Singapore: day 22 - wandering town

I turned off the light last night at 10pm determined to get a good night's sleep.  And I woke up at 4am this morning.  Lame!  I got a lot of work done in the room during the morning, and shortly before noon walked two blocks over to LASALLE College of the Arts to meet Ning, the program head for the audio diploma here, who is also a former student and one of my guides in Singapore.

Ning and I took a car over to the Gardens by the Bay area to grab lunch with Joanna, another former student who is now getting a masters at LASALLE (though not in Ning's area).  We grabbed a quick bite and went on a walking tour of the area.  

This is the Apple Store.

The haze/smog was thick, so we wore masks outside.

Singapore feels like a very safe jumble of culture, density, buildings, and opulence.  Parts of the city are filthy stinking rich - the Marina Bay Sands complex (the three buildings with the boat on top) contain a casino, a hotel, and a mall so ritzy it has a store that sells high-end safes for valuables (and ones just for watches).  The Apple Store sits on its own mini-island and is only accessible via an underground passage from the mall.  

Other parts of the city are clearly working class.  Not poor, but built for people who work and have jobs and lead normal lives.   Lots of yummy cheap restaurants, coffee shops, mid-range clothing stores, etc.  

I didn't see a single homeless person all day.  Not that we were in poor parts of town, but even in the wealthy parts of NYC there are usually homeless people around.

We went to the ArtScience Museum, which had two exhibits going on - one was about the ocean depths, and it included both scientific elements and unusual artistic pieces.  The other was called Future World, and it was a series of room-scale multi-media installations.  Some were interactive, and some were not.  Some had clear intent, and some were just for play.  It was truly beautiful, but it was definitely more on the Art side and less on the Science side.  

After the museums, we hopped in a car to Lau Pa Sat, the Old Market, one of Singapore's iconic hawker markets.  The interior is full of all sorts of different vendors, and one side of the market has about eight different Satay vendors.  

Satay Street

one of the stalls

interior

Mackerel Paste, steamed in banana leaves

broiled stingray with chili sauce

beef, chicken, and mutton satay

We bought too much food and had a great time trying it all!  Not pictured above is the oyster omelette.  It was all delicious, and it was my first time trying mackerel paste and sting ray.

Towards the end of dinner, I started to droop.  We all headed for home.  Time to go to bed!