Squid, Stringray And Singapore
Jun. 26th, 2009 01:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeIt's a uniquely foreign place yet one that is also close to home. The Central Business District (CBD) resembles that of many modern cities yet the little communities that are sandwiched below this City Of Skyscrapers portrays a world that is so very different to the one back home.
I guess cuisine is often the most tangible difference when you look at foreign cultures. Today, I tried Burmese food at a local Burmese Mall (the malls are themed here - there is an Indian one, a Chinese one and a God-awful trendy one which contains Accessorize and the Body Shop). Tea leaves were cooked and mixed with nuts, onion, garlic and rice to create a gorgeous concoction that was slightly spicy. The mint tea was sweet (most tea here is) and the battered aubergine fine (although a little soggy). Even the battered pork sausage - the most English dish there - had it's own unique flavour and texture.
In the evening, we decided to eschew the trip to the world's most miserable German Bockwurst seller in favour of a trip to a Food Court by the beach. A Food Court is a place where many different food vendors surround a centralised outdoor meeting place. It's a bit like the Food Courts you get in shopping malls in England but far less sanitised and with far greater range. Here, live crabs and lobsters look on in terror, awaiting the moment that someone will choose them to be sacrificed. Squid hang nonchalently on spits, tenticles dripping down pathetically. Vendors grill satay sticks of various meats on open barbeques and the atmosphere is buzzing. Even at 10pm, it is a safe, family-friendly place and the vibe is relaxed.
I have managed to drink a little beer but it is so hot here, it soon looses its carbonation and goes flat. It also gets warm and the condensation on the glass means you make a mess of water everywhere. Heineken and Carlsberg are the most popular - inexplicably - but I didn't realise Tiger was a Singaporean beer so I have tried that again. It's much the same as what you get back home really.
Food wise, the satay was rather delicious, honey-glazed and the mushed up peanut dip complimented it perfectly. The squid I ate was rather rubbery and the onions didn't really do justice to it. The stingray was nice and flaky though, although the sauce was a little hot for my tastes. Still, it was a worthwhile dining experience.
They have the usual fast food restaurants here too - including Mossburger - the Japanese equivalent of McDonalds where rice burgers are the norm. McDonalds have McSpicy's, KFC has mashed potato and the Pizza Hut pizzas are spicier than their English counterparts, particularly in the bases.
After the trip to the Food Court, we strolled along the beach, where we saw a Wakeboarding park in which idiots were dragged along the water with a board attached to their feet. Actually, it looked quite fun. Looking out to sea, we saw about 100 ships anchored off-shore, waiting to berth in Singapore harbour. Some of them have been there for months - Singapore harbour can only deal with immediate incoming and outcoming traffic and the glbbal financial crisis has meant that there is no sale for the goods on board a lot of these vessels. So they sit there, moored out to sea. We also caught a good look of the CBD from a distance and I admit it is far more impressive than Canary Wharf.
Before all this, I did a tour around the Colonial and Chinatown districts. It was good seeing some familiar designed buildings. The Court Of Justice looks like a flying saucer whilst the Supreme Court wouldn't look out of place in the centre of Manchester, with its grey Greek style columns punctuating the horizon. The Singapore Cricket Club is in the middle of a roundabout and I saw a game of football being played.
We had started our colonial tour off at Raffles - the very hotel in which the famous Singapore Sling was invented back in 1902. The Singapore Sling is a cocktail made out of fruit and gin (I think) and you can imbibe sat in a room that harks back to Victorian colonialism. In fact, everything does. There are fans on the ceiling and you can eat cashew nuts, whose shells you can discard straight on the floor. An Indian man with a broom eventually cleans it up (although we were largely up to our ankles in nuts - so very much like the average furmeet then). It's the closest thing to Imperialism you can get. The drinks were cheap ($27 = 12GBP roughly) so we couldn't be bothered paying the extra $10 to get a glass. Still, the cocktail was PINK so it was worth it ^^
We also checked out Chinatown, which is a remarkable sight. Coming out of the station, you see red lanterns and pretty coloured lights in the ceiling and you are immediately thrust into the hubbub of the district. Vendors were selling many Chinese gifts and I bought a traditional dragon puppet and also a dragon mask with a long flowing tail - the traditional ones you see at Chinese New Year parades. Both are excellent slices of Chinese life and I am really pleased with them - particularly as I haggled for them both.
I also bought a semi-furry related T-shirt and contemplated the sale of 'Singapore: It's A FINE City' T-shirts that celebrated the fact that a lot of things are illegal here. These include homosexuality, spitting in public, jaywalking, chewing gum and dancing in the street. Urinating in lifts was counteracted by placing a chemical in the lift that forced the lift to break down as it was carrying the offending party. The authorities then arrested the miscreant and fined him. Apparently it was a huge problem in the Nineties. All crimes carry huge penalties and in some cases significant jail terms.
We also checked out the ornate temple in the middle of the district but sadly it was closed. It was nice seeing it from the outside though and it's ornate nature showed diligent and tremendous craftsmanship. The same was true of St Andrew's Church outside City Hall - a beautiful whitewashed cathedral that reflected the power of Christianity in colonial times.
On our way back from Chinatown, we also saw a Durian fruit vendor. Durian fruit emits a rather pungeant odour and it is for this reason that it is banned on the Underground system. It is similar to banana I guess in taste. I must try it next time I am out and about.
Apart from that, it's still hot as hell and a completely foreign experience. I am wearing flip-flops due to the heat (and also shorts + socks and trainers looks silly) and they take some getting used to. I also have painful blisters. Still, the trip is going well and at 6pm tomorrow, I get to encouter a Singapore Furmeet. Promises to be fun :)
I guess cuisine is often the most tangible difference when you look at foreign cultures. Today, I tried Burmese food at a local Burmese Mall (the malls are themed here - there is an Indian one, a Chinese one and a God-awful trendy one which contains Accessorize and the Body Shop). Tea leaves were cooked and mixed with nuts, onion, garlic and rice to create a gorgeous concoction that was slightly spicy. The mint tea was sweet (most tea here is) and the battered aubergine fine (although a little soggy). Even the battered pork sausage - the most English dish there - had it's own unique flavour and texture.
In the evening, we decided to eschew the trip to the world's most miserable German Bockwurst seller in favour of a trip to a Food Court by the beach. A Food Court is a place where many different food vendors surround a centralised outdoor meeting place. It's a bit like the Food Courts you get in shopping malls in England but far less sanitised and with far greater range. Here, live crabs and lobsters look on in terror, awaiting the moment that someone will choose them to be sacrificed. Squid hang nonchalently on spits, tenticles dripping down pathetically. Vendors grill satay sticks of various meats on open barbeques and the atmosphere is buzzing. Even at 10pm, it is a safe, family-friendly place and the vibe is relaxed.
I have managed to drink a little beer but it is so hot here, it soon looses its carbonation and goes flat. It also gets warm and the condensation on the glass means you make a mess of water everywhere. Heineken and Carlsberg are the most popular - inexplicably - but I didn't realise Tiger was a Singaporean beer so I have tried that again. It's much the same as what you get back home really.
Food wise, the satay was rather delicious, honey-glazed and the mushed up peanut dip complimented it perfectly. The squid I ate was rather rubbery and the onions didn't really do justice to it. The stingray was nice and flaky though, although the sauce was a little hot for my tastes. Still, it was a worthwhile dining experience.
They have the usual fast food restaurants here too - including Mossburger - the Japanese equivalent of McDonalds where rice burgers are the norm. McDonalds have McSpicy's, KFC has mashed potato and the Pizza Hut pizzas are spicier than their English counterparts, particularly in the bases.
After the trip to the Food Court, we strolled along the beach, where we saw a Wakeboarding park in which idiots were dragged along the water with a board attached to their feet. Actually, it looked quite fun. Looking out to sea, we saw about 100 ships anchored off-shore, waiting to berth in Singapore harbour. Some of them have been there for months - Singapore harbour can only deal with immediate incoming and outcoming traffic and the glbbal financial crisis has meant that there is no sale for the goods on board a lot of these vessels. So they sit there, moored out to sea. We also caught a good look of the CBD from a distance and I admit it is far more impressive than Canary Wharf.
Before all this, I did a tour around the Colonial and Chinatown districts. It was good seeing some familiar designed buildings. The Court Of Justice looks like a flying saucer whilst the Supreme Court wouldn't look out of place in the centre of Manchester, with its grey Greek style columns punctuating the horizon. The Singapore Cricket Club is in the middle of a roundabout and I saw a game of football being played.
We had started our colonial tour off at Raffles - the very hotel in which the famous Singapore Sling was invented back in 1902. The Singapore Sling is a cocktail made out of fruit and gin (I think) and you can imbibe sat in a room that harks back to Victorian colonialism. In fact, everything does. There are fans on the ceiling and you can eat cashew nuts, whose shells you can discard straight on the floor. An Indian man with a broom eventually cleans it up (although we were largely up to our ankles in nuts - so very much like the average furmeet then). It's the closest thing to Imperialism you can get. The drinks were cheap ($27 = 12GBP roughly) so we couldn't be bothered paying the extra $10 to get a glass. Still, the cocktail was PINK so it was worth it ^^
We also checked out Chinatown, which is a remarkable sight. Coming out of the station, you see red lanterns and pretty coloured lights in the ceiling and you are immediately thrust into the hubbub of the district. Vendors were selling many Chinese gifts and I bought a traditional dragon puppet and also a dragon mask with a long flowing tail - the traditional ones you see at Chinese New Year parades. Both are excellent slices of Chinese life and I am really pleased with them - particularly as I haggled for them both.
I also bought a semi-furry related T-shirt and contemplated the sale of 'Singapore: It's A FINE City' T-shirts that celebrated the fact that a lot of things are illegal here. These include homosexuality, spitting in public, jaywalking, chewing gum and dancing in the street. Urinating in lifts was counteracted by placing a chemical in the lift that forced the lift to break down as it was carrying the offending party. The authorities then arrested the miscreant and fined him. Apparently it was a huge problem in the Nineties. All crimes carry huge penalties and in some cases significant jail terms.
We also checked out the ornate temple in the middle of the district but sadly it was closed. It was nice seeing it from the outside though and it's ornate nature showed diligent and tremendous craftsmanship. The same was true of St Andrew's Church outside City Hall - a beautiful whitewashed cathedral that reflected the power of Christianity in colonial times.
On our way back from Chinatown, we also saw a Durian fruit vendor. Durian fruit emits a rather pungeant odour and it is for this reason that it is banned on the Underground system. It is similar to banana I guess in taste. I must try it next time I am out and about.
Apart from that, it's still hot as hell and a completely foreign experience. I am wearing flip-flops due to the heat (and also shorts + socks and trainers looks silly) and they take some getting used to. I also have painful blisters. Still, the trip is going well and at 6pm tomorrow, I get to encouter a Singapore Furmeet. Promises to be fun :)
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no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 10:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-25 11:41 pm (UTC)I always thought Tiger was a Thai beer. You learn something new every day. Singapore sounds a lot like Thailand, especially with food courts and differently themed shopping centres.
A great entry, I look forward to reading more. Enjoy the furmeet! Take care.