July 21, 2017. Another fun day in Singapore

LOCATION:  House-sitting in Singapore

WEATHER:  Seems even hotter today.  Humid of course

 

After some chores around the house, we took off for downtown to try one of the famous "hawker food centers".  These are really popular outdoor street food vendors clustered around a common area for seating.  Locals flock to these, especially for lunch.  

We chose one called Maxwell Road.  It is huge with many different kinds of cuisine - Chinese, Malay, Japanese, European, and others.  We had heard that this one is one of the best.  It had a long line, if that is indicative of its popularity and quality.

 

We stood in line and ordered Hiananese chicken rice, what this booth is known for.  It has dead chickens hanging to display what they sell.

It is a tiny place, but extremely efficient, selling chicken to hundreds of people daily.  We shared a dish for about $3.

We took the light rail to the shopping district of Singapore.  It is called Orchard Road.  It is just incredible.  Within one block, I spotted not one but two Cartier shops, two Louis Vuitton shops, and two Chanel shops.  Who buys all this stuff?

We stopped at this fabulous building called the Ion.  The first 4 floors plus 2 basements are full of high-end shops.  The 55th and 56th floor are a restaurant and bar.  So we zoomed up there to check it out.  George had a mojito.  We were fascinated by the slice of black lemon in it.  We learned that you can do this by drying a lemon slice, then baking it.  

The sky was clear and you can supposedly see Indonesia from here.

This is the view of the bar/restaurant tower we went to the other day, with the swimming pool, bar and restaurant stretched across the hotel's 3 towers....

We had the place almost to ourselves.  Really nice!

This is what it looks like at street level.

From there, we strolled down the street, marvelling at the high-end shops.

Some high school kids approached us, doing a survey about how much tourists were spending on Orchard Road.  I'm sure we fell short of the average!

We stopped at a sidewalk vendor selling ice cream.  We had heard that a popular treat here is a slice of bread folded around an ice cream slice. We selected mango.  The bread was a bit strange, but it makes a good holder.

Back home, we cooled down and played with our cat.  Then, for dinner we walked to a nearby street that has several restaurants.  We selected a Japanese one. We shared a sushi roll, an onigiri (honorable rice ball) and donburi.  Good and not very expensive.