first day and would most likely want to rest and take things easy on day one. Well, I guess she got a little mixed up about that since quite a bit of time elapsed between the decision-making phone call and the actual event. Whatever happened, there she was in our lobby writing us a note since we weren’t there when she arrived. After a lot of back and forth as to why she was there early and why we hadn’t contacted the person we were going to visit with yet, we went upstairs to our room so we could give her all the stuff we brought over from the States for her. From there we went out and wandered around Singapore with her. She was surprised at how much more Jordan knew than her about a city she had worked in for so long. Thanks to Jordan’s research for the trip this year, we were a bit more prepared than last time. Last time was an accident…instead of Thailand, we ended up in Singapore and Malaysia to avoid all the riots going on in Bangkok and we’re so glad we did. Singapore and Malaysia are some of our favorite places now! Anyway, we ate lunch at Lau Pa Sat festival market where we had wonton noodle soup, baozi, and some shrimp and chive 餃子 (jiǎozi). The juice stand in the middle of the hawker center was watery and a big disappointment, my suggestion is that you find somewhere else there to get a beverage.
By the end of the day, we were kind of wet, very tired, and decided to split from Seow until the next day. She needed to go home and get warm from the rain and we needed a nap. Since dinnertime is when Tiffany was able to meet with us, we had time for one. We planned to meet with Seow in JB (Johor Bharu) the next day so she could take us around up there to a bunch of great food places. The nap was awesome, but not long enough for me. We got up and got ready for dinner with Tiffany. She and her boyfriend took us to a restaurant down the street from where we were staying in his car…which had enough seating for all but one of us; Jordan squished himself in the trunk. The restaurant was really, really good! We had venison, pepper beef, baby squid, eggplant, greens, chicken fried with shrimp paste, fried shrimp rolls, and a fish and vegetable dish. すごくすごくおいしかった! The chrysanthemum tea was also really good! Even though we were pretty full, they invited us to dessert down on one of the streets famous for all its desserts. We were definitely up for it even if we were full. It felt like a night market street in Taiwan with just how densely packed it was with people. Shave ice in Taiwan and Hawaii are similar to one another, and the place we chose had shave ice also, but this was unique because it was shaved into flavored ribbons of ice that were so smooth it was almost like eating ice cream. Tiffany had the black sesame flavor, which was really tasty, and I got the coconut mocha filled with mango chunks. Mochi is probably my favorite dessert on the planet.
Around 10 we were all full and tired, so we decided to call it a night. They took us home where we all showered and fell asleep.
I had trouble staying asleep from about 545am onward, so when Kara and Jordan got up around 7, I stopped trying to go back to sleep. We walked over to Dunman hawker center, but it was too early for them to be open, so we walked back over to the little hawker center across from the Joo Chiat complex for noodles and pisang goreng, both disappointing since the noodles weren’t as tasty and the banana place wasn’t up and running yet. Good thing the complex was operational like usual, so we ate there and then walked through the shopping center across the street since checkout wasn’t for another 2+hrs. After packing up our stuff and checking out we tried to contact Seow since we were supposed to be meeting up with her, but even after calling both numbers for her and sending her e-mails for an hour, we couldn’t reach her. We walked to the train station where we made our way to the border…3½ hrs later, we arrived in JB.
…on to Malaysia…
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