And so....

... - although I can't really believe it - my last day here in Singapore has come. I just returned from Bali (yes, that's the second visit) and tomorrow night I'll board the A380 direction of Zürich.

And it just hit me that I AM going to miss Singapore. As much as I'm looking forward to being home again, there are just so many wonderful aspects to Singapore.


Two of my favorite buildings: The Marina Bay Sands Hotel, elegant and funny, playful and iconic. It can be seen from almost anywhere in the city, and the more I saw it the more I fell in love with it.

 

And the building I instantly named 'Gotham Tower' or 'Batman's Singapore Penthouse'. I'm sure the building has an official name, but everybody here seemed to know what I was talking about when I mentioned the Gotham building...

Of course - and no surprise there - I will miss the food. As you will have realized from my many food posts, Singapore food is great. The food stalls, Hainanese Chicken Rice, and of course Sushi! And not to forget: Brunch on Sunday morning, by the Singapore River or neat Orchard Road, ready for shopping later on.

Shopping - it is contagious...

And of course the people - always friendly and good fun.

But probably most of all the city itself.

Goodbye Singapore - 'till we meet again ;-)...

More funny facts and observations

1. When taking a taxi, the drivers - like most people in Singapore - are very nice and polite. One habit of theirs did confuse me though for some time: they will ask you which way they should take or rather if you want them to take a certain road. Like "Should I take Bridge Road?" - "I take River Valley Road, yes?". What's the answer to that if you're just a visitor and don't know the town...? I ended up usually just saying yes. Also if they ask me whether they should make a U-turn... Yes! - though I keep wondering if they'd expect me to pay the fine they could probably get....?
   
2. The other thing - no surprise there - has to do with food: in the food courts and hawker stalls, but also in the normal / local restaurants you usually use chopsticks. Of course you can have cuttlery (and it's also asian people using cuttlery) but you usually only get a fork and a spoon. No knife. It does work though.
   
3. Contrary to what I posted earlier, chewing gum is no longer forbidden. Yay! - But: you still can't buy them anywhere. Point taken.
   
4. Singapore has a great public transport system - both buses and trains / metro. While the train map is relatively easy to read - four lines at the moment, with a fourth line to open next year - the bus map isn't. Or rather: there isn't a bus map. It's a bus book. There are 74 routes serviced by 1192 buses. Impressive!
   

 

Do you like me?

It's been a week since I last posted, I have to admit I was just too lazy this weekend to go through my many pictures and set up a post. But this morning there was this cute episode I wanted to share.

Singapore has four official languages: Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and English. And there are a lot more languages spoken in this multi cultural city state. Chinese languages like Hokkien, Hainanese, Teiochew, Hakka and Cantonese (not that I'd be ever able to tell the difference), Malay and Indian dialects, and other Asian languages. But the common language to all (or most) Singaporeans is English.

Still, that doesn't mean I always understand it... Like today: I went to my Juice Lady (from this post) and she thought about what fruit juice she would make for me. And then she looks at me and asks: "Do you like me?". I must admit I was confused for a moment. "Me? Do you like me?"...

But then I got it, smiled and replied: "Yes, I like milk!"

And as usual I walked away with a smile on my face and a delicious drink in my hand. Honeydew mixed with me... ehm... Milk. Try it, it's wonderful!

 

And if it's not Wednesday...

Then I usually get my vitamins by having a delicious freshly pressed, squeezed or pureed fruit juice from this nice lady:

The 'ordering process' is usually something like this:

Me: good morning!

She: hey, good morning. What do you want today?

Me: ... [ ...and before I can say anything:]

She: let me see, what about.... kiwi and apple? Is good, is sour!

Me: ...ooookay, but red apples...

She: Noooooo, green apples. Is sour, is healthy! I make for you, you see...

Me: okay...

But I must say, I've loved all of the mixtures she came up with. ABC (apple, beetroot, carrot), dragonfruit and pineapple, starfruit and green apple with a pinch of salt. And last Friday I actually got to choose: mango and strawberry - to celebrate the weekend!

And yes, that's my new orange handbag... Just to set off the green of the drink!

Btw: she's just across from the guy preparing the paratha from this post.

 

 

Five a Day...

Just had to post this...
Every Wednesday there are free fruits delivered to the office. While they might sometimes be bananas or pears (not too exotic / unusual), there might be fruits that I've never seen - and can't recall the name just now.

But today ... We have COCONUTS !!!


First you drink the clear water, then you scoop out the flesh. So probably counts as two out of the five a day?

Sweet (Sunday) Morning....

It's Sunday and I went out for breakfast. Not asian, but soooooo good!

French toast, made with home-baked Brioche toast, stuffed with mango, served with berry compote and mascarpone.

It definitely deserves its name: Sweet Morning.

Japanese.... hmmmmm...

Second food post in a row.... ,-)

Last Friday a colleague from work invited me for lunch and she took me to this gorgeous Japanese Restaurant. This is what we ordered:

 ... as you can see I'm verrrry happy!

Food, glorious Food...

I was asked by a friend to post some photos of the wonderful food around here - I would have posted about food anyway, but it's definitely nice to be asked. Makes me look less like a glutton... ;-)

Just to make it clear from the start: Singapore is a foodie's paradise!

First, you have all the different cultures and people offering there traditional food - chinese, malay, indian, japanese, indonesian - and of course any fusion out of these. Singapore is a rich country, so many Singaporeans travel (often to Europe or Australia) and are looking for the 'exotic' food at home as well. And then there are also many Expats living in Singapore, so you'll find just about every kind of cuisine you could imagine here. I've walked by several German Breweries and 'Biergärten', and also a food stall that sells Würstel and Sauerkraut -  right in the middle of Chinatown!

The second thing that makes Singapore such a food heaven is the fact that the people here usually eat out and don't cook at home - so you need a lot of restaurants. I had lunch today with a colleague from work and she said she doesn't cook at all. Doesn't know how to. She's married and a mother of two teenagers. Not what you'd see in my neck of the world.

But that's probably also due to the third point - you can get great food for small money. I every shopping mall, shopping street, convention center and even underground station you will find a very nice and good quality 'food court' (and you already know that there are lots of shopping malls around).

Here are some pictures of one those 'food courts'. It's in the basement of my office building, so I often go there for lunch.

One stall next to the other...

... choose your 'flavor of the day'...

Yong Tau Foo - pick your food to go into the soup

Hainanese Chicken Rice - see the chicken?

My lunch - Biryani, Daal, Mango juice

And hopefully this video works... Preparing Paratha:

A paratha/parantha/parauntha is an Indian flat-bread. It is one of the most popular unleavened flat-breads in Indian cuisine, Pakistani cuisine and Bengali cuisine and is made by pan frying dough on a hot plate. Parathas are usually stuffed with vegetables and/or paneer (South Asian cheese).

I've tried the vegetable version (very good), but I definitely have to taste the Banana Paratha as well..

Sooo... anybody hungry???

I guess that was only the first of many food-posts for me...