Walk, eat, walk - Singapore's national sports

Singapore arrival

I landed early in the morning at Changi, and was surprisingly refreshed. Spoke with a nice New Zealander sitting next to me for a bit before takeoff. After making the poor decision to watch a Hindi movie for the first 2 hours of the flight, I fell asleep for about 3.5 hours. Regarding the movie, I watched it because my mom said it was a good movie. It was your typical Bollywood romance story about a girl and boy who fell in love but couldn't move it forward (get married, because what else do you do in India? Nobody actually falls in love and doesn't get married!). Why no marriage? One was Hindu and one was Muslim (a favorite Bollywood trope). However, the movie was more focused on the location, Kedarnath, and all the issues surrounding tourism, economy, and environment. I can see why my mom liked it. Turned out to be a tragedy, however, because Kedarnath was affected by a flood and I think this movie was based on that event. Actually, quite a remarkable story, it turns out. I won't share the ending even though anyone reading this probably won't watch the movie.

I got off the plane and got myself oriented, and texted my friend, who was on her way. We planned to meet right outside the baggage claim, and then we'd take the train to her place. I was so excited to meet up, although she kept asking about the kids!! What kids!? LOL. I felt a lot like a special envoy for the family on this trip (where are the kids? Bring the kids next time! Where's Rajneel? Bring everyone next time...).

We got to her place, I freshened up and changed, and then we got started on our eating tour. The idea was to walk to our destinations in order to justify eating. I also abandoned my whole no carb thing for this because otherwise, I'd have really missed out.

I'm not particularly well-versed in describing food, but I will say that everything we ate was fantastic. I also really like walking around in between and looking at the architecture and cultural features. Singapore is really diverse, and I love how many different kinds of people work and live here. There are different kinds of houses of worship and languages everywhere.

Eng's Wantan Noodle (wonton on the left)

Noodles

We started around 10 AM with noodles and wonton. These were so delicious. I let Audra order everything just because she knows what's good there. These noodles had pork, and the sauce (pictured) is what really sealed the deal. The wontons were amazing. Actually thinking about them right now is making me kind of hungry (even though I just ate lunch four hours ago...I guess I could have a snack...). Oh, the other key ingredient was "fried lard", which pretty much made the noodles drug-like in their addictive quality (not that I would know, but you know, how I imagine that is). We split a single order so that we'd be able to continue this walk-eat pattern. 

Delicious noodles with sauce

Tea Break and Dim Sum

After noodles, we took a little walk back (20 minutes?) toward a little town center area. It looked like maybe it would start raining. Our destination now was the tea shop where we could try some Kaya toast (In addition to my daughter's name, "Kaya" is a coconut spread that is popular in this area). 

Milk tea

Kaya Toast

After the tea break, we agreed that while we weren't super hungry, we might enjoy some Dim Sum. Right next door to the tea place, there was a Dim Sum place with a "main attraction" (that's actually how it's listed on the menu). They were these pork buns. These things were also outstanding. The bun is what really makes these things so good. The way things are baked is exquisite. The bread's texture is truly a sensory feast. On behalf of Ayana, I tried the radish cake (it was good), and we also had some steamed shrimp dumplings, and tofu skins (not pictured). All in all, really great Dim Sum, and not so much that we couldn't eat more.

Main attraction

Radish cake

Wandering around a grocery store

As a mom and amateur cook, I spend a lot of time in grocery stores. It was almost reflexive for me to go wander around walking in a grocery store downstairs. I will caveat this by saying the area we were in is largely ex-pat, so the grocery store was mostly things that I see back at home. However, the notable feature was the astounding variety of frozen seafood. 

Grocery store seafood

Walking back

We started our walk back, and the weather was on and off thunderstorms, which I loved because having grown up around thunderstorms, I miss them a little (not a lot, OK just a little). Our next stop was my Singapore favorite....Pie Tee...

Pie Tee...my favorite

Kueh Pie Tee makes me happy

A little more, but next post

We actually were only halfway through...there was a dinner plan. However, I need to get moving now to pick up a few little things for the kids (oh, yeah, I do have them), and head to my gate. I think I will wrap up the Singapore fun in another post while waiting to board