So we took the metro to go and find a hostel close to Arab Street. It was right next to the Sultan mosque and we got everyday free prayers through the speakers transmitted.
We checked into the Sleepy Sam's Guesthouse and received breakfast that was delicious with coffee better than Starbucks and just the thing to pick us up after the last night.
After such a refreshment, we were full of energy and ready to go and explore the city with our city public service pass. As we love metros, we walked to one station and drove to the close by Little India. We passed many little roads, temples and interesting shops.
Hajl La, a street close to Arab Street really cute!
But as we are not here for fun, we had to go and do more research and learning! So we went to "Aravind's Curry" to sample some Chettinad food. The owners must have seen that we are clueless and pretty much told us what we have to eat. We got brought one sample after the other one and started to enjoy their hospitality and food. The salty Buttermilk was a wonderful positive surprise for our palet together with the spicy banana leaf dish we ate. We received many different kind of drinks we had to drink to help our digestive system. So we drank them and we felt good. Full, but good!
With so much food in our bellies we rolled out into the city to do more exploring. There were still 7.572.192.472 temples to see! (or something like this).
We managed to get hold of Kevin who works now here in the city. We know him from our time back in Dublin, Ireland where we had the pleasure to work with him. So we walked in Flip-flops into the Ritz Carlton Marina Bay. The friendly doorman welcomed us with open arms and before he could assist us, we already ran into Oscar, who also worked with us back in Dublin (small world!).
For all of you who work in the 5 star hospitality... there is nothing better then standing in the main lobby during your shift with some stinky low budget travelers whilst being on your shift and have taken some pictures by the bell boy! (right!?!)
It was good to see Oscar after all this time. Unfortunately he is still a busy man and we were not able to catch up with him outside of work. As of Kevin, he hooked us up with a "self guided art tour" through the hotel and promised to meet us after his shift. So we received an I-Pod and an art brochure and went off to explore some of the many art objects of the hotel.
It was very impressive to see this well integrated sculptures and many paintings, even though I felt a little under dressed for the venue.
After Kevin finished his shift he met up with us and we went to a Hawker food center to eat. We ordered a couple of different dishes to be able to try some of the many culinary influences. One of them is the "Carrot Cake" which doesn't contain any carrots and it isn't sweet either, (don't ask me why) but it was yummy!
Kevin invited us for late "wedding drinks" and we caught up with filling the hole since we've seen each other the last time. It was a wonderful evening. He dropped us off with a taxi at the end of the night.
The next day we did more exploring of the culinary diversity and the cultural background of the city. We followed some of Kevin's tips and had fried chicken rice, laksa and all different kind of food.
After so much food we walked around and visited more temples. One of them is the temple of the thousand Buddha's.
In the evening time we went back to the Marina Bay area were we met up with Kevin. Chrisy shot a couple of amazing pictures of the city. One of the commercial district with it's modern skyline and one of the casino, which looks like it's been left behind by aliens. There is a bar and pool on the very top of the building and has every evening a light show beaming into the sky in the night time. There is also a water fountain show on the water surface and live music in a little pavilion.
After so much sightseeing we were hungry and Kevin brought us to the "Boon Tan Street" in the middle of the financial district. After 7pm one grill is lined up with the next one and all offer "the best kebab sticks"! so we ordered 35 sticks with different meats and some other food to try. The atmosphere was fantastic and the "tiger ladies" made sure we didn't have to stay thirsty.
As a treat we also had a mud crab in a tomato sauce which ended up in a very messy, but very tasty feast. The night was hot and the spices six the rest to make us sweat this evening. It was an amazing time and we want to say thank you again to Kevin who made sure we had a good time in Singapore. We ended the night in a bar in the Arab street where we smoked a shisha and had a couple of drinks.
This was our last night in Singapore and we enjoyed it very much. Before we left the next day we drove to Orchard Road, this is the fancy shopping area of the city and dis some souvenir shopping (just kidding), and visited the St. Regis hotel to see if it was worth it's name. And it was a beautiful place with very elegant looking doormen welcoming our arrival. I had to have a look at the pool and we browsed through the lobby and the restaurant as well.
During one of our taxi rides we had a very entertaining driver. He educated us about the current situation for owning and driving a car: to be able to own a car you need to buy a 4 year license for 25.000 Singapore dollars. After the time you need to buy another license. To be able to drive on the road you need to have a device in your car which is electronically connected to checkpoints along the road. You need to buy cards for day time tax and cards for night road tax. Ao to be able to sit behind the wheel, you need to have a lot of money!
Look for yourself at more pictures of Singapore
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