a night out in singapore
wow! things have been pretty intense over the last few days. i'd have to say that we've focused mainly on the culinary fineries available in singapore. i'll start from the beginning.
the day after sentosa, we went straight into town for some early-morning eats. being a caucasian male from canada, i obviously enjoy spicy-assed meals at 10 in the morning: why WOULDN'T i?! so off we headed to a little restaurant famous for its nasi lemak. what is nasi lemak, you may ask? well, it's a dead fish, to put it nicely. in fact, it's deep-fried dead fish, served with little sardine things and chili sauce on a banana leaf. apparently it's famous, but i'm not quite sure why! lots of rice with it too, so that wasn't so bad.
what else, you may ask? kaya bread. it's basically toast with "kaya" in the middle. nobody could explain to me exactly what kaya is. sort of looks like apple sauce with a similar texture, though i'm sure it's far worse for you. i can say that, because along with the kaya inside the bread, there's a huge slab of butter. this was a bit of a tough sell on me too. we finished things off with some frozen grass jelly. this is a big bowl full of ice cubes and little gelatin-like cubes.
now for those of you who have swam in a lake in northern ontario, you're in for a treat: this stuff tastes identical to lakewater. the temperature? tastes like a cool lake. the colour? murky brownish black -- lakewater. the taste? it honestly tastes like cedar, as in the wood. so that completed the lakewater impression as i felt i was sipping lakewater near a cedar dock of some sort. they also serve this stuff in cans, as shehzad made me try. yikes! we also had some mee siam, which is noodles with some egg bits in it and a spicy sauce... not too bad!
after the meal, mumtaz dropped shehz and i off at the east coast of singapore. there's a huge strip of coast there and they've set up rollerblading and biking along the whole thing. so shehz rented himself a bike, and i, a blade or two, and off we went. i think i had been rollerblading a grand total of about 10 minutes before i thought i was going to collapse. the heat was just too nuts! we got some ice drinks -- just crushed ice flavoured like different things. i had milo (chocolate) and shehz had peach. it was nice to sit down in some shade and take a break. we had an hour with the equipment, and by the time we returned to base camp the timing was just about perfect.
so now the odyssey begins.
we had about 2 hours to kill before mumtaz was going to pick us back up again. we were headed to the airport to pick up shehzad's uncle yoosuf and the two cousins mariah (MAR-ee-uh) and naquiye (nah-KEE-uh). i think i have the spellings correct, but i may not. as a sidenote, i wrote "sate" earlier when i meant "satay". my mistake.
so shehz and i have some time to kill. we wander around for a bit and notice a sign declaring "S$12 for every other jug of San Miguel" at "the beach hut". we sit down and ask about the deal. well, turns out it only really works for the second, fourth, sixth etc. pitchers. the first one is S$22. we're obviously suckers, so we do it. off we start on the first pitcher. listening to the music, i hear a tune i recognize. it sounds like "get down on it", but it's a remix. i ask one of the server's who the group is, but then i tell him to wait and let me figure it out. he really wants to tell me, i can see it in his eyes. i listen a while longer before actually figuring out that it IS indeed "get down on it", and that the band is "kool and the gang". no, he says. that's not right. yes, it is, i say! nope. it's "blue". ... blue?! can we see the cd? sure! he passes us the jewel case and sure enough track 2 is "get down on it" by some weirdo boy band. we ask to see the other music they have, and they let us do so. of course, we notice the beach boys and that's our achilles' heel. the put it on, at which point we both agree that the commencement of the beach boys was a signal to order a second pitcher. hey, it'll average out to be cheaper now anyway, cause this one's only S$12!
needless to say, we're doing quite well for ourselves by 3pm. we meet up with his aunt again, get to the airport, pick up the cousins, fine fine fine. readers should keep in mind that ian is sporting his first crazy asian shirt today. it says: "love is a fruit of life. we believe everyday is special." it's my new mantra.
anyhoo, yoosuf decides we should have a night on the town. i'll try to condense this for you:
1) equinox. this is a bar on the top floor of the highest hotel in singapore (and the fourth tallest in the world) the swisshotel stamford. we had pizza, nachos (so canadian, this), and two drinks each. i had a merlion (in a novelty glass, no less!) and a cookies and cream. shehz had some sort of fruity drink, followed by an "equinox blue", which was in this amazing tilted glass. neato! anyways, we stayed at this place throughout sunset, and the view was ridiculous. you could see a good 270 degrees around from 70 stories up! we watched the city come alive at night as the lights began to erupt on buildings surrounding us: very nice.
this would have been a night in itself. but no,
2) raffles. this is the most prestigious hotel in singapore. it's where michael jackson dangled a baby from a window. it's where this crazy-traditional sikh guy is the doorman. we had our picture taken with him. we took a tour around the place, and it's about as classy as things get. all done up in colonial english style, white walls everywhere, fountains abound. off we head to the "long bar", birthplace of the singapore sling. it was invented at the turn of the century by a bartender at the long bar, and they actually have the napkin on which it was jotted kept in the museum there. the ceiling was covered in these little fans that waved back and forth, and you can eat peanuts and throw the shells right on the floor. very unique in a place as clean as singapore! anyways, shehz and i each had a singapore sling, and he indulged in a "million dollar cocktail", invented by the same bartender and featured in somerset maugham's book "the letter". i had a sip: let's just say it contains egg whites. seriously.
i'll have to speed this up because shehz and i are leaving right now to arrange things for thailand.
3) the forbidden city. a trendy club in clake quay area. this lit-up strip along the singapore river that's super cool. we entered the club, and it was pretty crazy! they had multiple aquariums with sharks, etc. terra cotta warriors standing in each corner. little cordoned-off areas to hang with your friends.
gotta run! i'll try to update this later.
things only get better...
the day after sentosa, we went straight into town for some early-morning eats. being a caucasian male from canada, i obviously enjoy spicy-assed meals at 10 in the morning: why WOULDN'T i?! so off we headed to a little restaurant famous for its nasi lemak. what is nasi lemak, you may ask? well, it's a dead fish, to put it nicely. in fact, it's deep-fried dead fish, served with little sardine things and chili sauce on a banana leaf. apparently it's famous, but i'm not quite sure why! lots of rice with it too, so that wasn't so bad.
what else, you may ask? kaya bread. it's basically toast with "kaya" in the middle. nobody could explain to me exactly what kaya is. sort of looks like apple sauce with a similar texture, though i'm sure it's far worse for you. i can say that, because along with the kaya inside the bread, there's a huge slab of butter. this was a bit of a tough sell on me too. we finished things off with some frozen grass jelly. this is a big bowl full of ice cubes and little gelatin-like cubes.
now for those of you who have swam in a lake in northern ontario, you're in for a treat: this stuff tastes identical to lakewater. the temperature? tastes like a cool lake. the colour? murky brownish black -- lakewater. the taste? it honestly tastes like cedar, as in the wood. so that completed the lakewater impression as i felt i was sipping lakewater near a cedar dock of some sort. they also serve this stuff in cans, as shehzad made me try. yikes! we also had some mee siam, which is noodles with some egg bits in it and a spicy sauce... not too bad!
after the meal, mumtaz dropped shehz and i off at the east coast of singapore. there's a huge strip of coast there and they've set up rollerblading and biking along the whole thing. so shehz rented himself a bike, and i, a blade or two, and off we went. i think i had been rollerblading a grand total of about 10 minutes before i thought i was going to collapse. the heat was just too nuts! we got some ice drinks -- just crushed ice flavoured like different things. i had milo (chocolate) and shehz had peach. it was nice to sit down in some shade and take a break. we had an hour with the equipment, and by the time we returned to base camp the timing was just about perfect.
so now the odyssey begins.
we had about 2 hours to kill before mumtaz was going to pick us back up again. we were headed to the airport to pick up shehzad's uncle yoosuf and the two cousins mariah (MAR-ee-uh) and naquiye (nah-KEE-uh). i think i have the spellings correct, but i may not. as a sidenote, i wrote "sate" earlier when i meant "satay". my mistake.
so shehz and i have some time to kill. we wander around for a bit and notice a sign declaring "S$12 for every other jug of San Miguel" at "the beach hut". we sit down and ask about the deal. well, turns out it only really works for the second, fourth, sixth etc. pitchers. the first one is S$22. we're obviously suckers, so we do it. off we start on the first pitcher. listening to the music, i hear a tune i recognize. it sounds like "get down on it", but it's a remix. i ask one of the server's who the group is, but then i tell him to wait and let me figure it out. he really wants to tell me, i can see it in his eyes. i listen a while longer before actually figuring out that it IS indeed "get down on it", and that the band is "kool and the gang". no, he says. that's not right. yes, it is, i say! nope. it's "blue". ... blue?! can we see the cd? sure! he passes us the jewel case and sure enough track 2 is "get down on it" by some weirdo boy band. we ask to see the other music they have, and they let us do so. of course, we notice the beach boys and that's our achilles' heel. the put it on, at which point we both agree that the commencement of the beach boys was a signal to order a second pitcher. hey, it'll average out to be cheaper now anyway, cause this one's only S$12!
needless to say, we're doing quite well for ourselves by 3pm. we meet up with his aunt again, get to the airport, pick up the cousins, fine fine fine. readers should keep in mind that ian is sporting his first crazy asian shirt today. it says: "love is a fruit of life. we believe everyday is special." it's my new mantra.
anyhoo, yoosuf decides we should have a night on the town. i'll try to condense this for you:
1) equinox. this is a bar on the top floor of the highest hotel in singapore (and the fourth tallest in the world) the swisshotel stamford. we had pizza, nachos (so canadian, this), and two drinks each. i had a merlion (in a novelty glass, no less!) and a cookies and cream. shehz had some sort of fruity drink, followed by an "equinox blue", which was in this amazing tilted glass. neato! anyways, we stayed at this place throughout sunset, and the view was ridiculous. you could see a good 270 degrees around from 70 stories up! we watched the city come alive at night as the lights began to erupt on buildings surrounding us: very nice.
this would have been a night in itself. but no,
2) raffles. this is the most prestigious hotel in singapore. it's where michael jackson dangled a baby from a window. it's where this crazy-traditional sikh guy is the doorman. we had our picture taken with him. we took a tour around the place, and it's about as classy as things get. all done up in colonial english style, white walls everywhere, fountains abound. off we head to the "long bar", birthplace of the singapore sling. it was invented at the turn of the century by a bartender at the long bar, and they actually have the napkin on which it was jotted kept in the museum there. the ceiling was covered in these little fans that waved back and forth, and you can eat peanuts and throw the shells right on the floor. very unique in a place as clean as singapore! anyways, shehz and i each had a singapore sling, and he indulged in a "million dollar cocktail", invented by the same bartender and featured in somerset maugham's book "the letter". i had a sip: let's just say it contains egg whites. seriously.
i'll have to speed this up because shehz and i are leaving right now to arrange things for thailand.
3) the forbidden city. a trendy club in clake quay area. this lit-up strip along the singapore river that's super cool. we entered the club, and it was pretty crazy! they had multiple aquariums with sharks, etc. terra cotta warriors standing in each corner. little cordoned-off areas to hang with your friends.
gotta run! i'll try to update this later.
things only get better...
posted by ian at 11:39 PM
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