Yeah, not my best work, but once I saw the Merlion bit I couldn’t think of anything else.
Bit of a late start, partially because I woke at 5am & napped for a few hours (probably jetlag), and partially because I got chatting with someone who’d arrived ages before check-in & was waiting around. Ended up talking about how Covid responses & effects were in the UK (me) & Malaysia (him).
Took some pictures of Chinatown.
It’s a bit difficult to capture, because it’s very chaotic & crowded, with a lot of noise in the audio & visual senses of the word, and that’s tough to capture. Let’s go with “looking up is made harder by all the distractions at eye level, but it’s worth the effort”?
I went looking for Merlion Park, and eventually found it, though I got a bit turned around at first. Then I spotted this really big tree & wanted to take a look at it, so I did. It’s hard to judge scale, but it’s pretty damn big.
It’s canopy is almost the size of that metro station.
Found the Singapore Merlion eventually, and it is indeed a big-ass Mermaid Lion vomiting water into the harbour.
While unintentional, I do like that it looks like it’s targeting that person in the white shirt.
Across the way is Marina Bay Sands, which really does look like someone put a surf/skate/ironing board across the top of the buildings.
Next was Little India, where I got some late lunch. My first ‘proper’ meal in Singapore, because I don’t think a probably franchised place in a mall counts. This place were patient with the someone who didn’t entirely understand the options, and the food was good. Plus there were other Indian people eating there, so that’s an encouraging sign.
Little India has a similar vibe to Chinatown, though I think more variation in the stores; I saw actual grocer stores selling fruit+veg, clothing stores that weren’t just tourist stuff, and a tailor booth where someone was working with a sewing machine.
I did some actual shopping here; Bought some postcards & a very plain hat, because I need a hat & didn’t want one that said I❤️ Singapore on it. Even got what I suspect was a “can’t be bothered making change” discount. 😁
Took the extra photo because I wanted to capture the couple taking a selfie in the lower right. I loved that they were mugging for the camera outside a brightly coloured temple, or at least what I assume is a temple; The heavens were threatening to open & I wanted to avoid getting soaked, so this was as close as i got.
The threatened rain never really happened. There were some sporadic heavy raindrops, and a few massive thunderclaps, but that’s it.