Hungry Ghost Festival - Singapore

On our wander around Little India we started to notice all these little alters and offerings. Most consisted of incense and oranges, sometimes with cake and others had a variety of fruits, biscuits (Oreos!) dumplings and tea. There were also people throwing paper up into the air, burning paper on the side walk or in bins, lets just say it definitely caught our attention. We stopped to ask one guy but we hit a bit of a communication barrier so when we got home that night I googled it up to find it was for the Hungry Ghost Festival. A tradition where respect is paid to those passed and offerings are presented. The burning paper is actually Joss Paper, thought to have value in the afterlife. I believe an aspect to the festival is also to please the ghosts so they don't cause any ill. I love it :)

They also set up entertainment for the ghosts. apparently you're meant to leave the first row of seats empty for all the spirits to sit :)

We came across this sign about making sure to burn your joss paper in bins and not on the footpath or grass :p I was telling the guy at our hotel, this would never be allowed in Australia and he said that it would never not be allowed here :) he he, despite the signs we saw many people just burning wherever :p

It rained every day on our holiday and after a few days the site of some of these shrines were a little mmm, washed out!

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Things to do in Little India - Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple

The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple was my favourite "touristy" thing in Little India. I understand people actively use it as part of their religious practice but they're very welcoming to tourists and it's listed in every single Little India guide, so it gets the touristy stamp. When you arrive you need to take off your shoes and then you can go for a short stroll inside and out taking in all the awesome statues and carvings. This particular temple is dedicated to the Hindu goddess Kali. When we were there you could also buy a brick to help them build their next temple, which I thought was sweet :)

Kali Goddess in all her fierce glory, on the right of course :)

The outside of the temple is covered in all these carvings which makes it impressive to look at

Ganesha is actually Kali's son from what I can gather :)

He was very encouraging of the posing, he he, I loved it, he had the, super tourist in me hook, line and sinker :)

There are a few other temples in Little India but this is by far the most impressive :)

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Where to eat in Little India - Tekka Centre

Before going to Singapore I had no idea what a Hawker centre was. I can now safely say they're a food court type deal where vendors have a (roughly) 2 metre wide shop front often then restricting them to selling one type of food - a plus in my mind because then they can perfect that one thing :) With food comes reputation and after a quick googling I had a list of places I wanted to try. You know the funny thing, despite my pages and pages of food print outs that I lugged around with me, I feel we didn't really eat all that much on our holiday *gasp* I'm going to put all the blame on the weather, I don't know about you, but when the Weather gets warm I'm all about the beverages!

Anyway back to the hawker food, there are a bunch of these food courts all around Singapore but since we were based in Little India this post is dedicated to the Tekka Centre! Again my perception of size from reading about this food court was largely squashed when we got there, it was much smaller than I imagined. Seriously from googling I was worried about locating all the "must try" shops but once in there it was a quick stroll around :)

My google instructions for locating 'Yakader' was to find a man standing in front of a big metal pot :p Success!

So what do they serve at Yakader? Briyani! From what I could gather Briyani is a curry type dish (lol insightful) I'm not too well versed in my curries but I can say this was actually the mildest curry we ate on our trip and to me was almost reaching my hot limits! (More on that to come!) So would I recommend Yakader? Despite having to wait in cue for 15 minutes I gave our chicken Briyani a pleasant 7.4/10 it did come on a banana leaf which maybe bumped up the points a bit :) I don't know if my score if valid though, since I'm the worst expert on curry :p

We also got some drinks from AR-Rahman! I got the Teh Tarik on the left and Ben got the Milo Dinosaur on the right, I gave my drink a 7.8/10 I thought it was great! I was wondering how they got the milk so creamy and I think I worked it out by the end. So far our SE Asian countries have taught us that they don't do milk like we do in Australia. I remember Ben going for an ice chocolate at Starbucks in Malaysia and I warned him but he didn't listen and came out with a cup mostly full of ice. At our final hotel in Malaysia (and most ritzy) they had coffee and tea provided (ritzy for us!). They also had a mini bar but no fresh milk capsules like you would most likely, find in Australia. So I compromised and used the coffee creamer and you know what, it tasted an awful lot like my Teh Tarik! Mystery solved :)

So AR-Rahman also sell Kopi Tarik (took me a second to figure out that was Coffee, oops!) but I went for the Teh Tarik ('tea' for those still in the dark). Tarik means, from what I can gather "pulled" and pulled means well pretty much what that guy is doing above, pouring the tea back and forth! It was fun to watch and it gives your drink that nice frothy bit on top :)

If you find yourself in Singapore or Little India, I would say a Hawker visit is well worth it, you know for the sights, smells and sounds or something or other :)

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Little India - Singapore - Walking Tour

So what's the first thing you do in a new country, go out and explore! Little India was smaller than I was expecting, well Singapore is small so I don't know what I was thinking :p I felt though in just one afternoon we had a pretty much grasped what Little India had to offer :) Singapore seems very modern, a favourite of Singaporeans seems to be to point out (in sadness) how Singapore likes to pull down anything old and replace them with new things, well Little India doesn't give off that vibe, it's colourful, busy, worn and has some very interesting aromas, it was a fun place to explore :). Oh and if you were unaware English is a spoken Language in Singapore, we did encounter one or two older individuals that had limited English but other than that, there was no language barrier.

I must admit fell in love with all the tiles!

We stopped for a drink, super hot! I picked myself up a yummy fresh fruit drink for $2 :) Ben got the kick a poo :p

We also stopped in at 24/07 shopping centre called Mustafa, were they zip tie your bags as you enter. I headed to the shampoo isle to grab a bottle and a lady straight away tells me I'll be needing the greasy hair shampoo *goes red* I'm a bit self conscious about my hair, I have to wash it every second night or it looks like I haven't washed it in weeks. I chatted more with the lady who actually was pretty sweet, I guess I'm not use to such honesty, lol.

P.S. I'm sticking my film and digital photos together in each blog post this time :)

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Where to stay in Singapore - Vintage Inn

So I think the best way to approach my Singapore/Malaysian blogging is through a chronological order recap and what better place to start then where we slept in Singapore. BTW Singapore was on the travel cards, honestly because flights were $400 aus return, woohoo. Nothing like a cheap deal, unfortunately accommodation prices in Singapore are crazy! I guess because it's a small island - a guy told me he could drive from one side to the other in 35minutes (might be pushing it) but gives you an idea of how small Singapore is. Our driver told us, they build up (apartments) down (subways) and outwards (man made extensions) in Singapore. Pretty impressive!

Anyway we rocked into Singapore at 3pm after our 7.5 hour flight and had been told to wait for someone, from our hotel, holding a sign - lots of people with signs but none for us :( after waiting for half an hour and people slowly disappearing we decided to take action, phone attempts, the info desk telling us to "wait a little longer" and finally through email we got a hold of them. An hour later (gah!) and we're being picked up, sort of a bummer start to our holiday but luckily things picked up after that. So the hotel we stayed at was called Vintage Inn, it was around $80 a night (cheap for Singapore) and this literally got us a bed in a capsule style hotel.

The hotel was new, so it meant it was clean and fresh + great decor.

From what we could tell it was run by a bunch of young guys. In our heads the story we gave them was that they were handed down riches by their parents, bought a hotel but didn't have it all clued on when it came to owning and running it. Quite possibly a complete and utter fabrication :p

For $80 a night though you can't be too picky and the guys running it were definitely nice enough, it was just little things like the tardy pick up, not cleaning the bathrooms everyday, not letting us know when they did things like change the locks... you've been warned :)

They do provide breakfast though so that might undo any wrongs!

As for our stay, since we had lots of activities planned we just used our accommodation to shower (shared facilities) and sleep. Now being from the QLD we're use to shops shutting at 6pm but in Singapore shops open late and close late which meant many of our fellow Vintage Inn room mates came in at midnight or later. I bought ear plugs so I was happy but yeah definitely something to consider if you're a light sleeper as only a curtain blocks you out from others!

Would I recommend Vintage Inn? Yup, it's a good option for cheapskate travelers, it's situated in Little India which was a fun area to explore and as long as you're not wanting to spend time in your hotel (and have ear plugs) you'll be set!

By the way my first impressions of Singapore? Lego! I instantly thought of a little legoland, manicured lawns, neat and clean, lots of trees and flowers.  Our driver told us that if a tree is knocked down for construction purposes in Singapore it's mandatory to plant a new tree, I wish we had that here in Australia!  Also, since Singapore is pretty much on the equator it was hot and humid, which I personally loved :) 

Okay next posts are going to be super photo filled, promise!

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