In my last post about Singapore, I talked about the shiny city with skyscrapers and clean streets that everyone associates with the city. In this post, I’m going over the other side of Singapore; the colorful, multicultural side that I didn’t expect to find in a city known for its financial hub and clean streets.
My favorite day in Singapore started with Pat and I having a really good western breakfast at a cute cafe, passing a street with some cool buildings, walking over to it, and then spending the whole day in an eclectic neighborhood that we didn’t know existed. The Kampong Glam district is known as the Malay-Muslim district of the city. In it, we saw Masjid Sultan, Singapore’s most famous mosque, and learned some stuff at the Malay Heritage Center (which we also got to go in for free and we don’t even know why?!). Then we followed the self-guided Kampong Glam Heritage Trail walking tour, which was actually really boring but lead us to narrow walking streets of street art, outdoor bars, and boutique shops.
Masjid Sultan 
Outside of Masjid Sultan 
Streets of Kampong Glam 
Cool dude 
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Quotes are fun. 
Colorful street. 
I put the stamps at the Malay Heritage Center and included this photo because it is the ONLY photo I have of myself in Singapore. I just forgot I guess? Anyways, I swear I was really there. 
Awesome glow in the dark murals. 
The cool quote again but at night… so it’s different. 
I just like this picture.
Another cool neighborhood in Singapore was Chinatown. Pat and I hung out there eating food, drinking weird creamy coffee, and browsing stalls of cheap, terrible Singapore souvenirs (think fridge magnets and tiny plastic elephants) that neither of us bought. We also attempted getting dim sum for lunch, but we were both expecting it to be a bunch of little cakes and desserts, so we were disappointed by the weird, expensive little shrimpy foods (I hate shrimp) that we got.
Singapore is cool because they like colorful lights. 
I don’t know who this is a statue of. 
Chinatown Food Street 
Smiling even though dim sum was a failure. 
Colorful Chinatown buildings.
Singapore was a LOT of walking. One day we spent hours walking around the botanical gardens as they were highly recommended by friends who had visited Singapore. In our opinion, the botanical gardens were pretty boring and we got really sweaty. They did have a pond with cool turtles though.
They were all clumped because there were people feeding them cookies… so that’s not great I guess. 
Turtles aren’t really that slow. I don’t know why people say that. 
The giant lily pads were also cool.
Other fun things we stumbled upon in the city were the National Museum (we learned the history of Singapore and why it’s a sovereign city-state rather than a part of Malaysia, which was enlightening), a really cool public library, a random Mexican bar specializing in Mezcal, Bugis Food Street (where Pat bought a bunch of Asian candy), and an astonishingly inconvenient lack of crosswalks throughout the city.
We have no idea what this museum exhibit was supposed to be about. 
Most of the stalls were candy shops and we don’t know why. 
Pat tried Thai food! 
Mezcal has a dynamic, smokier taste than tequila. Pat and I are actually experts now.
😀