Hello KL!

At this point, we’ve been here for almost two weeks, and it has absolutely flown by. We spent the first five days in the Prince Hotel, where Grant had stayed for his initial month here. It was nice, centrally located, and we lucked out in getting a good last minute deal on a one bedroom apartment there. What a luxury to be able to spread out after our week in a small hotel room!

We have a fantastic realtor, and he’s been very patient and cooperative with all the unknowns about our timeline. We were able to re-renegotiate our lease (from Nov 15 to Dec 15 to Dec 1 to Nov 24 – did I mention he was a patient guy?), and we moved into our new home on Thanksgiving! That is, Grant went to work from the Prince Hotel and came home to a fully unpacked apartment in KLCC (Kuala Lumpur City Centre – they love to abbreviate things here!). It’s huge and in an amazing location, right by the Petronas Towers; I’ll follow up with pictures soon. Grant did a great job finding this place!

I’m not a miracle worker, so unfortunately no turkey dinner was awaiting him, but I was still motivated enough to explore the nearest grocery store. The closest grocery store is called Isetan, which is a Japanese chain, so much of what they carry is labeled in Japanese. I focused on buying the essentials, and then found a free-range, organic chicken. Great, that sounds like a perfect faux Thanksgiving to me! Only one problem: when I got it home and unwrapped it, it turned out to have feet!! I’m not sure what a local would have done, but I was aghast and couldn’t imagine cooking a chicken with its feet still on. So, with the dullest knife in the world (note to self, next thing to buy), I set about hacking them off.

I’d say that’s a good representation of life here so far, mostly normal but with a twist. Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving too!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Goodbye to Singapore

We hadn’t known how long we’d have in Singapore when we arrived, but it was great to have a full week to explore it at a leisurely pace. It’s a very walkable city, apart from the humidity, and I’m already making a list of the things I want to do when we come back.

All the legends seem true: this is a perfect gateway to Asia for us westerners, and much safer and cleaner than most cities in the US. It’s a true melting pot, and I loved exploring the different historic neighborhoods and tasting the food of all the cultures as it comes together in the hawker centers.

That being said, it could be so polished that at times it felt vaguely “Disney-fied”. As Grant reminded me, KL would be a very different experience, so I was looking forward to the next adventure!

Wild about the zoo

The first thing you notice, after dodging the official photographers, hundreds of kids, and the possibility of being completely sidetracked into the gift shop, is that there are monkeys. Yup, monkeys. Sitting in the tree above your head, jumping from branch to branch. Running along the top of the signboard that I couldn’t tell you what it says, because who reads a sign where there is a monkey sitting on it? Eating oranges, as apparently they do (I would have expected bananas, but whatever).

Singapore Zoo is a wild place to be. Its meandering footpaths allow you to happen upon the animals in their “enclosures”, which often appear more open than enclosed. Next to the tiger area was a painted line showing the range of a tiger’s leap. The dueling visuals of this factual representation and the big tiger pacing and staring menacingly at us was a little unsettling. I was almost convinced he could have leapt the moat and eaten us all, and that he wanted to.

Clearly, I loved the monkeys and their various relations: orang-utans (fun fact: means man of the forest in Malay) from Borneo and Sumatra, proboscis monkeys, gibbons, capuchin monkeys, mandrills, spider monkeys, baboons and many more. Grant enjoyed the snake house, with its display of local poisonous snakes. There were more of those than I really needed to see. You seem so close to the animals that it feels like they are really interacting with you. It was fun watching the cheetah watch Grant as if he was dinner, and the giraffes gave us a stately nod.

After the zoo, we walked over to the Night Safari. This is really a one of a kind experience; it feels like you’ve been let loose in the zoo after dark. Then, as it gets darker, it feels as if the animals have gotten loose in the zoo after dark! Every noise had me jumping a mile in the air, convinced that the glass between me and the leopards had disappeared, or that the lions weren’t just across the road anymore. The most relaxing way to enjoy this experience is to take the 40 minute tram ride that takes you past most of the animals, with a very informative guide.

You also have the option of walking a couple of trails, and that was when it really got spooky. Well, cheesy at first, as you walk through the bar called the Z-Bar with its zebra theme, and then spooky as you walk down pitch-black paths up to big cat viewing areas, and into giant flying squirrel and bat enclosures. I thought I would hate the bat enclosure, but a docent offered to walk us through and really made the experience more interesting than scary. We got very close to the largest bats in the world, the flying fox, aka fruit bat, and watched the lesser dog-faced fruit bats digging into their bananas very happily. The docent was telling us that it was good there was so much fruit available that night, so they weren’t fighting over it. I was pretty happy about that too.

Definitely a must-see for a trip to Singapore, and a great way to spend our last full day there!

Eat to live or live to eat?

We knew we would not go hungry in this part of the world, and I was excited to try some of the special dishes that Singapore is known for. Since we have been living in a hotel, we’ve been eating every meal out, and I don’t think we’ve had a bad one so far. The best have been in the hawker centers, so they’ve also often been the cheapest, but there were still three local specialties that I wanted to have before we left for KL.

Dressed for success!

Singapore Sling at the Long Bar in Raffles Hotel

Maxwell Road Food Centre

My Favorite: Chicken Rice

Religious Tolerance

Anyone who has traveled abroad with me knows that I can’t walk past a cathedral without stopping to look inside. This isn’t driven by any particular religious conviction, but they are usually architecturally fascinating and it’s always worthwhile to explore a place that people respect and hold sacred.

Guarding Sri Krishnan Temple

I wouldn’t want to discriminate, so as you’ve probably guessed I have extended this personal philosophy to cover all houses of worship. I had a banner day in Singapore: visited a Hindu temple, a Buddhist temple, and a mosque all in the span of a few hours and a couple kilometers!

Kuan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple

Mosques are a little intimidating for me, as the unfamiliar often can be. My normal approach to this is to watch others and follow their cues (shoes on, shoes off, etc), but I hadn’t seen any women going in and out of mosques so I wasn’t really sure if I’d be welcomed in one or if I’d misstep once inside. I thought the place to figure this out was Kampong Glam. When Singapore was first colonized by the British, they created different ethnic communities, and Kampong Glam is the historic neighborhood originally intended for the Sultan and his household as well as for the Muslim community.

Sultan Mosque, Kampong Glam

The streets are lined with shophouses that hold cafes, restaurants, souvenir shops, carpet shops, and the odd 7-11. On Arab Street, these shops overflow with brightly colored and patterned fabrics and tailors offering their services. Tempting! From a few blocks away, the minaret and the dome of Masjid Sultan (Malay for Sultan Mosque) peeked over the rooftops. I circled it outside a little tentatively, looking for the entrance and found it at what I had assumed was the back of the building.

Interior of Sultan Mosque

There were the standard shoe racks found at many temples, a rack of heavy sky blue hooded robes and a couple of American women standing there putting the robes on. I followed right on their heels, being warned by an old man on the steps that the robes would be very hot, and then being welcomed at the door by guides who were there to explain the small exhibit on Islam and answer any questions we had. There wasn’t a huge amount to see, as we were limited to the entrance area, but I was happy to finally be able to satisfy my curiosity!

“You have learned our ways.”

True quote, said by an elder in…a hawker center. Maybe I haven’t exactly achieved spiritual enlightenment, but I’m figuring out how to get around!

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple exterior

While Grant has been working hard in the office, I’ve been working hard to see everything Singapore has to offer. Basically, each day I’m choosing a new neighborhood and hitting the streets. I’m working on learning the city, so I’ll be a better tour guide both for him and for all of our visitors!

Sri Mariamman Temple in Chinatown

I spent a day in Chinatown, and the first temple I saw was not a Buddhist temple, but the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore. I loved the sacred cows perched on the top of the walls.

This is on the corner of Pagoda Street, which leads into a pedestrian shopping area aimed directly at all of us tourists, but that was fun to wander anyway. The surprising highlight was The Tintin Shop, which seemed out of place amid the souvenir booths. Grant is a fan, so I was excited to bring him back here. The new Tintin movie is the top movie here in Singapore right now as well, but it’s doubtful we’ll see it while we’re here. We just got word that Grant’s visa has come through, and we’re headed up to KL on Sunday!

My favorite shop was the one that sold nothing but chopsticks, and Grant bought me my first (and only, so far) souvenir. They are Chinese zodiac chopsticks, and I was born in the year of the monkey. That means I’m very smart, or so the saleswoman told me. I think she was a very smart saleswoman.

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple

After running the gauntlet of shopkeepers, you emerge at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple (top picture). This is a striking building, five stories tall and built during the last decade. As it turns out, it is directly across from the Maxwell Road Food Centre, a hawker center we had eaten in on our second day here. We may have been feeling the effects of the jet lag more than we thought, since neither of us had noticed the gigantic temple.

Buddha Tooth Relic Museum

It’s very ornate inside, and the main hall is lined with small statues of One Hundred Buddhas and tables holding offerings that have been made to the Three Jewels: Buddha (the Enlightened One), Dharma (the Teaching), and Sangha (the Spiritual Community). Upstairs, there was a beautiful museum telling the story of the life of Buddha and displaying Buddhist icons from all over Asia.

At the other end of the spectrum in temple visits for the day, was one of Singapore’s oldest temples: Thian Hock Keng Temple, also known as the Temple of Heavenly Happiness. It’s dedicated to the Goddess of the Sea, and Chinese sailors would visit it to pray for safe passage.

Temple of Heavenly Happiness

Today was my first meal on my own, and I knew the custom was to first “chope” or save yourself a seat by putting a package of tissues down. I’d brought some with me so I was ready to dive in, but I wasn’t sure what the etiquette was for joining other people at a table and the place was pretty packed.

My technique in food courts and hawker centers is to wander the rows of food stalls, looking for the ones with long lines and counting on those to have the best food. It’s tough to choose with so many options (poor me, right?), but this day I settled on a fried rice and noodle stand, and saw a table for six with only two people at it not far away. I asked if I could take a seat, and left my tissues there – it helps that everyone speaks English!

By the time I returned with my food, two gentlemen had sat down as well, and the older one watched me as I claimed my seat and put away my tissues, and then leaned in and announced “You have learned our ways”. Whoo-hoo! I felt pretty good about that.

They were very friendly, and interested in who I was and what I was doing there. They shared their perspective on Singapore’s history, what food I should eat next (very important!), and other sights to see. They pointed me into Singapore City Gallery, which I hadn’t planned on seeing, but ended up spending over an hour there. It’s an exhibit about the nation’s planning efforts, and covers the past, present and future with videos and dioramas. Since their land is so limited, this city-nation is in a state of constant evolution, but they are very aware of the need and desire to preserve historic elements as well. That conscious planning effort comes through in a slightly Disney-esque feeling as you stroll the city, which I don’t necessarily mean as a bad thing. This is certainly a comfortable environment for me to ease into life in Southeast Asia.

Dragon atop the Temple of Heavenly Happiness