I may have prepared for our trip to Singapore through the not very intellectual pursuit of watching Crazy Rich Asians. And I may have eaten at a hawker market (although for the record the Michelin starred stand is open odd hours about three days a week and apparently the wait for their soy chicken is about two hours. I may have swum in a rooftop pool (at the Holiday Inn not the Marina Bay Sands). But I didn’t have a cocktail dress in the boot of my car, party on a container ship, learn to make dumplings, be part of a makeover montage or fly business class. And despite all illusions to the contrary, it is impossible to spend three days in Singapore without feeling the effects of the intense humidity.

The advantage of flying Qantas (apart from being able to spend time before flights in the Qantas Club) is the ability to check in at Canberra and send your bags through to your destination, making Sydney International a much easier process. After the short hop, the border crossing itself was a breeze but the security screening took ages. Eventually we got through – looked around for a squeezy tube of vegemite – two months is a long time without vegemite toast. Unfortunately Kraft no longer make the tubes just jars which have danger written all over them when it comes to travel. Crisis averted – I picked up a couple of extra sachets in the Qantas Club for that inevitable homesick craving about six weeks in. This was the easy leg of the journey – about eight hours through to Singapore during the day. While I had been organised enough to download a bunch of Netflix shows, there was a pretty good selection on the inflight system and I settled in for a binge of Star Trek – Strange New Worlds.

While we had to queue at Immigration on arrival it was a relatively painless border crossing save for the fact that my paralysed eyelid is not conducive to facial biometric collection. I am sure there is a data base of photos around the world of me looking very surprised as it is the only way I can properly open my left eye. Show your passport and the PDF of your entry declaration on your phone, thumbprints, facial scan and off your go. Not quite automated but close. Perhaps we looked like dodgy characters or maybe it was the backpacks but the bored security guards d to targeted us for bag screening. Then it was on the inter-terminal train to the metro station. Unfortunately you can only purchase a visitor metro card at one end of the platform. The other end of course. It is those incidental things you spy on your trip that make travel so interesting and the wondering why things are and how they came to be. And why we don’t have them at home. And so it was with the orange juice machine near the ticket counter in the airport metro station – Stacked with actual oranges, purporting to be Australian and the promise that four of them would be juiced right in front of you. I didn’t try it, although in hindsight it might have been just what I needed to pep me up, but am still wondering about it – makes more sense than the infamous hot chip vending machine. Eventually after some issues with the travel money card, we had a ticket in our hand and were on the nicely airconditioned metro to our hotel near Clarke Quay.  

Already sweaty from the walk from the metro station to the hotel, we decided to dump the bags and head out for some dinner. And as you do in Singapore, we headed to a Hawker Centre. In this case the Maxwell Centre in Chinatown. A previous reader of this blog noted that I write a lot about food and that is what my entries always start with. Perhaps it’s because the day usually starts with breakfast, perhaps it is because food is one of my major passions (alongside travel, music, design, pop culture and all things quirky and kitsch), or perhaps the sharing of food is one of the most accessible ways to experience other cultures and to interact with people. And so it is with Singapore – the food at the Hawker markets is an incredible cacophony of flavours, available at bargain prices and a varying degree of quality. Largely (and not true of everything) the ingredients are fresh but lesser cuts – you’re not likely to find Wagyu in a hawker market but you will find things made of mutton instead of lamb and you can still get more expensive dishes like chilli crab but it will cost you. Dan loves a Hawker market so after a short walk from the metro station we were in the thick of it and he went out in search of our dinner returning with mutton and chicken say sticks, sweet and sour pork, some excellent spicy noodles and choy sum and for Dan possibly the biggest beer I have ever seen. Curiously we serve beers in smaller glasses in warmer parts of the country, often served in a stubbie holder to limit heating of the beer from your hands. In Singapore the approach seems to just down the beer quickly enough that it doesn’t have time to get warm. [Longview – Green Day – Back when this album came out, I had a small boombox and owned about six CDs – I had re-discovered new music in my life but preferred to spend what spare cash I had going to see bands play live rather than buying albums. Consequently, my copy of Green Day’s Dookie was a taped version that I could play in my car or the shed where I worked on my design projects. Later replaced with a second hand CD from Revo *nepotism]

And because the day starts with breakfast, and you can’t go to Singapore without experiencing the local delicacy of runny eggs and Kaya Toast with milky tea, we headed for the original (and best) branch of Yat Kun Kaya Toast in Chinatown to start our second day. Like many nations tackling the impacts of climate change, Singapore is encouraging cycling for commuters. In the decade since we were last here, this has seen an explosion in cycle shops and cyclists – so much so that Yat Kun Kaya Toast was overrun, much like any Canberra Café in the earlier hours, by MAMLs. And as they do at home, they took over the outside tables. No problem- inside was where the aged but effective air conditioning was. We lined up and ordered, collecting our runny eggs, milky tea and iced milo (some Australian delicacies can be found farther afield than the Qantas lounge). The kaya toast – very thin toast slices of wholewheat bread with butter and kaya jam sandwiched between arrive at your table a few minutes later. You add white pepper and soy to the runny eggs and dip the toast. I have been perfecting this at home and when I get the egg consistency right (which is hard to do) it is an awesome alternative to a fry up.

From here we headed to Gardens by the Bay, You see all the photos and think OK – tourist trap but we thought we’d check it out. Even just because the domed gardens are climate controlled. The Gardens aren’t cheap but we decided that if we were there, we were going to try all the experiences on offer – we bought tickets to both domes and both high walks. It was looking like rain later in the day so we elected to do the two treetop walks in the (fake) iconic Gardens by the Bay trees. The first wound its way between the structures about 10-15 metres below the top giving you an excellent view of the structures and the surrounding area including Marina Bay Sands and the city skyline. The second treetop experience was at the top of the tallest of the trees. It started with a projection from the ceiling of the lift of blooming flowers that followed the lift trajectory. At the top, there was a café and a viewing platform. A few steps up and you could go on the roof of the tree with unobstructed views. The trees themselves, which have been there for quite a few years now, have greenery growing up the trunks and spreading onto the treetops themselves. There are wires strung, presumably for the greenery to grow out onto. It is admirable that this aspect has been left to grow organically. I am sure it would have been tempting to ensure the trees were complete at the time of construction. From the treetop walk, it was over to the Flower Garden – now I am not a gardener but the collection of plants in here were spectacular, including an Australian section and an extremely impressive succulent garden, complete with my favourite fascinating plant – the boab tree. There was also an impressive Chinese New Year display in the centre with rabbits galore. There were also a range of sculptures throughout the garden. While the iconic trees were really cool, this dome was the most impressive part of  the gardens. The Cloud Forest sounds impressive and it does have a very tall indoor waterfall but the main attraction of it appears to be the Avatar theme throughout. I couldn’t work out whether Avatar was an addition to the garden or whether the whole garden was built around the Avatar partnership. I am pretty sure it is the latter. The gardens themselves probably didn’t need the Avatar statues throughout or the animatronic dragon. Leave the animatronics to Disneyland. That being said, the light show part was pretty impressive. It tracked your movement and reacted which was a bit of fun.

Conveniently, one of the long list of Hawker markets that Dan wanted to visit – The Satay Maerket – was at the gardens so we just had to stop by. Unlike the Maxwell Centre where many of the traders were all about cash sales, this centre was concentrated on the tourist market with card sales the norm. It also had a more modern system of buzzers which you were given when you ordered to alert you when to collect your food. And when at the Satay centre, satay is of course the first order of business. Here though the mutton is replaced with beef and while the meat was better, the satay sauce and banana leaf wrapped sticky rice cakes that accompanied it were better the previous night. I had a fruit salad but it was heavily padded out with dragon fruit, which like star fruit, looks really impressive but isn’t as delectable. Fortunately there were some pieces of papaya and mango to balance it. We also got some roasted chicken wings , which while well cooked, had less flavour than a woollies BBQ chicken. They were quite large though, leading me to consider they breed their eating chickens differently in Singapore. I also wanted to try a local dish so unable to find Hainanese chicken, we settled for some popiah – wrapped in a thin pastry – a bit like a pancake and filled with stir-fried turnip, jicama, grated carrots, chopped peanuts and shredded omelette.

From here it was off to the electronic stores – Dan was on a mission to find a spare battery for his camera as it had shut down while we were wandering around the gardens. We found a battery and had a look in a few other tech shops. On our way back to the hotel, we made (for me) the most important booking of our Singapore stay – at Jumbo seafood, for their infamous chilli crab. The remainder of the afternoon was spent swimming in the rooftop pool and snoozing in our airconditioned room. In order to be more eco-friendly our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay, had been designed for the corridors to be open air so the energy expenditure could be used to cool individual rooms – the downstairs lobby was cooled too – to a reasonable temperature but much of the dining was al fresco but surrounded by greenery. One of the things Singapore has done exceptionally well is introduce greenery to the city. Outside of the older areas of Chinatown, most streets have gardens along the verge and most new buildings incorporate greenery in their design from green walls to rooftop gardens and trees, shrubs and vines on almost every balcony. Partly I am sure it is to ensure the place looks inviting and clean but it also serves a dual cooling purpose in what is a hot, humid climate.

We had made a late night booking for dinner and so while still humid, the sun had gone down making the heat slightly more bearable. Jumbo had an impressive set menu and if you are dining with a companion who likes seafood I would highly recommend it. I wasn’t. So we ordered from the menu. Crab is charged per 100 grams in the shell (here it was about $10 per 100g) but you have to buy the whole crab. Chilli crab works best with the sweet meat of mud crabs and the smallest sucker they had was 1.2 kilos. They give you a bib (much like the ones you see in US seafood restaurants in the movies) and plastic gloves and a refresher towel, all of which are essential. The crab arrives just as you expect presented on a platter in pieces gleaming red in an even more vibrant red chilli sauce. I had expected it to turn up with fried mantou buns to soak up the chilli but apparently they are part of the set menu only (at least I couldn’t see them on the broader menu and was too busy with the crab to ask). Eating crab is a messy endeavour – there are tools to get the best meat out of the legs and claws and typically the two front claws have been broken for you when the crab arrives on your table. One of mine was and I broke the tool try to crack open the second but never managed to. By then I had eaten plenty of crab anyway. And I have to say it was well worth the effort – the crabs were outstanding and the chilli sauce they are cooked in, like an Italian tomato sauce with a kick, really is the perfect accompaniment to the sweet crab meat. Dan, who isn’t a seafood fan, ordered the mocha pork ribs. Sounds like an odd flavour but the coffee/chocolatey sauce was a fantastic pairing for the pork. The rich sweetness gives an extra depth of barbecue flavour than the traditional fruitier accompaniments for pork. We also ordered some fried rice – we got the standard fried rice with egg and although buttery and enjoyable, we regretted not getting one of the more loaded fried rices. We also ordered broccoli stir fired with garlic – which we thought would be Chinese broccoli but actually turned out to be ordinary broc which doesn’t work as well on its own. Dan had a local beer and I ordered a margarita – which was probably the least impressive thing I consumed here. looking forward to drinking some really good tequila in New Mexico. [Lonesome – Unwritten Law – I really love this band – there have a bit of a harder rock edge with more guitar than some of my other faves but this track in particular is a thumping tune. Once upon a time I interviewed Wade, the band’s drummer. A bit of a loose cannon, it took the record company half an hour to find him. Then he called back at least three times and asked me to meet him at the show. I am pretty sure the picture of who he thought he was talking to didn’t match the reality. Phones, CB radios – apparently my voice can charm people in a way I don’t manage in person.]

Our final day in Singapore started with traditional Yum Cha for breakfast. Our hotel, while reasonably well situated was at least a ten minute walk from everything. Everything except Singapore’s best traditional yum cha restaurant, Red Star which was just across the road on the seventh floor of a non-descript building that houses a child care centre and other facilities for the nearby public housing towers. We arrived a few minutes after the stated opening time and while they looked closed, the girl cleaning at the front let us in and ushered us to a table. A gentleman who had done the same and actually spoke Chinese (I think) was kind enough to let us know that the restaurant wasn’t opening for another hour (we had both been – in his words – misled by the internet) so we walked back to the hotel, and grabbed a coffee before heading back.  Red Star is exactly like the traditional yum cha restaurants in China – a cavernous room with round tables covered in white table cloths and chairs covered in fading gold tapestry chair covers. The main difference is that here tea is sold by the pot (in China you buy the bag of tea and can just keep adding hot water and drinking weaker tea after the first pot.) We ordered tea and a Coke zero for Dan and promptly set about choosing things from the yum cha trolleys as they circulated – prawn dumplings, prawn and pork dumplings, marinated steamed pork, springs rolls, fried prawn wontons, fried pork buns and custard tarts. Dan avoided the very bony pork but with a little effort, I thought it was worth it. The spring rolls were great but everything fried was a bit oilier than I would usually like. For me the pork and prawn dumplings were the standout.

After breakfast we headed back to pack and checkout. Another part of the hotel’s way of minimising aircon is to store bags in a cage outside. We both have medication that needs refrigeration, which won’t be too much of a problem in the largely cooler climates we are heading to, but was a big problem in the 30 degree heat of Singapore. The staff were very accommodating though and stored our meds in the hotel’s bar fridge until we returned to head to the airport for our midnight flight. We had originally considered catching a cab to the airport on checkout and just hanging out in the new terminal, loaded with activities but decided that would be a waste so set out to explore some more of the city, including finding a model shop…  For those who don’t know much about model shops (and I wish I was still one of you) they are often found in back streets, particularly in places like Singapore and there is not often much else to do there. And model collectors can spend hours searching through the tightly packed racks and racks of kits to find that rare elusive kit they have been looking for. And while online selling has changed this equation a bit, these shops still exist and unless I am travelling alone, I usually have to visit a few of them on a holiday (Dan does also have to put up with me going into shoe and vintage stores full of things similarly impractical to buy while travelling). Mercifully for me this store was quite small and very expensive so our visit was short. We wandered a bit further and caught the metro to Orchard Road for a look. Basically Orchid Road is a strip of malls selling the same luxury brands you see across the globe and I am pretty sure the prices here were higher than what you would see at home (at least at current exchange rates). This was where you find the western food chains as well. We were surprised to find an Eggslut here in Singapore. The Venice Beach breakfast fave had appeared in London on my last visit but I hadn’t contemplated the extent of its franchising.

Having seen the malls, we decided to move on and trekked for about another half an hour to Newton Hawker centre. Dan had been itching to go to the Tekka centre in Little India which specialises (unsurprisingly) in Indian cuisine but it was closed on Mondays. He was very happy to find an Indian stall open at Newton centre. He promptly ordered  butter chicken, chicken tikka and garlic naan.  I wanted to try something a bit different and ordered the fried carrot cake and a watermelon juice. The Indian was really good although I am pretty sure the Naan was toasted rather than cooked in a tandoor oven. There wasn’t that much chicken in the butter chicken but the sauce was fantastic. The carrot cake is not what it sounds like – stir fried radish cake with pickled turnips, egg, garlic and dark soy sauce. It has a sweet nutty flavour and for me was quite morish. The Newton Centre was a more traditional centre. It was very open and also operated off a delivery to your table service. There are table numbers attached to the end of your table which you provide. I forgot to get the number before ordering but it was easy enough to point to the red-headed guy with the beard. There weren’t too many of them. Like all Hawker markets your food comes on a tray which you return at the end of your meal. Food mostly comes on disposable plates these days, with wooden or plastic cutlery for you to dispose of. We still hadn’t found that traditional Singaporean hawker comfort food  – Hainanese chicken and rice  – so we headed back to Maxwell centre in the hope one of the stalls there might be open and it was. The chicken itself is just what you expect – chicken boiled in stock but the stock is used to cook the rice along with ginger, garlic an pandan leaves. Much like traditional European comfort food – chicken soup – it is the rice that provides the flavour and the chicken is really just the added protein. Dan wanted to have one last go around the hawker markets having spied some kind of dessert bar and came back with souffle pancakes. They were incredible – essentially what the name suggests – very thick airy pancakes served with butter, corn syrup and ice cream. And they were delicious.

This last hawker centre visit marked the end of our Singapore stay and we collected our bags and headed to the metro station and onward to the airport. From Singapore to London, you can check in online and do a bag drop at the airport – I left my Qantas bag tags at home because they usually don’t work on International flights but must remember to ask before my next international jaunt.  While you need to do smart gate screening to clear the border, the security screening at Singapore is done at the departure gate so with bagdrop and me remembering to do my surprised face through the smart gate, it took about 15 minutes all up until we were airside. By now we were hot and sweaty from a day wandering about Singapore and not really minded to do airport shopping. We headed straight to the Qantas lounge and made a beeline for the showers. Being able to stand under a shower, which had some decent toiletries and towels and lots of space to dress, and wash off the sweat before a 13 hour flight made the price of a yearly Qantas Club membership well and truly worth it. We chilled in the lounge before heading to the gate. The combination of security screening at the gate and the cluster that is loading many hundreds of people on an A380 is not conducive to a relaxed boarding. There is also rarely opportunity on an A380 for a couple to have a row to themselves. This was the case here but the girl in the aisle seat was pretty accommodating when we needed to get up. The food on the flight was rubbish compared to our culinary tour of Singapore. I got a couple of hours kip at the start of the flight but from there I nestled in with the remainder of Star Trek Strange New Worlds and started David Simon’s latest effort – We Own This City. [Witchita Lineman – Clouds – from the Best Covers of All Time album. Before Triple J came up with Like a Version, covers were generally of obscure tracks (or performed by punk and ska bands). This one is an excellent cover done by an underrated band who found themselves lumped in amongst their 90s Aussie compatriots in an era when pretty much everyone started a band – they were a solid choice, even if they never quite hit the earworm hook of those that became famous.]

Credit – Dan