First Exploration of Singapore

After spending most of Saturday buying things to get my room set up and organized, I had some free time on Sunday to do a little exploring around Singapore. I have to say that my first impression of Singapore— Pure AWESOMEness! First of all the food here is amazingly cheap. You can get a decent sized meal at a hawker stand, which you can find basically anywhere in the city, for less than $5 SGD. The food at the Hawker stands is usually considered the most authentic chinese, malay, indian etc food in the city too. I am so excited about the good food you have no idea.

During my exploration of the city, I found the location of the Centros building in Biopolis where I’ll be working this summer. I have to say Biopolis looks really cool and futureistic—I’m really excited to have my first day of work at Bioprocess Technology Institute in Biopolis on Wednesday.

Sunday night, Patrick, Susan, Alex (all fellow EAPSI participants) and I went to Chinatown for dinner and siteseeing. We ate at supposedly the #1 Hawker stand in Singapore: Maxwell Food center. Here I tried for the first time, Singaporean Carrot Cake. It’s not anything like it sounds. I think it’s made of eggs and potatoes and basically tastes like the Spanish tapa Tortilla Espanola. Very good-but not quite what I was thinking it would be. After dinner, we walked down South Bridge Street in Chinatown to see some of the major tourist sites. We got to the façade of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, which is right outside Maxwell Food Center. Then a little further down the street is the Sri Mariamman Temple— the oldest hindu temple in Singapore which was built in 1823. The Sri Mariamman Temple has a really ornate façade (See picture below). We had to take off our shoes, but were able to go in and actually see some Hindu ceremonies taking place. Very neat experience. After walking through the temple we walked through a Chinese night market where you could find everything from chopsticks to novelty t-shirts. I wanted to buy everything. I will definitely have to come back here after I get my EAPSI stipend to buy some souvenirs.

Entrance to Biopolis

Centros Building in Biopolis where I'll be working this Summer

View of Biopolis Way

Maxwell Food Center in Chinatown--supposedly the best Hawker stand in Singapore

Singaporian Carrot Cake

View of Maxwell Hawker stand

Buddha Tooth Relic

Facade of Sri Mariamman Temple

Chinatown night market

Novelty t-shirts at the night market

Some of the pretty dresses at the night market

Another view of the Chinatown night market