Singapore: Living to Spend

I know I havent blogged in a while, but I hardly ever sat down in Singapore...
So here it comes, all at once.

*** Day 1 ***

I started the day in the whirlpool. Could it be any better? Volker and I just sat there, enjoying the water and chatting while we were waiting for Ben to finish his stuff for his MBA.
When he was all set, we left to hold a real chinese tea ceremony in the tea shop "tee chapter" in the outer parts of Singapore's Chinatown. A chinese lady told us to get rid of our shoes and to sit down on cushions on the floor, next to a very low table. She showed us the tea menue and we ordered an Oolong Tea which had already been tasted by the Queen of England when she attended the opening of the shop (a felt 100 years ago). The lady came back with the tea set. Each person gets two little cups: one to smell the aroma, and one to drink from. There are many steps from pouring the tealeaves into the can, to the hot water to an eight step ceremony from when the tea lands in the smelling cup until one drinks the tea with three slow sips. The tea was yummy and we spent quite some hours there, photographic every step at least once :)

Later on we moved to Harbour Front for a nice Sushi Lunch. The Sushi was amaaazing, really, and so cheap compared to Spain...

In the evening we were all invited to a party, to kill leftover alcohol from other parties at a friends place. In Asia, things start early... The party started at 18:30h and ended at about 24h. That was wierd. For me and my spanish timing this was not really what I had expected ;) Yet, it was a lot of fun and I met a lot of nice people.


*** Day 2 ***

Today is sightseeing day. Kathi and I started and walked Singapore for hours. I can not even rename most of the things I have seen, but I do know that I enjoyed Little India very much and I liked the Merlion.
The amount of Malls (and their size) and the foodcourts are really crazy. This country really exitst to spend and to eat.
Towards the end of our tour we got hit by crazy rain, fortuneatly we were just in a tunnel to walk beneath a street. When it ended, we started to go in direction movie theatre, where we were about to meet the rest of the group o watch "Mad about English".

The movie was really cute. It is about the chinese people to learn English, in order to get ready for the Olympic Games in Beijing. Cute and really entertaining.

Afterwards we went to Arab Street and ate there. Arabic Food. Everyday, honestly, I eat food from a different country.


*** Day 3 ***

This day was really easy going. After spending the earlier morning in the pool, Ben, Kati and I went to have a quick Thai Lunch and then I went on to take a look at Orchard Road where tons of malls are aligned next to each other, but usually not selling the usual stuff.
At night we met at Raffles Place to go to the oldest of Singapore's Food Courts where originally they simply provided a cleaner place for Hawker Stalls. Now a days, these Hawker Stalls are real little huts inside the market place and tables are set all around.

We ordered Satay with peanut sauce and with cut onion and cucumber, which are supposed to help against the acrylamid which is in the burned meat.

Ben and I moved on to take a look at the Skyline and the Merlion at night and to take another beer. However, his favourite beer place had increased (doubled) its prices and was now extremely expensive so we sticked to a "Strawberry Vodka". I wonder if there was really any vodka in it... i don't think so...


*** Day 4 ***

Kathi and I got up a little earlier and went to China Town. Like most big cosmopolitan cities, Singapore has a big China Town where quite some people only speak Chinese and nothing else. That made it fun :) We had a nice fresh fruit juice at one of the stands and enjoyed the chinese kitsch.
I even bought some cute chop sticks.

For Lunch we went into a chinese vegetarian restaurant and as there were no english explanations we just ordered anything. Its vegetarian, so we werent afraid of chicken feet or heads... It was pretty good (and just in case you wonder: Yes, as I said, Singapore is all about shopping and eating).

In the later evening, Kati had to go to a class at university and i used the time to go to the night safari. A zoo that only opens at night, to see night active animals. It is sometimes quite scary to walk through it, as one is pretty much alone and hears nothing but the rainforrest sounds, as trees and plants are everywhere.


*** Day 5 ***

As the Night Safari can be bought in a cheaper combi ticket with the zoo, and some of the others hadnt been to see the zoo yet but wanted to, this is where we spend the whole day.
Seriously, the whole day. The zoo is huge and super nice. The animals are as close as possible and whereever they can they do not use fences to keep them away. The Orang Utans are even rangig freely where the visitors walk and one of them stopped right above Ben and stared down. Just last minute Ben said: Well, maybe I should move, just in case he pees." He was a few steps away only, when exactly that happened. The Orang Utan would have hit Ben exactly.
We also fed Kangaroohs and saw an Elephant show and exited the park when it was closing.

We were all hungry like crazy and decided to go to Chimes, a former monastary which now hosts several restaurants and a pub.
Ben and Volker were tired, Chris and Franzi had to work, so only Kati and me went. We ate a huge Burger and had some Cocktails.

We didnt go home too late, as in the morning I would have to get upat 3:30am to catch my plane to Siem Reap, Cambodia.