Today we are planning to head north to both the Muslim quarter of Singapore and Little India. We first decided to head out towards the Muslim quarter, known as Kampong Glam. We set off on our walk and began passing by massive beautiful buildings with colonial-style architecture and many beautiful brightly colored buildings.
David was feeling like having a coffee today, so he found a place called Narrative Coffee Stand. David got an iced latte and Caitlyn got an iced roasted macha. They were both delicious and really solidified that Singapore cares about their coffee and does a really good job.
It was approaching lunch time so we decided to check out another hawker centre. We went to the Golden Mile Hawker Centre and began looking around for our meal. This hawker centre is THE place to get an interesting dish called sup tulang merah. This center is the best area to find this unique dish, as it was actually invented here and the original stall to sell it is still here!
We found two different stalls open and selling it, and luckily enough, one of these was the O.G. David hopped in line and waited to order while Caitlyn went to find a classic Malay/Singapore dish called Kway Teow.
We both got our dishes and met back up at a table alongside a beer and a coke light. So to describe the dishes:Sup tulang merah is an Indian Muslim dish that translates to “soup marrow red”. This dish is mutton bones stewed in a sweet, tangy, and sometimes spicy soup and served broken in half. You eat the meat around the bone, but the real reason for the dish is that the beautiful marrow inside gets infused with the broth and cooks to a wonderful, tender, gelatinous texture. Apparently the experts can tap or shake it out, but they will give you a straw so you can just pop it in the bone and suck the marrow out. All eyes were in us as we had the massive red pile of meat and bone between us. Our neighbors were curious and possibly a little jealous as we started to dig in. It was not very spicy (not much we have gotten here has actually been spicy), but it was absolutely delicious and fun to eat. They give you a plastic glove to eat it with, and we asked for extra, but we still only had one glove each. We figured that the glove is to prevent your hands from getting messy, but we discovered that the red coloring will dye your hands pink for a VERY long time (multiple hand washings, hand sanitizer, and eventually after a shower it cleaned out). We really enjoyed the flavor and are so happy we got to try this dish. We have limited pictures of this, as our hands were covered in the sweet sticky liquid.
Caitlyn ended up finding a kway teow goreng, or fried ricecake strips. This was delicious, and had a lot of complex flavor with a great texture in the noodles. We enjoyed it and would definitely get it again, but the excitement and novelty of a dish so unique as sup tulang mereh overshadowed this dish.
We were very thankful that David was so messy last night, as if we hadn’t learned about the wet wipes, we would both be sharing 10 sheets of toilet paper Caitlyn had in her purse to try to clean this enormous mess. We wiped up as best as possible, with no luck getting the pink stain off of our hands and nails, and put our trays in the dirty tray carts. We left with very full stomachs and headed towards the central Arab quarters.
We wanted to see the Sultan Mosque, a beautiful enormous mosque right in the middle of the Arab quarters. It is so cool how the architecture changes so drastically depending on what part of Singapore you are in, making you feel as if you have traveled hundreds or thousands of miles to a new country.
The streets were lined with Arab cafes and restaurants (lots of Turkish), with employees trying every method possible to get you to come in and eat or drink. “Come in brother, we will pay for your first drink”. “We have a seat for you, follow me we will feed you” “you look thirsty”.
We made our way towards the Mosque and found it by looking for large gawking crowds. We were very impressed with the mosque and took off our shoes to head inside.
Some mosques and temples require more conservative dress, so Caitlyn always carries an oversized scarf that she can drape over her shoulders. This mosque asked for men and women to cover their legs, so they offered David a long skirt-style leg covering. We took our shoes off and went inside.
It was beautiful in here, but seemed less ornate than some of the Buddhist temples we were used to, and much more focused on areas for prayer. There were little informative areas to learn about Islam and the mosque as well. Caitlyn was strategically standing underneath a fan and enjoying the free A/C when she was approached by a woman. It turns out she is a Dutch expatriate who has been living in Singapore for 31 years and is one of the guides in the museum. David came over soon after and we had a discussion mostly about Singapore and its diversity and inclusivity.
We enjoyed this, but wanted to get on with our day so we headed back outside to walk around and explore some.
Caitlyn wanted to try a rose drink she saw advertised, so we headed inside a shop to purchase it. It was very tasty and floral, and nice and refreshing on such a hot day. We then decided we wanted to try a turkish coffee, so we walked into a cafe. This cafe was also a confectionary of sorts, selling many sweets and pastries. The lady behind the counter was kind enough to offer a few small samples of soms interesting treats, which did make David interested in trying the baklava, so we went ahead and got a portion (very very cheap) and ordered a Turkish coffee.
She told us we can sit at the restaurant across the street as it is owned by the same business, so we went across and grabbed a seat under a fan. The coffee was extremely hot so we let it rest while we tried the baklava and it was unreal. Easily the best baklava we’ve ever had. The pistachio flavor was so subtle but strong, the layers were flakier than seems possible, and the honey just sunk into your mouth in every bite.
We finished up here and headed out towards little India. Though Diwali is over a month away, there were decorations and preparations for festivals absolutely everywhere.
We found a little market and Caitlyn’s keen eye spotted coconut water sold in coconuts. She grabbed one and David grabbed a coke light to cool off. David almost never drinks soda in America (surviving off of a diet of almost exclusively flavored water and a morning monster rehab), but not wanting to drink too many sugary drinks, this is a consistent option in Singapore that is diet and ubiquitous.
While standing here enjoying our drinks, a young couple grabbed a few sweets from the same stall and stood eating them. Suddenly, the man excitedly asks “are you guys American?” We respond that we are and they got very excited. It turns out that he is an American born and raised, and his wife is a nurse living in California. His wife was born in Singapore and they are in the county for a week or so to have the husband meet the in-laws for the first time. We talked about the great things to see in Singapore as well as discussed travel for a few pleasant minutes before separating ways.
We kept walking through markets and down streets before finding the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple, one of the oldest temples in Singapore. We wanted to go inside but it wasn’t open for around another hour or so. We decided to walk around for a little while to kill the time.
With how hot it was, we decided that we needed to sit for a while somewhere and grab a beer. David found a spot that someone mentioned on Google was a great hole in the wall, so we headed a few blocks over. We walk in and it appeared to be empty other than a few people. An older gentleman and a young boy around 10 were playing a game of pool and a man in his 30s was tidying up. We asked if we could sit and he told us that they aren’t really open as they have a party at 5:30 (it was around 4:30), but he can’t say no to more business so he welcomed us in as long as we were okay to be done by 5:30.
We looked at the menu for a few minutes, deciding our drinks. The gentleman walked over saw us looking at menu said “why don’t you just get a bucket?”. We compared cost and figured why not? 5 beers for around $18 USD felt like a good deal, and drinking it in under an hour felt like a challenge we wanted to take on. We could choose between any bottles so we got the Stella Artois. He said he was happy to go get the cook to make us some food if we like (he was the nicest guy), but we declined as we weren’t hungry yet and wanted to save our appetites for dinner. We finished our beers and left around 5:20 or so, walking back towards the temple.
Arriving back at the temple, we enjoy the exterior before heading in.
This temple also had a dress code, so David popped on one of the supplied unisex skirts and we took our shoes off and entered. This was pretty ornate, with lots of statues, painted walls and decor, and lots of beautiful gold. We walked around and enjoyed the beautiful temple, while noticing many guests were rudely ignoring their posted dress code.
Once we finished up here, we made the 45 minute walk back towards Chinatown to get some dinner.
We wanted to try black pepper crab and chili crab, being a Singapore and singapore/Malay dish respectively. We found a restaurant called Chinatown Seafood Restaurant and saw that they had everything we wanted. We aren’t sure what to make of it, but when we asked for a seat indoors (super humid and hot at the time), they told us they were all reserved. We saw a lot of open tables, and we had noted that there were some reserved tables, but all had a little sign. We accepted this and were seated outdoors. This is just how things go sometimes, so we ordered our food and a beer and excitedly waited to eat.
It was expensive compared to most meals we’ve been having (most hawker food is like $3-4 USD tops a meal), but we really wanted to try the crab dishes. We asked our server and she told us the market prices of the crab dishes and we decided that we would get 1 of the smallest of each and a bread to dip in the sauces. We are quickly delivered the black pepper crab. This was an enormous crab sitting in a huge plate of a thick dark sauce. They do the work of removing the guts and cracking the shell enough that you don’t really need to use the supplied crackers to get the meat out.
Unlike the sup tulang mereh, we were each given a full set of gloves. We dig in and realize that this is absolutely full of meat and bursting with flavor. The chili crab comes soon after. This was tasty, too, however not as spicy as we had hoped and the black pepper crab was the clear winner.
David started to feel funny around the time the second crab arrived, noting a slight dizziness and a quickly arising feeling of fullness. He was able to finish most of his portion of crab, but felt very uncomfortable. Thankfully Caitlyn had a gut of steel today and helped finish it off. We tried dipping the rolls in the sauce but while looking like regular rolls, they were actually fried rolls and were a little overly rich. We finished up and walked around 15 minutes back home.
David’s stomach started to really cramp on the way back with some pretty substantial pain, but he was able to resolve this back in the hotel room. We had decided to come back a little early tonight as we wanted to work on laundry, with David being a little low on clothes.
He went down to the lobby to ask about the machine location and if it takes coins. The attendant told him that it was on the 6th floor and exchanged some coins for the machine. As David was about to head back to the elevator, the attendant told David that the machine required detergent and that the hotel did not supply it. David asked where he could get some and the man said at a supermarket quite a few blocks away. David clearly looked dejected, as the man offered to check in the back if they had any detergent. He came back out a few minutes later and said that he found an unopened bag and that he can’t remember a guest doing laundry for months now. The attendant said it was $2 for the detergent, and David said he would have to go back up to get more money. The man took pity on David and said he would give it for free, loading two small baggies with detergent by hand. David was very appreciative and headed to the 6th floor. It turns out there is no 6th floor, but the laundry machines are on the open roof. The machines themselves are under a covered area, but the heat and humidity were brutal up here. He started running the laundry split into two loads, and went back down to the room.
We popped on some TV as always, worked a bit on the blog while David made his trips back to the roof to move the laundry. Thankfully the dryer is good here and only required one run, and he finished it up we drifted to sleep.
David’s thoughts of the day: They play almost exclusively western music here. In Korea and Japan it was a mixture (Korea probably less western music than Japan), but it is almost exclusively western here. This may be attributable to the fact that it is such a young country and formed with many different types of cultures without a unified language or cultural ideal.
Caitlyn’s thoughts of the day: the humidity in Singapore is absolutely brutal, despite the direct sun not being as terrible as some times in Japan or South Korea. The humidity drains me of energy so easily despite just sitting at a hawker bench or standing in a covered shopping area.
Steps walked: 22,610
Miles walked: 10.94
Bluming Travelers 