As I’ve previously mentioned, Mum is most impressed by the breakfasts at the place we are staying in, and in fact, breakfast does usually do us for the rest of the day…. maybe with an ice cream squeezed in the middle of the day somewhere (to cool down of course!).
After breakfast, we got lost again in Chinatown, poking around stalls and repelling insults all over the place “Oh we even have something that will fit you”…. how to be told you are fat with out being told you are fat! It was shortly after one of these insults, that I wandered out of a hawkers shop and straight into my Cousins….. who we were meeting later in the afternoon for dinner… so the message here is definitely don’t have an affair anywhere in the world, you’ll definitely run into someone you know!
Later that afternoon, we caught up with Cousin Alison for some chilli crabs and a few beers. Alison has been travelling to Singapore for years, but hasn’t had the famous crabs thus far, due to the rest of her family being fairly anti crustaceans. Now I didn’t include the messy shot below, but they gave us bibs for the job… which is a good thing….. we all definitely needed the bibs!
After the Cousins headed off to the airport, Mum and I headed back to the the Gardens By The Bay to watch the free evening light show within the Super Trees. It’s a great light and sound show, and is a favourite tourist and local attraction. Singapore has “local’s” rates at most tourism attractions, which I think is a great idea, as I am sure that there are many visiting friends and relatives that come through Singapore.
The following day, we caught a bus and a train out to the Changi Chapel and Museum. We timed our visit to Changi with a public tour (these happen only 3 times a week at 11am). We had a lovely local guide who took us around the museum and spoke of the POW experience, as well as the local experience. To put some things into context, the building of the Burma Railway, through Hell Fire Pass, took around 12,000 POW lives, however there was over 200,000 local people who died (mostly unrecorded) in the building of the railway as well. It’s interesting to think a little further past the lens that we are familiar with. Obviously, I didn’t take any photo’s at Changi, because I think that that would have been very odd.
On our way back from Changi, we visited the Botanic Gardens. The gardens are UNESCO protected and even during WW2, the British asked the Japanese not to destroy the gardens, and they did not. They put caretakers in charge, with some of the original workers for the garden. The gardens are over 88 hectares, so we hardly caught the side of the place. Indeed, we also caught it in the middle of the day and we were both flagging in the humidity. It was time to head back to the hotel for a swim and a drink!
After the refreshing swim (which Mum argued against, stating “she couldn’t be bothered”!), we headed back to the Lau Pa Sat Food Markets for some grazing. We started with a Michelin rated Laksa and then just continued to eat from there…….!
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